happy good evening and welcome everyone uh to our uh workshop on the garbage uh contract um want to thank Mr defale and the administration for preparing some documents for us this is a workshop so we are not having a public comment uh either in person or on Zoom uh and we're going to get started right away with the meeting Madam clerk this is to inform the general public that this meeting is being held in compliance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 the annual notice was emailed to The Star Ledger and filed in the township clerk's office on November 21st 2023 and published in the West Orange Chronicle on November 30th 2023 councilwoman celino present councilwoman gber Michael present councilwoman Scarpa present councilwoman Williams present council president Rutherford here thank you Madame clerk uh we're going to begin with a uh presentation by Mr defo and then we will both ask questions of you Mr defo and um of each other as we kind of deliberate um what we're going to do about this next contract just want the public to know we have received your email phone calls text messages and in-person commentary uh regarding uh this enormous decision that we have to make and our challenge tonight is to balance both uh the quality of the service that we provide and the uh cost that we uh are charged for providing it uh with a goal obviously toward maximizing um your tax dollars uh so having said that Mr def uh thank you council president members of council members of public tonight's president presentations try to give you a detailed overview of the options that you face and you have basically four different options some of what I'll cover right now will be slightly repetitious in that we've had a couple of meetings on this before but updated to current level first let me point out that no matter what you do here as a Township the cost for solid waste and recycling collection is going up and it is going up Statewide West Orange is not unique West Orange is not no in the sense that it's facing the same problems around the last 12 months the rate has gone up between 54 and 80% on new bids with the high being 150% and the low being 33% what does that mean it means that people are all getting rate shock and they're getting rate shock for a lot of reasons that rate shock is being caused in part because what we would call lowcost providers historic lowcost providers several have gone out of business the problem with being a lowcost provider is when something hits unexpectedly you can't weather the storm secondly depending on how the bid is structured it is difficult to get companies to bid today on certain types of collection for example and one of the things we'll spend time on tonight is the fact that many uh two of the largest companies Waste Management and Republic Republic does not service this area but two of the largest national companies have basically said for the most part they will not bid contracts that don't have automated collection nor will they bid contracts where bulk is collected by the holler on a regular basis they might bid some but as a rule they have not been bidding those contracts and the reason they're not bidding those contracts is the cost of business Rising generally and manual collection is one of the more dangerous occupations in this country people are hurt regularly picking up garbage it's a repetitive motion picking up a lot of weight maybe when I was 19 it wasn't so bad there's no longer as good as it was then and therefore it's harder to get labor well how do you get labor you get labor by paying large companies in particular have a profit margin total that they need to meet they're not not for profit the other factor is as I said business costs are rising labor fuel I don't have to tell you this I don't tell anyone this has anyone gone anywhere today and seen prices gone go down for anything that we do it doesn't happen that leads to staff shortages when you have a staff shortage you pay more prices are up 30 40 50% in some cases that's good for labor but someone has to pay for that there's also an issue of the equipment cost and getting that equipment right now I could go to a dealer if I wanted a garbage truck on the lot with no customization whatsoever and probably find something but finding what a company wants to its needs could take still up to a year that's not easy to do and up through the past several months there's been a 15% sech charge on the sticker price just for the steel now that may change and that will come down and it will go up but all of these things are impacting how people are bidding today on these contracts one it limits competition because less people want contracts two the contracts they have now have to be profitable in a way that they find acceptable so what did West Orange do with your consent the administration went forth and submitted bids with four options I'm sorry let me rephrase that we released a bid document with four options the first option is basically what you have today the first option option one is exactly what you do for collection today two times per week collection no Solid Waste carts at all or recycling carts yes you collect all of your commercial businesses you collect Electronics curbside by reservation weekly bulk and the contractor owns the recycle option two you see that we tweak that everything stays the same except that we added the provision of carts option three we start to say okay how can we control cost and we control cost by reducing the rate of collection now two times to one time does not yield a 50% reduction in cost cost on average Statewide towns that have gone to one time per week collection see a 10 to 15% savings no carts again kind of what you have today except we look at and we see what is the impact of no curbside electronics and no commercial collection and you take ownership of the recycling under a separate contracts I'll get to each of these points a little bit later and the fourth option which is I would call the most modern one time per week Township provides the carts no commercial collection within the base bid no electronic waste collection at the curb you do have by the way at your recycling center the ability to bring electronics at any time there is a county program as well bulk waste moved one time per month by reservation and the township owns and selects the market now let me go through a little bit of this one at a time because that's a lot of information okay what is the difference between bulk with no reservation and bulk with reservation regardless of frequency because bulk is a hot topic for many people in other towns where we've worked on bulk think about this on on a percentage basis you have approximately 177,000 homes on any given week 177,000 homes are not putting out bulk waste some percentage of that is but the hauler has to drive around the entire town looking for the bulk waste in studies done by Middletown and in research done in Princeton where they did go to reservation just by example Middletown found about 10% of the population uses bulk On Any Given collection day now think about that let's presume it's 10% in West Orange that's 1,700 stops and if it's by reservation I can root the truck or your hauler can root the truck more efficiently and not drive around the entire Township of West Orange what does that do well it reduces noise a little bit it reduces air pollution a little bit and it reduces cost because that's a more efficient method of collection think of it as up in Reverse UPS knows the most efficient way to get a package to your home I would assume or they wouldn't be in business and they do so because effectively you've made a reservation you have a package being shipped that's one of the advantages of going to bulk the second Advantage is by going to once a month for example again most people don't have bulk in my experience around the state and in other states every time every week it's just not there this reduces cost because now if I'm the hauler I only have to run that route one time not four times that's to give you a short tutorial if you will on bulk waste electronic waste I mentioned and the big Advantage here is curbside offers several problems with electronic waste one you get people to take certain thing believe it or not there are still cath Ray telep out there I know that's hard to believe but they do exist and when they're placed curbside often they're broken to steal the copper that leaves a broken television so that copper y in the back of an old television is expensive and when the price of copper that happens all over New Jersey we don't see many though we don't see as many as we used to but the material at the curb is unsighted again you have very convenient facility open 5 and a half days a week most town don't do curb sides some do we're not telling you not to do it I'm simply giving you options and by the way that's true of all of these options we've gotten you pricing for all of the options as far as commercial on options three and four when we reduce frequency we've eliminated commercial from the contract we'll see what the numbers do in a moment now that doesn't prevent either your special improvement district or the Township from ultimately doing a whole separate bid just to do commercial but again this is a policy decision not something you must do we're just trying to give you those options but let's get to what is the heart of this before we get to price that people I know get most upset about and I will tell you this in every town that I have worked with that has converted to carts the initial three months of the conversion are fraught with hundreds or more of phone calls depending on the size of the community I don't want to change what I do today I can't you I find defy anyone in this room to tell me they like change everybody is resistant to change that's just a fact so we brought show inel and you can see up here we have three different carts the blue and the gray are exactly the same in size but typically blue is used for recycling and gray is used for garbage can be gray it can be black it can be purple you have any color coming you want the smaller C it's a 64g and one of the concerns I've heard about in carts is the cart's too big I can't move I couldn't move a 96 gallon cart if you filled that gray cart with garbage in a week probably most people could move it but you're not bound to 96 gallon carts the smallest regular size C is 32 gallons oneir the size anyone can move a 32 gallon C they're very small they're very light oh we'll take that into I think we can take that into account very easily most towns do most towns give their residents hey I can't I don't want a Big C I don't make that much garbage why do I need such a big c well you don't from The Collection standpoint it doesn't matter the trucks can all pick up the carts regardless of the size the third element is that carts offer you a lot of advantages which I'm going to get to at the end of this let's talk a little bit about money I know that doesn't mean anything to anybody but we'll try your current price is $14 million over five years this is based on a five-year contract can I just ask a question you may do anything you like on this current so we have had adjustments to the price uh over the course of time is that the actual current price or is that the bided price when we the low bid price is the bid price that we receive so I'm I'm talking about our our current contract the prior contract at million you're paying a little bit you you're holding oh I have to double check now I believe you're holding at that price but we changed the way we did the recycling in order to make it more Equitable to both parties so the price has not changed for my recollection I'll double check though to be sure I'm right got it thank you if you do nothing let me rephrase that if you change nothing your price will go from 14 million to18 million over the next five years that's about a 34% increase which is right on the money what we're seeing Statewide actually on the lower end and let me tell you that I have worked with some Biz where we saw 150% increases with no changes that's a lot of money the largest is Camden Camden went from 3 million to 9 million that's a lot if you keep two times a week and you convert the carts notice the change in the price over five years a little over not quite a million dollars and also notice that by changing bulk to reservation so we go with carts and reservation you see a savings now it may be clear because we've I've seen you know cars yes so when I talked to you on Friday we also have we also have to calculate the pricing for the bond payment per year yes to be to have true figures yes I'm going to get that okay the fact is that Parts have a rated life of 10 years so you would bond for 10 years Parts have a warranty for 10 years I've had my card in my home for 20 years and it's still not working but a 10 year is what you would do mathematically uh that what that would do is add about 500,000 per year to the cost of the contract so I'm going to show you next in fact you'll see in the bottom of the column there net savings with card cost is a negative it's going to cost you 500,000 more to keep twice a week collection if you provide carts okay and if you go to weekly bulk by reservation now bear in mind however that when I get to the benefits of carts at the end of the five years you own them the township owns the carts and there's something you're getting for the money is what I'm saying that I think that answers the question the third option where we start to convert to once a week and drop out commercial you start seeing that the price is dropping down to 15 million over five years you save about a fiveyear savings of 1.6 million after carts they give you context and that number is a net savings per year and the fourth option option four which is is the most significant savings overall in raw dollars and in net savings saves you net 1.7 million over five years but that is the biggest change what's important here is to understand that doing nothing you see about a 34% increase in your bid price your contract price over five years by taking the most aggressive option you get down to about about a 15% increase and by the way this does not account for inflation I have a question um that option four might not be the real price because who's going to select the market is that a consultant is that you do we have to pay hourly for that service you will no if we if you own the market what will happen is and that's a good point if you own the market which is what I am recommending to the township you will have an RFP which is already crafted for you that RP request for proposal I'm sorry I speaking EAB because I assume everybody does this every day the RFP would go out and there there are two points of good news on that so I'm glad you raised it one we have a brand new materials recovery facility that just opened up within a few miles of here in Pake from Atlantic Coast Recycling huge state-of-the-art you have to like this kind of work to say it's exciting to go see these things but it is we also have a new one opening up over in the axac metal LS that'll be opened up by January of next year so in instead of only having one or two materials recovery facilities that could compete for your material you will have one two three four by the time you go out that's a good thing what that does however is it gives you if markets are good and right now markets happen to be good and you produce excuse me I'm sorry clean material you will have a better price structure it's what you're literally doing today the market is charging an adjusted fee based on the condition of the market it is the more reasonable and also the more Equitable method of doing things if you want no risk you pay the risk is nominal do that selection is it the r the collection's the same this is all collections all included for both materials for garbage and for recycling that's all included and driving it to the market is included so we're going to decide annually who's going to take our garden who's gonna no no no no this is a fiveyear contract so for the next five years if you if you would I don't care which option you pick But whichever option you pick let's say you pick option four over the next five years your gross cost of collection is 15.6 million yeah I'm just talking about the part where the township owns and selects the mark you will have a separate fiveyear contract for that and that price literally will go up and down each month with the value of the materials it does doesn't change dramatically but it does change and so we're going to select that vendor or we selecting a different vendor that would be a different vendor this is strictly a hauling contract to manage that who's going to look at that and decide which vendor councilwoman can you please speak your yeah who it's that's a task that someone has to do right look at this assment yeah is that a consultant like yourself who would do that or depending on the methodology that you choose to do we're in a discussion now as to which method of request for proposal you want to use you would have a staff of the administration that would evaluate each proposal and decide which is best for the toship okay so that's a cost of using our staff to provide that it would take them about two hours two hours a week or two hours no to to do the assessment and select the correct Market would take about two hours it's not a complicated assessment and they do that monthly no no to select the market right that's about a two-hour assessment on a monthly basis the I'm not sure what office pays the bills who pays the bills guess the Purchasing Office Purchasing Office would have to look at the report submitted which the vendor would have to do under any structure I've developed for you right and they would have the ability to see that and check it against an invoice an index and just see if things look out a whack the only time I would get involved is if things look out of whack then they would call say Wayne does this make any sense to you it's about a two-minute phone call I haven't charged you yet for it so I don't know that I would in the future so we have the staff to do that it doesn't take long they're doing it now you just referenced Waste Management don't they pick up in this area though you seem like Waste Management Services you're asking for Waste man about the company waste manag yeah yes they do they pick up a lot of commercial a lot of industrial and residential yeah but they are not bidding on a lot of the towns where they've had contracts before they've walked away at least four or five that I can name right now uh five years ago they bid Patterson they refused to bid it for the reasons I cite that Patterson's a little bit tougher to collect than West orang because of the bulk and everything else that's in there but they are not they didn't bid campon they walked away from the campon city contract literally walked away from they just don't want to do it thank you these are the numbers we can come back to these at any time by the way I was ask the course the question what about your commercial businesses what do we do what's the what's the issue if and these are just using the raw numbers you remove commercial and bulk weekly you save about 2.3 million over the next five years that's based on eliminating bulk to going to once a month and then the commercial paying on their own if the commercial is to go forward what we already know from the preliminary research we have is that at least a third of your commercial businesses if not more already use private Partners they're not using your service as a t talking just general discussions I can't get into specific prices for the potential vendor for obvious reasons but just on General what is it cost to service small businesses on a monthly basis it's about $100 a month and that would be garbage and recycling and the businesses would have to decide what to do with that and they could hire whomever they like so just just if you don't mind at this point I just I just want to share my colleagu so on Friday in disclosure I had a meeting with Mr defo and and thank you for your time with Miss bril because we were trying to figure out how this affected the downtown businesses um it also affects townwide businesses so Mr fonzo um had we is developing a list that we're going off of to identify who um is private and who this would affect right now we do not have that list that's still being figured out um a survey has to go out because it we cannot identify everybody um they pulled a report from the tax office to identify the businesses um Miss BR has a pretty good handle and she'll have to work with Mr fonzo but townwide um it's something he was talking I'll let him talk later I don't want to skip forward with all that being said the history of why because my big question was why um if other towns don't pay for the commercial why are we paying for the commercial uh Chief shared with us years ago when Susan Borg the town planner when she was here she again i' rather him explain I don't want to say by memory but basically she made a decision de ision because of the businesses at that time uh all weren let's say um very um stringent about getting their garbage picked up in timely manner so she had it put through the township and and fairness uh I guess when they're making decision years ago uh the pricing wasn't like it is of today so now today we're we're uh faced with a decision of putting another cost on our small business owners and what does that mean um I don't have the full picture yet so I'm not prepared to do anything this evening I'll just share that earlier um but that's what we need to find out and what what does that mean and how is that garbage going to get pickups that that is a big piece of this this evening I just want to leave it at that I agree um Madam clerk yes I'm sorry thank you could you also find out in our uh contiguous towns as well as if it's available on a county information Which towns do pay for commercial garbage and which ones don't okay I think that would also help us influence the decision because if the majority of towns are no longer supporting commercial Waste Management I think that's something that we should also take into consideration yeah I'll help you get that I would also like to know what towns around here are using the carts I know that Clifton decided not to I have some information on that that I've sent around um with a discussion at their Township Council of you know this situation and I would like to know what surrounding towns are using this and what their decisions have been made if theyve the largest one right now is the city of Newark is converting over the carts they're doing it over they're peac mealing it they're obviously not rolling out carts all over the city at one time in their case it would be T tough lift uh Clifton you are correct I think Clifton's work Clifton stop that we just don't want change it's that simple they had no there's no cost or scientific reason to not do it it just was we didn't want to do any change they didn't want to take that political risk at their time that was their decision they're paying financially for it and Nutley is currently considering carts uh their bid is out and only has a cart option so nutly is converting over the carts unless they don't award anything and go to rebid which I can't predict what anyone will do of course let's see around here what's Monclair doing what's Verona monair has a mixture uh Verona is bur NOS Vera no carts in Verona Bloomfield similar sifield does not have carts at this time they opted against the card option two years ago because they just didn't want to deal with change uh councilwoman just they're having a difficult time hearing us so uh please each of us pull the mic closely uh so there is no Rhyme or Reason to a community not pick there I've never seenly put it this way I have not had a municipality say they don't want to do carts for any scientific or data reason they've done it because they don't want to deal with the change I will tell you towns that have converted Middletown which is much larger than West Orange little bit easier in some respects Middletown is both Urban suburban and Rural as all three built within its borders and Middletown converted and went through these exact same discussions I'm having with you tonight they had that Middletown New Jersey has Milburn looked at it I haven't talked to Milburn I don't know has Short Hills looked at it well Milburn is Short Hills okay so that's they're together so I haven't I haven't talked I don't know what they've looked at I don't work with them on theirs has Union again I haven't worked with them on that I can only tell you ones I've worked with for sure but I'll do some res like to do research on who's looked at it and what the outcomes have well and as I said that Newark is do you ask for a town near here the nearest one is Newark Newark is choosing to convert Middletown converted four years ago now and initially same questions you're asking same questions around here if I try to take their carts now I'd be in a lot of trouble residents love the carts see the issue is for me anyway I've had more residents complain about reducing pickup from twice a week to once a week and spending all this money on the carts like you said people don't like change they want to keep it at as is and at the end of the day we work for the people and I haven't had one person come up to me or send an email saying that we should reduce pickup um nobody wants to reduce I've had well yes but I have not and it's been an issue and so you know we are faced The Dilemma like you know I definitely don't agree to reducing to once a week at all like I I don't support that so let's talk about why we wouldn't go to one let's talk about the reason for once a week versus not once a week shall we yeah yes and and by the way please as colleagues have questions just call on them Mr def I'm here to try to help thank you um I just wanted to your point Council to to indicate that many of the concerns that residents have are also a result of the information not being communicated in advance of us just kind of having a summary a lot of the questions that I have about pickup cart size how many are directly answered here today so I think that once our residents have more information as we have received it here they will be able to come back to us with some of less concerns than they may have already had because some of these things will be explained um so I I I'm taking a lot of the and I'm saying that to say that I'm taking a lot of their concerns with a little bit of well let's see what the nuts and bols look like and again not really being able to answer these questions because we didn't have the details but I'm as I'm listening I'm also hearing some of their concerns be answered the biggest push back is the reduction in pickup pickup yep I don't know that the carts have been that much of an issue again the size people question the size people have questioned for me how will the carts be delivered um you've now indicated um that you may have an OP option of what size based on household so that prompted some additional questions of for me because if we're going to bond money to purchase the carts do the different sizes of carts have a different price and so how would we know what to bond at this point and when would we how so again how would all those things ultimately roll out perfectly perfect can you all hear me is that okay Joe okay perfectly logical questions so let me try to answer them can get down the line thank you this is a 96 gallon cart this is the biggest cart that they make this is the equivalent of three standard garbage CS now this cart by itself the reason we would go this with an automated or semi-automated system what we're recommending to you understand you don't need a truck that has a side on if you anyone goes to other parts of the state you may see a fully automated robotic truck doing the service that's not required to service a cart that's number one number two if you go to once a week and you have a 96 gallon cart like this right now we've been talk or I've been talking with the administration about saying to give the resident an option if they produce that much garbage that they could get a second 96 gallon cart that's a 100 the hell is that's 192 gallons of garbage in a week that's a lot of garbage now to give you an example of another community that converts and it's not the same Community but just to give you context uh Princeton converted to carts they had all the same questions you have the residents had the same concerns about service they decided that they wanted to make a public policy statement and reduced from unlimited garbage to 64 gallons this cart and if the residents wanted another cart they had to buy it and pay for service because they had a public policy goal of reducing garbage genertion that's a whole different Atlantic City has carts and Atlantic city has the rule in their cart system if it and this has to be here too as I'll get to if it's not in the cart it doesn't get picked up otherwise you defeat the point of having a cart as we'll get to some of the advantages so first you could go up as high as 192 gallons or more if depending on what the final decision is as to how you want to approach the cost structure two 64 is just one option of a size the second option would be about the same height but much thinner 32 gallon that's what personally I happen to use 64 and 32 there's 96 64 and 32 I wouldn't even get into the fact that there are these things called mini parts let's not get crazy about that theid of a kitchen garbage can I don't think anybody needs that the carts themselves are excellent in terms of balance and you're welcome to come out and play with them that's why they're here show and tell would be helpful they're great for balance they're easy to maneuver course I know saying it's easy for me to maneuver is not the same as saying it's easy for you to maneuver depending on your size I get that but I've never heard people really complaining about see if I have the next question your next question was how will the carts be delivered thank you the carts are delivered by the cart company and so what that would require by the way n this is happening anymore let's po just hypothetically you voted tonight and say go forth and get all the carts these carts aren't getting here tomorrow it will take time which goes to one of your early questions is we need to educate everybody on how this will work over time before they see this cart the carts are delivered by the cart company and the cart company has to be given obviously accurate addresses names and numbers the carts they deliver them and they install a chip in the cart that tells them exactly where the cart is at any given time I'll explain the advantage of that in a second they actually what we call geospatially spaced in other words it's latitude longitude right you're familiar with that it not just the street address but the latitude and longitude one of the weird side benefits of converting to carts we found in several communities is when complaints came in saying I have a three Family House you only gave me one car you'd be entitled to three obviously well according to town records you only have a one family house and so people we were able to find illegal apartments and get them properly permitted and safely permitted which is of course a goal that's another Advantage the other Advantage going to cart so again the cart company does all the delivery you do nothing staff does nothing the hauler does nothing I don't want them doing it when they service the carts whether it's the recycling cart this is for single stream the way you collect right which should hold easily the amount you have you have to break your cardboard down but you're supposed to do that today these are used countywide in Burlington County and they have no trouble whatsoever the other thing that these carts tell you is when they were picked up the truck has a reading device on it that when it picks up the cart the cart says I was picked up at 7:02 a.m. on Wednesday from this location that helps you with two things if this recycling card's never picked up at your address and I know that wouldn't be the case but if it was never picked up at anybody's address it gives the town data why is nobody recycling in that house you're supposed to be enforcing under state law the recycling law now that doesn't mean you run out right a summons but it helps you with an education perspective say what are we doing wrong in this area why aren't we getting people to participate what don't they understand and you can educate people correctly because you want your recycling to do this not that I think I think I got your questions but if I missed one come back to it so you need two you need one for recycling and one yes you that's why I brought both I don't know where I would store those two monstrosities well I have small I have a small space where I store garbage cans but I I wouldn't even have room for things like that well well to that point though we do have rules around where you can uh leave your garbage cans even in multif family houses so there are existing rules around that um today uh and these I would assume would go wherever your existing garbage cans are going yeah but in the microphone but they're rather large I mean I where I store my garbage cans now I wouldn't have room let me start by ask you need 96 Gall hold on one second I don't know I might she makes a valid point these are issues that people are gonna let me try to answer that for you sure city of Baltimore uses carts city of Philadelphia has moved out carts city of San Francisco you get three of these and I am telling you they are much more urban than you are and they have more Hills than you do and they find that they work very well isn't I will not tell you this is not an adjustment I am not going to stand here and say tomorrow you deliver the carts tically and Friday everybody's thrilled that is not going to happen I'm warning you of that and it will take months of education and you ask that question how do the residents get educated you will have to you meaning in Royal Municipal sense we'll need to do an advanced education program using all of the media Outlets you have from television to website to Flyers the plan is to leave these in the lobby locked obviously mail whatever need whatever means you need to maybe more of these to educate people about parts and their implementation if you do that you minimize the problems in every case where it's been done problems are minimal where it's not done one one second so so many questions I will call on folks uh councilman celino thank you council president um so in our discussion uh the other day I just want to share with my colleagues uh some information that may be helpful for today's discussion uh one being is and you mentioned this in your uh original presentation to us last month that um there is a service for if someone can't wheel it to the street that someone will come get it but we needed a pricing on that do you have that I you I think you asked me for that and who P there is a rear yard pricing the resident pays for that so if you want your garbage um if you want that kind of service well that's a service that you don't have now you don't to have it I'm just saying if you want that service you can but my issue is we're going from whatever we're using now to something larger that some people are gonna struggle to be able to get the large window just asking hold on one second hold on one second so so let's hold on excuse me excuse me for a moment ladies Council Council women for a moment just to maintain order president let's go one at a time yeah thank you please finish yeah I just want to share the information I'm not making for or against just just explaining the information and what questions that people have come to me with yeah you did ask for a rear yard collection price let me rephrase the way I say that the township asked that I provide the option so residents who wanted it could have some increased level of service at their expense if you want the increased level of service you have to pay for it it's $50 for the first 50 feet that someone would have to go onto your property and pick up the garbage can roll the garbage can out a month now if you have a very long driveway it goes up in $50 increments based on 50 Fe that is not bad because the last bid that I worked on it was $75 different bidder and that's per month that's a monthly fee rear yard collection is a luxur considered what they call a luxury service because number one you have to go on to private property that increases your liability risk number two you get damage complaints if you're in the industry oh you damaged my mailbox or you damaged this so you walked my roses or whatever and so they charge for that it's a labor cost also think about it I'm spending a lot more time getting off my truck to go pick up and lit not pick up in this case but literally wheel the card out but it's now open which you really don't have well defined today you would then have it under this bid by the way no matter which option you pick you would have that rear yard option and and that's mainly I that because a lot of our properties that are on Hill we either have where the driveways may go down like that and they may have to wheel it up or a set of a flight of stairs and may have to come down to get to the street level so um folks know they could pay for that so it would probably average $50 it's $50 depending on it depends on the home I can't it's not so to councilman G Michel Point well that's a personalized service I I get I'm not advocating for I just want folks to know what's out there we could debate this later on um my other my other question that I was getting about the holidays and folks were asking me if we go to the court so say it's a a holidays on a Wednesday then the very next day there would be pickup you go to Once week collection cycle it would be next day okay so it'll be next day so not next collection day so than Wednesday collection and there's a holiday on a Wednesday I can't think of tooo many but there is a holiday on a Wednesday then you would picked up Thursday the holler knows he'd have to D up on his collections on Thursday yeah so thanksgiving's on a Thursday so he'd be picked up on a picked up on a Friday okay so those were I just wanted to that was some information um and I also just wanted before we get uh our discussion Mr fonzo um was advoc you know we've been having a lot of issues with with garbage all over especially downtown that's a big problem cans that people are using tip over folks are not putting their garbage in a bag they're just leaving it in cans and we've been having a lot of problems with rodents so I just I know that's one of the reasons why you had wanted the carts and I know there it's it's a big change it it is it is a big change I'm not sure how I feel about it for for this town uh with the hills and all and I still want to I'm I'm still concerned about how we're going to handle those commercial properties and and the properties that I'm concerned with are the small business owner that may be in um they may have residential above them a small Alleyway on the side so there's a lot that would need to be worked out not to say that it can't but right now I'm just you know don't have those answers yet so but I thank Mr defo for always trying to get those answers whereas and walk us through this so I just wanted to share that that information with my colleagues yeah so I think uh councilwoman this is just for uh context for those that are watching in and in person I think the issue with regard to the uh rear yard pickup is um you know for folks that uh not because they want it uh from a luxury standpoint but they need it they're elderly they're infirmed disabled um and have some some challenge so but we can address that if that is the desire we can also address that from a budgetary concern uh councilwoman scar yeah I had a question for Mr Depo did you have any privac I had a resident Express privacy concerns so people going through their garbage and when you talk about the chip and you're you know whether somebody's recycling or not I had a little couple of people who had concerns about that so I'm wondering if you've experienced that I know you I know Chiefs and I talked about this once before I I don't know how much less a big 96 gallon cart's going to be you're not putting the garbage in raw you're going to put it in a plastic bag in the cart typically that's how it's done to keep it clean and neat as far as that the chip um which I know everyone chips tend to get people freaked out these days for different reasons the chip can be read from a distance of about me to you from the truck or with a handheld and all it does is say time date location that's it that's the only information it contains the data then would come to the township and the township would have to have staff to work at that and analyze it if they want to use it some towns analyze data some towns don't it's totally what you want to do with the data we're giving you the option to have that data which data is a tool and data tells us what we're doing who's putting out who's not and it can be used to educate the goal of it is to educate goal is not to be punitive to educate it's to help us figure out what's happening in a given location and why and let's say it's an just for hypothetical that's an entire neighborhood is not putting out a recycling card what are we doing wrong why is that the case what did we miss we we don't know that now we don't have any way to find that out now because it would take too many people to go out and do that right now we get the computer to do the work for us it's not thinking it's Gathering it's not AI make that very clear to you this is not about Ai and and from a privacy standpoint there is no um difference in how the trash is collected and then disposed of so it's not like because there's a chip it's going to read what's in your garbage or someone's going to go through the can any differently than they do now so I I I want residents to be aware that the Privacy concern around garbage would be the exact same as it is now um you know with our current collection mechanism and you would ask a question about someone made a comment I forget who about rodents the other advant I mean the plastic bag is not very rodent proof these are rodent we'll never say nothing is anything proof ites are highly rodent resistant it would take in the time your garbage is at the curve that a time it's picked up no no rodents getting in there not happening if a bear happens to walk through West Orange I make no guarantees that's a whole separate they do sell separate be prooof cards but we don't want to talk about those that's a whole different but one of the things I try to do is anticipate your questions I've done this in this next slide will the carts provide enough volume we did talk about that and we can work with more capacity details have to be worked out what if I put garbage bags alongside the cart you defeat the point of the carts if you do that and no community that I have ever seen carts work in will do that from Middletown to Atlantic City to anywhere else the one that's the hilliest that I've worked with going to council celino's question about Hill was sound like a funny name but it's upper MC Township in Pennsylvania very hilly in the southern Poconos and they had the same questions and they now love their carts you would not take their carts away come Hecker high water yeah uh more capacity we talked about what if it's too large for me to handle we talked about we'll do a a separate for a smaller cart we talked about rear yard we talked about bulk and then the question was what about people who do email you can call for the reservations you don't have to do email the hauler will have to be able to take it by phone or by computer whichever you find most convenient and to give you context because I mentioned this earlier the image on the left that's what we would call fully automated that is the the perfect world you have no on street parking in your community lots of room between the homes and they would haulers love this the most literally the driver is standing up or sitting in the cab there typically are two steering wheels if not there's at least one on the side he sends out or she sends out the robotic arm picks it up and you're done you would most likely be picked up by a vehicle similar to one on the right that's a standard garbage truck just like what you have seening seeing in town today and when that truck comes by the gentan gets off the truck brings the cart to the back of the truck and a small arm tips it you you can see right off the top the one big advantage and that one big Advantage is that person is not lifting the cart the risk of injury goes down about 90% yes I just want to uh bring this up too I had to asked you about the time if this would be more time consuming because we have so many dead end streets that where people have Park on both side especially down down off of Main Street um you know would people be trapped in their streets that they can't get out because of of the garbage truck taking extra time to dump the cans the cycle time for these is about 10 seconds plus or minus uh now if I in 10 seconds I can move over I can move approximately 100 gallons of garbage I'm going to be faster than if I'm going and having to either pick up two bags or move two cans tip them and bring them back again I do not anticipate in West orang you having this fully automated truck anywhere but if the huler is able to do it believe me they will because it's the best way for them most likely you're going to see what's on the right I don't anticipate that and I think I just want to stress again we're talking about a bunch of advantages here it is more efficient generally faster most haulers can pick up 600 homes a day it's a pretty quick work rate and that's how they're based it on it's obviously cleaner it's obviously neater all of the carts would be hot stamp uh meaning with the township logo I did put it on one of the parts for you to look at just to see what it might look like if you wanted to see it it's not hot stamp we just put a stick on you and that is all and in addition you would have instructions on your recycling cart in words put on top everything would be marked as Township property and they don't leave when someone leaves with can't leave with the card you don't the town owns it not the individual and aside from reducing litter not going to blow around you're going to have reduced odor your recycling becomes cleaner by default because when it rains your paper is not getting wet wet paper is not very valuable it's collected but nobody really likes it but dryer cleaner and again most importantly it's going to reduce animal nuisance rodents in particular it is a big difference overall worker injury is down and that's the reason that your price structure is lower when you put in the carts because they've already calculated that and you may know better than I depending on the business you're in but according to the folks in safety that I work with they'll tell me that a worker's comp claim today is a minimum of $150,000 and guess who pays for that here are the final points just again asking all the questions why I just wanted to make sure you had all this no change 33 to 34% increase option four 133% increase after the cost of carts is taken into account let me make it clear nothing I saw this in a number of discussions that have been had we're not talking about cutting cost we're talking about containing controlling working with Modern Collection system the best we can hope to do is contain a 133% increase after five years that's pretty darn good but there's a cost to that you have to make an investment and if you choose not to that's up to you as I said earlier we have to educate as a community if you go into this and just say hey here's a car good luck pan it's not happening you need enforcement if people put garbage out on the side and it's not in the cart I'm not saying you write a summons on day one but it's tagged and you notify and educate you decide when you want to go ahead with that on an enforcement basis and I leave these last four points because it's the complaint I get the most in the courses I teach at recard is on how to do collection all of the elected officials in town and the administration must support their staff for making the decisions if you say this is what we're doing then you have to let them do it in too many communities too often I see oh pick it up anyway and why have a system you have to have staff in place you ask would it take more staff you might need to add another person other communities many have added a person for the first six months to a year who they've transitioned into another role just to support the education and the phone calls to have all the answers ready a fact sheet or something to that effect you said it earlier must inform the public must educate the public in advance if you don't it won't work but no system will work unless you all make the decision meaning that takes and that's not easy I'm not telling you you I don't I'd rather be here than there my job is to present the options you have to make the decisions I don't belittle that in any way I've seen it done in many cases I've seen it done in towns where people were up I I said this on Friday in a meeting I had a commissioner I think it's commissioner former government right the other form and they voted to do a strict enforcement while they were running for their seat they got reelected I was actually very impressed by that but they cleaned up their recycling so much that the recycling goes straight to Market and they get paid for their fiber now they have dual stream you don't it's different situation but my point being it can be done and again the choice is strictly yours but if you have more questions and I can try to answer them I will Mr def I'm sure we have more questions we want to have some dialogue amongst ourselves uh I need a short two-minute break and going to encourage us to kind of think through what Mr defale has uh presented and then we'll begin um either our questions for you or for each other as we try to come to some resolution with our way forward all thank you Mr defale we're going to take just a two-minute break uh and I'll be right back he e e okay so I have to have one for cans and bottles and one for paper cardboard and paper I actually much like you the 64 gallon for cans and bottles I don't think I've ever had a party big up to fill it up but in that my case they would not give you a small one but in your case I'm sure that could be working okay I don't mean you personally I understand I understand completely thank you thank you a kitchen garbage bag is 13 gallons correct helps perspective you think garbage out think the biggest concern that I have in just being you know understanding West Orange and that we do have areas where they don't have space um the smaller cans would probably be better suited but even if you go down to a 32 and it's this it's still the same thing that people have at home now so if you have the option to go down to a 32 gallon size that's just West Orange providing you a seal container versus is whatever it is that you have now and my other question would be I guess if you do have containers now and we transition to purchasing them what would we do with the containers that you already have that's also a good question and we run into that in different communities I don't know what yours are made of are they plastic or metal mine are plastic does anyone still use metal garbage cans I think some people might but yeah unfortunately that is the issue yeah down off of Main Street that we have folks that do use metal cans and are just tossing garbage in without a bag and that is why he's having such a problem we are having a big issue with that and I don't know why folks use that they put that that that lid on that doesn't stay on yeah and it's the old garbage can it's the old garbage get and they get out of around same with the plastic ones with the little little hooks on and let me answer that question came up as well so let me fire but you're going to have to answer him again on the record once we reopen yeah the clerk it's back we going to be open uh but yeah you can answer it now for just you know context and uh the councilwoman councilwoman Williams question too want that to be captured for those that are join us virtually we slightly turn down the air please just slightly it's really cold up here just slightly now I know why I don't wear a suit to Freez forgot my I I am on the verge of sweating I am this close I think my nose in my mouth I'm not freezing I'm not freezing at all but I'm Hot Blooded so I'm I'm hot all the time Co can sorry my yes Adam clerk I think we solved the problem yeah you don't turn all right we're going to we're going to resume uh meting is called back to order there were a couple of questions that I think uh should be answered for those that are joining us virtually uh councilwoman Williams you had a couple of questions and I think councilwoman celino will start with councilwoman Williams certainly but you answered my question so you might just answer we answer just for those that yeah but I'm that's because he answered it and it no oh so they they heard the questions while we were going okay so can you please just repeat the questions so that those joining us virtually know what we're talking about so part of the questions that I were asking was the current size of what we have now is a 32 gallon um I wanted to know if you wanted a 96 gallon gar and you wanted a smaller recycling is that possible within the ordering process Mr defo said that it was he didn't see it as a problem so you may not need as large of a recycle as you do your garbage and so during throughout the ordering process I guess we'll be able to have the capacity to choose so that that does and I think the answer is that we don't we can choose which size of you don't need to get a 96 if you don't want it what we do find with recycling as a rule in single stream that this is the most efficient size for single string but if it you just don't generate it that much material then you wouldn't necessarily need a 96 you might get a 64 and that would be sufficient for you the advantage of this type of a cart versus a round Barrel is number one paper is rectangular generally and so it tends to hold the material more efficiently even though it's the same amount of gallons you can get more in it because of the shape and again that would wouldn't matter as to size still get more that was preface with also acknowledging that we do have areas throughout the town that do not have the capacity to put the 96 gallon oh yeah size so we do need to make sure that's a serious consideration and again I would just to mention just to reiterate you have many urban areas like the city of Baltimore which is now has a cart roll out and they are much more densely populated in the township of West Orange through most of that City and they are finding it successful but I will get testimonial information from the manufacturer as that how that's working I can also find out from Newark how that's working of course Newark has like West R in different communities with different size Lots so it might be a little different but we'll find that out thank you one second councilwoman so on that point Mr defale uh or maybe for Mr rabbit or Mr fonzo does that then require the township to either um estimate what types of carts the homes are going to request or do we have to do we get the request from the homeowner and then make the purchase of the carts like it I'm not understanding the logistics of it um I have some other questions around the size of the carts but what you're answering is if we were decide were to decide to use 96 gallons for garbage and 64 for recycling um if we just roll that out to everyone and we chose that then there is no guesswork on the Township's part if we say to homeowners if you don't want a 96 you can get a 64 or you can get a 32 then I think that presents some guesswork for us and I certainly don't want to have inventory of garbage cans uh so can someone U address that so typically what we would do is say the 96 is the standard if you want something different than that you tell us and get you because they they're dropped off at each individual resident so we would know that in advance um you're going to you're going to have a surplus inventory anyway because people want to buy additional cans they you have to have that so um so you're saying before we actually did the drop off once we rolled it out as a part of the education uh portion of this project residents would be able to say I don't want a 96 so they would opt out of the 96 and and then choose a different size so before we actually ordered them we would know what we have to order to my understanding that's the way it's done in most towns got it and what we would what I would recommend you do since you're getting the carts then what you would do is you would set up I need this many of the large I want this many of the 64 and this many of the 32s and we have them and then what we can do now the we don't really have a place to store them but most cart manufacturers will store them for you and deliver them to you that's how they usually operate operate and you would have some some number that you need I will tell you you'll be surprised probably at how few ultimately change out but you will get them so the point is you want to accommodate the request it's never been as high as we've estimated it would be but it it can occur so we want to be ready for that you don't want to just ignore it councilman scar then coun Council yeah I have two questions um how would like grass clippings and um Garden materials that you typically can put out now how how do you deal with those so what you do now typically is you're putting them in a bag and either putting them in a garbage can or in a bag right if it fits in that cart they'll take it there is no prohibition under the state law for grass and there's no prohibition for the brush and things of that nature I would suggest as part of our education program that you're paying an awfully High premium as residents to get rid of brush in the garbage when you have free recycling of the brush at the environment Center on Mount Pleasant but that's again that goes to your education your residents literally if they're putting their brush in that part are throwing Township money away and their taxes in the garbage yeah well people don't want to have to go to the recycling center they they choose not to there and a lot of people do a lot of gardening and have that type if it fits in the cart it's not an issue and the other thing is now how do we go out and make these requests to to the residents about what size they want is that something that a staff member does getting in touch with them do we do it through the tax when we send the taxes out how do we communicate because Communications has been a difficult difficult uh matter in our Township and education as we've talked about the tree ordinance and other things we're talking about not having staff to educate people how who is going to do this and how we're gonna have to you know take take it on head on and do it I mean every other Town's done it I don't think any other town is overwhelmed with staff you know we're gonna have to do we don't have a lot of Staff our staff is very lean and that's kind of what concerns me well I mean I think that's pretty consistent with most municipalities it's it's it's an anary obligation of somebody that's already doing another job you know nobody's hiring people just to do this every other municipality has been able to navigate it I only anticipated be any different for us so would that come under Mr feno's department at present yes he'd have to have the staff well let me interject on that as well there in mind again we're talking about order you're you're trying to anticipate every conceivable thing that could go wrong which we can't do we can't tell you from experiences if we showed up and this happened in Middletown on multiple occasions when they did their roll out showed up at the house dropped off the two carts resident called the town and said I don't really want a 96 I've been using it or I got it I don't want it okay what's your address we'll get it swapped out and that's it it was no big deal no big crisis everybody just did now you try to know in advance if you can try to get a survey go see your question on education but you'll get some you'll also get that some people gez I don't know or I didn't hear about it we understand that's very reasonable then you swap it later yeah I don't necessarily see them as problems but I see them as Logistics and it's a logistical issue that need to be thought through all exactly in all communities as the chief said all communities that have done have had the same logistical issues it's not unique to West councilman gin Michael so my question that a question that I have that residents have come to me with is what is the cost per household if we don't change anything if we don't purchase the carts and everything remains as is what is that figure what are we per household you do just educate the residents because again the same question we're getting a lot of push back so maybe if they find out if you look at the screen if you do nothing breaking this down using it which is a good way to do it because most of us are used to service being provided and we pay for it your cable bill probably per month is more than $18 a month I would presume that a reasonable assumption if you yes if you do nothing the new cost would be about $18 per household per month now bear in mind that all of these numbers are a little bit above the actual cost I can't do a dollar for dooll house forh house comparison because this pricing will include the multif family collection and dumpsters where you still do it and it includes your Municipal sites and so forth if you that's without cards yes that's option one without carts if you go down to option four with carts net the cost of the cart it's $15 a month so we're talking about less than we're talking about less than $3 a month to provide the same services to have pick up twice a week to have no carts no you know to have commercial collection uh bulk waste I mean to me it sounds like a no-brainer to keep what we have at the $18 a month I would agree you know it's literally less than $3 per month it's minimal it is however several million dollars over five years and I will tell you this your second low bid was another $490,000 $490,000 I understand but and in five years if you don't make the change now this number is probably going to go up another 50 to 75% I know but the issue is you we your change today or you change tomorrow up to you I hear you Mr defo but my my issue is I mean I have to listen to the residents and and I'm getting a lot of push back about reducing the number of times that we pick up per week and that is a huge issue and for less than $3 a month it just doesn't make sense to me and I comment there thank you U councilwoman calino so two observations and again I don't I don't have any answers uh tonight what where I'm going to go with this but so option two which if we leave it at two times per week we could test run the carts we're going to be paying an additional 500 and $7,000 a year with the cards no over five years so is it does that so I guess where I have to understand where this is going with the savings it's not so much with because when you look at it with and I've gotten this feedback from many residents well even if it's as high as $40 uh a year wait that is what was that 18 per year per month oh per month per month folks would rather pay the higher tax base but where we're challenged is the budget that we're working off of has option four in it so if we say let's keep the savings the same um we have to look at that dollar amount to see where that that is going to the bonding of the garbage wait let me finish my thought so so right now so say for example it's saying one. 788 option four that's how much money we were saving obviously that was calculated into the budget that we have so say now we're going to keep option one how much we either we're going to raise the tax revenue uh the the budget that much higher what is that and what's that number look like so to that question so two things to that um and and I don't know that we were um thinking about it that way but in our current budget which currently has a 2.47% uh increase buil in this option four is in there now it shouldn't have been because we didn't we've not made a decision right we should have probably gone with whatever the worst case scenario is and then uh we could have saved some money but it is in there if we were to make that change and go to option one you're looking at a 2.2 million over or almost 2.3 million over five years yeah uh which is about 400,000 more per year which is almost 1% increase in the budget it's probably about three quers of 1% uh 70% point7 of 1% I have a question do we have the carrying cost on what did it cost to bond that money calino has requested it I don't know that we've gotten it um so Council Miss scarper for those that are U trying to understand what she's asking and and please put it right up on your mouth so was talking about the carrying cost on the money that we have to uh Bond we're gonna have to this is a 10-year bond um I would assume uh you know it probably done initially as a short term and then converted to a long term I don't know what Mr gross would do or whoever our CFO is but the interest rate on that as folks know interest rates have gone up so we don't know what uh that cost would be um but the other side of that too is these numbers are advertized this this is a fiveyear uh look ahead those are advertized over 10 years so in five years we would no longer um I mean no we would I'm sorry explain that actually Mr gross I mean Mr ADOT uh so yeah because because thinking about it that way we're bonding over 10 five bonding over five yeah it's five and and the carrying cost I believe is buil there's roughly like a half a million built into the uh existing budget for carrying cost so it's all contemplated um you know whether we put in without this and as you term it save some money or put it in the other way it's it's six to one a half dozen the other either either you would have to add money you want to go the other way or you would have take money out it's it's really kind of the same so that was the mayor's position that you know that we were going to go with option for got it um all right so so you're looking at a roughly 2.2 or 2.3 million roughly 400,000 per year uh almost 1% increase uh so instead of 2.47 we'd be looking at 3.47 before any other adjustments um there was another question I can't remember who had it somebody else had a question over here I did have a question my question was regarding if we were to have just the sizes being the only concern and consideration that residents would have to select from I think one of the points that we're not highlighting is that it does the cans do help and support rodent control yeah and I think that's really important um because as far as I've been hearing that is a tremendous problem not just downtown yeah um it's townwide so I just wanted to make sure that's clear as well and that we don't lose sight of that advantage you godwoman um Mr defo or Mr fanino or Mr Abbott who whomever is there a substantial impact on the cost uh if we were to decide townwide not to use the 96 so in other words if we were to the 96 gallon carts if we were toci to decide to keep the service at two times per week right and then possibly not need the 96 gallon but go townwide at 64 instead of the 2.2 million or so that we have to spend for the cans with there be a meaningful decrease in that cost it's still the same amount 64 gallon to 96 gallon price increase the difference in cost is nominal it's not going to make that big it's not double or 30% more it's only a few dollars more actual pricing is on it's called sourcewell it's the national bid there are three or four card companies there so you could pick from any of those and that list does exist I I don't have it in front of me but there it's not that big of an impact to go from size little to size big in terms of savings or the other way gotta the most people won't generate households won't generate even enough to fill that can being taken once a week at 96 gallon so if they are a household that generates that there's generally somebody in the household who can move that garbage can it's not too heavy for may not be the eldest person there or whatever but there's generally somebody there um you know they can get the smaller can if they don't need it it's it's works pretty well there was a town in Morris County where there was one council member who was vly opposed to the switch over um she was the only one who voted against it went through I saw an article in the paper I don't know her I don't know any of the players I just just read it in the paper where she had actually um the following year said that I admit when I'm wrong and I was absolutely wrong and this worked out tremendously so well yeah and I appreciate that I my question though if it's 2.2 million by the 96 six gallon and it's 2 million for example to buy the 64 gallon I don't know if it's a 10% difference or not but you know a couple $1,000 here or there actually ends up being real money I mean again the answer would be how many of what siid you want if you decide to go town why with 64s versus 96 because you want the smaller C you can do that and just make that the initial but then I you're going to have to listen to people say I need a bigger can or I need a second can you'll have to decide how you want to handle that doesn't really matter from a collection standpoint cost of the carts I think what I was articula I may have sort of trailed off was that um you know W with the smaller carts you're probably gonna have to pick up twice a week but most people are if they if you still just got the larger cart they won't need twice a week pickup so you're sort of paying that half a million dollars to pick up twice a week when you really don't need to and that's kind of the point I was trying I think my colle and I've heard it too while unlike some of my colleagues um I have uh received feedback from residents that want to go to once per week particularly those that are uh in neighborhoods where they feel the taxes are astronomical so they figure if you can save me a million bucks save me a million bucks and that's actually a quote that I've heard from Resident and to your point it's important to point out that that $18 a household is probably based on the average assessed value at 300,000 and we all know there's a lot of homes in this town that are valued at much more than 300,000 to that point also many more people have expressed a concern and especially once I got a chance to go through some of our emails which all of us are are have received um many more people have expressed the concern about going to once a week collection so the the sentiment the majority sentiment as I've heard it and as I'm hearing from my colleagues is that the residents don't want to go to once per week so if we were to keep it at twice per week maybe we can make some other adjustments one would be a lower Capital cost to get the carts another would also be um uh instead of weekly bulk by uh reservation I don't know if it's possible is it possible to go bi-weekly or once a month um bulk pick up by reservation versus weekly for the entire town with the well it's you have a once a month weekly with reservation as an option we can't change what's up there that's you're asking so there no you can't there's no way to kind of we throw everything out and start over again councilman can I I would like to I'm sorry finish Mr I just add there was one ancillary benefit you had talked about roading control you know by going to once a week and once a month with both you will be reducing air pollution and truck traffic in your Township that's an ancillary benefit I can't put dollar value but I'm going to bet I don't know this for a fact but I'm reasonably confident that West Orange is a non-attainment community in terms of air pollution I'm not saying it's going to solve your problem by any measure but reducing think about the road miles I'm reducing understood thank you Mr def uh councilwoman Williams and then councilwoman celino um I just wanted to um ask the question about when we talk about reservation and bulk right now we're going without reservation correct if we go to perhaps option two where we're not weekly by reservation could you explain what that reservation process might look like how in advance do you need to call normally the way reservation systems work is let us presume because your zones aren't changing too much we're still having collection zones let's say you're in col zone two I'm just going to pick that up as a a day and let's presume we go to once a week and we'll say it's a THD right then the holler would have to have that list completed by Monday the resident would have to call by the Monday before typically two to three days before and say come pick it up on Thursday at such and such an address we could tighten that up a little bit probably for them and ask them to work with us but essentially someone would call and say come to such and such street and I have X so you do have to identify what you have it would be helpful because they are going you know your bulk collection system system today does have limits on it now whether you enforce the limits is a second question I most folk systems do have limits on weight because again you're talking about people picking this up now I have done back of the truck work as a requirement when I used to work for a company many years years ago and many lifetimes ago believe me from both my knee and back standpoint and I can tell you the things that we've seen put at the curve try to pick up a Jennifer convertible couch with two people it is not something you want to do so there are times that people need to understand that this is not what we talk about and that's going to mean that goes back to my point on enforcement but yes you would and you go on email you can do it by email the huler May set up a reservation system right for West Orange and today that's not a big lift but it would also be by telephone because I know we have people who are not going to be comfortable using an app or a phone or a computer we have people who are not on see everybody does your it just sounds no different nobody everybody has that so but that's fine they're used to that okay thank you Council thank you council president so in regards going back to the size of the cans and the need to lower like go from 96 to the 64 64 you have to take in account also when there's holidays when there are um you may have a barbecue or some other mechanism graduation parties that's that's what I'm saying to get away from the 96 gallon is is tough you'd be amazed how fast you could fill that up and the same thing with the recycling because a lot of people order off Amazon and so yeah everybody's ordering one second one second yeah you uh well just there's a lot of you know variables in place so where we're making statements of well this should be adequate enough it it may very well not be so that's why we should offer the larger can and let the person decide if they want to go lower because especially with times of the holidays and I know we have a large community that celebrates Passover and other holidays there is a lot of uh garbage there so just want take that I just want you guys to take that into account thank you councilwoman I I just want to be clear I wasn't advocating for that I was asking sure if we're going to move to if we're going to keep it at two times per week you know what is uh is there a need for the 96 but the other thing was and and I think the the driver for me would be cost if there's not a meaningful price difference between the two then there's really no reason uh to offer it um councilwoman Williams and councilwoman gber Michael I I I would just want to go back to space though as we consider making that decision because 96 might not be suitable for everyone so if we were I mean to me it just makes more logical sense if I look at the fact that a 96 is three sides of my normal can and I'm still going to keep twice the the service a week I'm never going to fill up a 96 because it's three times what I already have most people either have one or two garbage cans plus their Recycling and they and and and that's suitable for twice a week so now if we go to a can that's three times what you normally have or in some cases one and a half and we're still going to pick the twice up weekly pickup I I'm I'm I'm just logically for me you don't need the 96 the 96 would be suitable if you're going to reduce to once a week to me logically but you know I just cut Piggy on back real second councilman G Michael I wanted to piig you back up can you go back to that slide where shows us the price per household I piggy back off of her so okay option one if we keep it the same it's $18 per household per month option four is reducing it to once a week that's $15 that's less than $3 difference 1585 I know but again it's less than $3 per month that's my point the second option option two which is what they were just referencing which is twice a week pickup with carts is is $17.55 again for less than a dollar difference why even do the carts why not keep option one so let me ask your question a different way between option one and forget option one and option four for a you're going to go shopping at some point I'm going to go grocery shopping today you have two products that are identical on the Shelf one is 133% less than the other one in price which one I'm I buying because that's the price difference we're talking it's a 133% discount that is a significant amount as a double digit discount now I can't tell you which is better for you you know I do this so people can understand what the raw cost would be I can tell you no matter what you do it's cheaper than the cheapest option that we didn't bid is stop collecting garbage totally as a Township and let everybody do it on their own that's the cheapest for the township but I don't think you want to even talk about that but wait the the reason why I say this is because you know and I've said it many times here tonight already I am against reducing to once a week pick up okay you're talking about 59 cents difference if we leave it the way it is now versus going to carts and the issue with carts especially if you go to the big ones just like uh councilman Williams said is size not everyone has a garage people may not have space for that and that's that's a real issue 59 cents differ per month first let me clarify something real quick before you respond Mr def right right no it is on that you're right right in that sense this uh graphic but it is misleading right so this graphic is based on a $300,000 assess value home and the assess value is not for the majority of homes even if for some of those that are assessed at 300,000 today we're still going through the reval that is not going to be the assessed value as of 20125 so the actual experience for you know your typical home in West Orange which is market value in the5 to $600,000 range is not going to be an $18 per month so increase so I hear that but even with the valuation of an average 500 to 600 even $700,000 home the difference between option one and two still won't be that B of A of a difference as my point and people are upset about the the reduction in services with the taxes that are being paid and and I agree with councilwoman C uh uh celino the biggest issue for me is the commercial collection what's going to happen to our small businesses now they have to go out and find their own garbage contracts for getting garbage picked up when they've had it picked up in this town for you know this whole time a very good point councilwoman um and to your point earlier councilwoman castelino you know we're trying to revitalize downtown the last thing I want to do is take away a service I if we want to encourage businesses to come here this is you know one of the advantages we have over some neighboring towns and I know it is a cost but but they also do pay property taxes um you know at least the landlords in in which those businesses are uh pay property taxes but back to your original point and then I'll come to counc council calino and then Council Scarpa um so instead of looking at the average household let's look at what the our budget is going to be the the difference in cost if we with with the carts um there's about a $600,000 savings over five years so it's essentially you know it's same number number using the carts or not using carts the difference is once you pay for the carts now you've got about a $500,000 increase over five years roughly $100,000 per year but to have the uniformity of the carts the rodent and Pest Control um the um uh the larger size even if you went with the 64 um I you know I think there are some and and I think the industry is going that way so I'm I'm not I haven't made my mind up I we had some conversations over the weekend yes um going into the weekend before I had uh read uh all of the emails um you know I had a mixed bag of responses uh a few people wanted to move to once a week save me some money wherever you can save it uh and some people were like don't cut it to once a week we've got some other issues that that could create uh from a sanitation standpoint you know particularly rodents um so I I really wasn't sure we've seen an email overwhelmingly actually I don't recall any of them that wanted to go to one time a week there may be one uh in our email um and I think driving this decision for us though is you know a big part of this is cost if if we can uh improve the quality of service and keep the cost at about the same that would be optimal uh if we can keep the quality of service the same and make the price go down that would also be optimal um if we have to choose between the two I would choose to improve the quality of service and keep the price at about the same which would be working with um cards that's just me personally I know we're all going to vote on this um councilman celino and then Council woman scarp thank you council president so in regards to the commercial businesses I wouldn't be opposed to phasing in costs for them if other all the other towns are charging them but this year this past year they just started paying the mertile uh license so so that's way too much to do this year so I'm not opposed to down the road but we would need to figure that out um and I know the mayor was looking at an option of uh packaging out that they would go through one Service carrier so they wouldn't have to go out and look for their own Service carrier they would have the option getting a reduced price through uh one business entity but I want you all like you know I don't want to get wrapped up with the carts tonight the size and whatnot just take the time because I guess my brain works sometimes a little differently so since we've had these discussions at night especially when I go home late on a Tuesday night and all the garbage is out on the home you could see how much garbage folks have at the curb and you could see in many different locations throughout Town even the morning when you're driving around um there's many many bags of garbage so as far as the rodent problem that is serious it's something that we have to look at um I think the carts is something we'll get used to and we'll have to find the workaround with it but again I'm I'm not there yet I have to see how it plays out in different parts of our community so um but I appreciate Mr defo with all of his information and I look forward to some of the other requests we made and getting uh the information on the commercial businesses so we could get a a good analysis on that thank you councilman uh and just before councilman Scara goes I want to remind us we have about 15 minutes left before 12 minutes before we uh have to start our regular council meeting councilwoman Scarpa yeah I mean clearly we're not ready to take any votes on this tonight um the effect on the business is Major the market research that needs to be done and the education piece we just don't it takes time to educate the public I believe that we should stay on a month to month and have this as a referendum in November November's around the corner we haven't had that many residents way in most don't pay attention the ones that have emailed us are the ones that are upset about it that are paying attention we there are a lot of residents in this town and I think they need to have an opportunity to weigh in this is a very important decision and I'd like to see it as a referendum how would that happen is did we not discuss a referendum at the last meeting and we were told that that couldn't be done that's only from the administration I don't remember so let's ask the clerk when she comes back and let her answer the question there's a I believe the question and I don't I don't agree that we have to do this by referendum I think that we as elected officials can identify um what might be best suitable I don't think any of us are prepared to make a decision this evening and I think there are some missing components again as everyone has said the impact on Commercial businesses we need to really understand if we can get a dollar amount in my opinion on the difference cost for the carts um and then see whether or not we as a body want to just go if we're going to say twice a week we could go to a smaller cart or give the residents an opportunity to just to determine what size cart they want um but I do favor the cart system simply because I think it has some additional benefits certainly the radent control um I have experienced carts in other locations my um mother-in-law they use carts in North Carolina they use carts in North Carolina in a tremendous amount of places and the arms on the trucks come by and it is just a much more sanitary um experience very very rarely have I seen the garbage Throne um from the use of the mechanisms on the garbage trucks themselves um and again in other communities um if it's not in the canister it it won't be picked up and once the education piece and it's been done you know for enough time um most of the time communities do su and they will find the residents for leaving garbage out so I think it um certainly we just need to nail down the cost um and again I I I do see this as um something that we should move towards just not not not comfortable reducing to less than twice a week pickup but certainly with the reservation bulk I think that would help um tremendously as well just for what it's worth on observation and strictly to give you information because you've asked me what do other towns do what do other towns do I have yet to see a town put this to referendum the elected officials make the decisions yeah on that point and I think that's a good place for us to close and we can figure out what we want to do next uh because we only have about 10 minutes before it's eight minutes now before we are scheduled to start our regular meeting um that's there's an additional cost to doing a referendum uh so whatever the savings that we have on the chart would be impacted by that I think there's that much when it's a presidential election I don't think it's a big deal to put a what are the costs there is a cost to having a referendum and it's not just in getting it on the ballot it's continuing on a month-to-month basis with the current contract that we have um uh so there's an additional cost there as well um what I what I think um we we've already made some requests for information um I'm going to trust that the clerk has has gotten them all I just want to reiterate those that were um uh important to me um or at least that I I raised one is the difference in the cost of the carts um I I'd like to know what those prices are and if we went with a smaller cart as a as the base cart uh what that would be from a a capital standpoint um um there was one more now I can't on see uh which yeah and the question was for towns are size 50,000 residents or more um uh Which towns have moved to that uh cart system um there were some questions regarding commercial pickup I know Mr fono was working on some of that data um and um I think is that it what was that I do have a question now that our uh attorneys here okay so Mr jenero this is a question for you that a resident has asked me they want to know um well before I ask you I'm G ask you Mr defo is it only one company that bid on these carts no multiple you had two biders come in well with carts on all four options you had three biders okay bid toal the second low bid was1 18,9 I want to say 90,000 across the board regardless of but it was definitely more than one company I more than one company there was a constituent who thought that this was bid rigging because they felt that they thought that it was only one person no who had uh or one company excuse me that had a bid but you're saying it's two well thank you for answering the question have a question for you then yeah the ad public bid no I understand I'm listen I understand you have to clle third company was disqualified for a faulty bid okay yeah and the the the fiveyear total for the other one that you just referenced was 18.9 yes yeah I had a question about the F the one that was disqualified the bidder that was disqualified was the lowest price why exactly why were they disos their bid was F materially defective what does that mean we required that bid bid on all four options they only bid on one option so maybe they don't do the other two they it doesn't matter bid says bid on all four you're and we can't change that of the fery council but that state law oh the other question that I had was the actual um cost of our last contract I know what the stated cost was it was 14.9 something to that effect but you're been an extension for quite some time I'm not sure I have to I have to look at my file or end it's very unlikely that we'll be able to continue to do a month-to month that's entirely going to be up to Suburban but as you see there's a significant cost increase to continue Services the way we're doing them now they won the bid I think they're going to say well you know either either pick one pick one of the four because they won all four you know they were the lowest bidder in all four categories so for them to continue to charge us less than the bid that they want just doesn't seem like but I would also note that the under the bid we've had to already ask for a second 60-day extension for them to hold these numbers for us we are required in 60 days to award a contract and we have not done that we they've extended for 60 days they are under no obligation to continuously extend these numbers and if they choose to walk away from the bid they're within their rights to do so and we start the whole process over got it um so just please get us actual numbers and um from actual experience with uh Suburban including what our uh actual month-to-month cost is I think that will help um some of my colleagues uh understand that the you know the urgency behind this uh as well um councilwoman calina you had a question com thank you Council I wanted to ask this earlier so on page four of your presentation um and I wanted to ask you this last week Century why did they come in at 189 for each I'm sorry yeah go ahead I'm sorry I was looking at the wrong back oh that's okay so on yeah page for of the packet that you gave us maybe not the slide presentation my apologies Century waste came in at 189 for all four options like you know what's what's the story there like why didn't they have variable pricing I don't know I haven't asked them the reason for their bid numbers I haven't asked them why they bid the number they bid that's their internal decision I I suppose I could ask them I can't see any prohibition for asking from asking them the question yeah it's just it just seem a little odd the answer to your question because Suburban started uh option one and then um went decreased as you know we got to option four and across the board they're charging one price it just seemed a little odd to me anyway I I don't know I just don't know they may not know forget they don't know my conjecture might be they don't know West Orange very well yet and so sometimes if you're new to a community you might get a little H to cushion yourself against the unknown but I have not asked them so I don't know I will call them and ask them I don't see that there's any for my asking a question can I'm curious because it seems a bit odd one one more thing Mr def is was Phil Co cing given an opportunity to um or or did we not know that they only bid on one option were they given an opportunity to um were they alerted to the fact that their uh response was deficient no we can't look at the bids until the bid opening date and once the bids are open that's it got it and we had special Council that ruled on that it was deficient that wasn't an internal Administration decision got it all right uh colleagues anything before we call this uh Workshop to a close at 659 I need a motion to close so move second all in favor any opposed NOP okay the workshop is closed thank you West Orange thank you Mr thank you uh Mr abbit Mr moraldo Mr fanino colleagues um I I hope we don't need another Workshop I hope we can just can I say something with the workshop sure can we next time if we do have a workshop have something where the public can weigh in because a lot there were a lot of complaints that they couldn't weigh in exact that's a hearing we need a general that would be a hearing then we would hearing we should have a hearing not they want to be able to you know their voice and ask questions and chime in and it's hard to do and you know if we don't give them that option to we haven't done the education and they haven't had the opportunity to wa okay but but again today was for us to ask our questions so we could answer them and then we will have that we understand that we're talking about going forward is what we're talking about because there were a lot of complaints about them to have an opportunity to speak but also today we needed the time to get our heads wrapped around this that's part of our job I know but this is also without you getting snippy councilwoman cath you know this is now our second presentation so you know he already did a presentation for I understand the point is if people have questions and that's why I ask my question just like you did it would be nice if we're going to do this again to have an open public forum where the people can speak to us and ask us question I'm for why don't we do one at at either one of the middle schools or the high school where we have a big Auditorium and we can set that up if that's what council wants Wayne can give the whole presentation answer questions um I'm a little reluctant to do Zoom because it's hard way to interact we still not ready for yeah yeah so we're all on the same page then we don't debate that um the other thing I would ask consider need a bigger venue uh you've tabled and and I don't think it's even on the agenda tonight but um when you authorize the ability to bond you're you're pass the resolution you're only authorizing the town to do it if this takes place so it's it's there's really no harm in doing it it's not like well you flung The Arrow that means we're definitely doing this we just don't trigger the bonds if if but the longer we wait you know like we're saying we want to do this education campaign if we do go in this direction and you know potentially January we can actually kick off in the New Year the longer we wait to for the resolution to authorize the bonds the further down the road that goes so it just pushes it out further and further we got open o' understood um thank you Mr Abbott um yeah let's um let's begin our 7 o'clock meeting and I think in new business we can figure out how we want to handle addressing the garbage issues uh or the G Garbage Contract um so again welcome everybody Mr Fagan let me know when you're ready we're gonna open up at 7 o'clock or did we not okay so uh want to welcome everyone uh joining us in person and virtually to our uh June 10th uh council meeting um we are going to begin I still yeah we're going to begin right now I just want to remind us uh to maintain the quum inside um the chamber and uh as usual or at least as since January there will be no public comment from Zoom Madame clerk this is to inform the general public that this meeting is being held in compliance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 the annual notice was emailed to The Star Ledger and filed in the township clerk's office on November 21st 2023 and published in the western orange Chronicle on November 30th 2023 councilwoman castelino present councilwoman gber Michael present councilwoman Scarpa present councilwoman Williams present council president Rutherford mayor McCartney will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I alance United States of America to stands indivisible andice for all the council is now on their public meeting we are going to have the swearing in of our new police officer uh Vincent teresi um Madam mayor Jack it matches did you see that warm good evening thank you good evening council president Council colleagues it is my distinct honor to be here to swear in Vincent teris as our new police officer to thank you praise you for your commitment to protect and serve our community and to also thank your family for being such Community Partners for so many years so e congratulations yeah come join second are we are now going to begin uh our public comment um public comment again is restricted to those that are joining us in person and we're going to begin with Mr Fagan thank you council president certainly it's hard to believe that we are in June already it seems like the year just started uh but June as many of you may know is pride month this slide is currently up on our e sign and it just reinforces that uh West Orange like so many communities is a uh all- welcoming Community um I want to point out that our uh Pleasant Valley Productions is continuing at OAC Saturday June 15 uh Stella Blues Band for the Grateful Dead tribute uh band uh it's only $5 uh General emission at the gate bring your own lawn chairs it's a great night out doors open at 7:00 the performance starts at 7:30 uh also want to mention that upcoming June 23rd of course this is the end of the month uh but I I present this so that there's time to uh register for the mayor's Wellness campaign uh it will be at 10 Rooney circle at the West Orange public library and there will be several screenings uh that will take place uh and if you need a ride the number is up there and you can uh call noellia the number is up there uh to register and uh this flyer is up on our website uh at West orange.org uh so you can uh take a further look at it and um follow the instructions also um we have a busy week ahead of us today is Monday uh and Thursday we have our second uh budget Workshop uh here in council chambers and it will be covered VI Zoom of course there will be no public comment even if you are in count Chambers um juneth we have uh this year juneth will be uh movies uh it will be a whole week of weekend of movies June 21st June 23rd uh you can buy tickets at the website here and this is on our um on our website uh and it has another flyer on our website that has the uh the events the opening will take place on June 21st as mentioned in the Cambria Hotel and then that's Saturday this 22nd there will be a whole host of movies and uh once again you can check this out for further information on our website I also want to point out that there's been a u somewhat of a surge in uh surrounding towns as well as West Orange in crimes of opportunity and um these are the most easy to prevent uh by taking a couple of easy steps and certainly they they may seem obvious but it's worth reminding take the the valuables out of your car lock your car in home leave an outside light on uh if you see something say something nonemergency number of course is 973 325 4000 um and all emergencies for police fire medical of course always dial 911 uh the weather's getting nicer uh so um uh it's it's good to just remember these three key elements in keeping yourself safe uh this past June 2nd had the official dedication of our West Orange Public Library at 10 Rooney Circle the mayor delivered opening remarks the new plaque as you can see here was dedicated and uh Valley fresh um Supreme Bakery and Shop rer West Orange had a delicious uh array of uh food that was available uh at the event uh some other components uh as part of the event the West Orange High School string emble was there to create on beon before the ceremony and they did a wonderful job and um and centered in the photograph there is Max Gman he's the shop teacher at West Orange High School in addition to making the sign outside of the library the shop class made these toys and donated them to the library and of course I had the opportunity to uh do a brief historical presentation on the history of the library and um it was it was my pleasure to do that and I had a very uh fun time uh re searching that and and talking about the history of the library um this Friday June 14th June 14th is Flag Day there's going to be the annual flag retirement ceremony at West Orange fire headquarters at 10:30 a.m. what is the flag rtire retirement any unusable or unserviceable American flags you can bring to Police Headquarters and they will be officially discarded in the proper and respectful way fire head fire head ERS I'm sorry council president if I neglected to mention that and certainly uh there's as was mentioned there's no public comment and from the zoom audience of tonight's speeding but you can contact all Township council members V via email the email address is Council West orange.org I believe that concludes my report council president unless you like me to go on longer thank you Mr Fagan um we'll Now open up public comment for those that are joining us in person uh please approach the microphone you have five minutes to address whatever concerns you have whether they are on the agenda or not um you you do not have to wait you can get in the line if you so choose and I will not be calling people up uh please just come to the mic as you desire first name Barbara last name spelling MK mon address 10 Gaston Street West Orange New Jersey I came today because I wanted to directly speak with the uh all of the board members specifically and the point that I'm going to make is regarding the fact that I had been Distributing flyers in my building for um the seniors I had spoke to you about on a couple occasions and um I'm removing myself as of today from doing that and the reasoning behind that is because to me it's been a conflict of interest in certain things that I see in terms of me doing the flyers and some other matters um I appreciate the fact that councilwoman scarper you had given me this material to do for you to help you which I was also doing what I thought was right in the sight of God you know helping people out and sharing in addition to that my reason for declining to continue to do this any further had a lot to do with conversations that you've had with me on two accounts the May month as well as in the month of uh June uh questions that you were asking me specifically that were basically questions that should have been asked of your co-workers which were the other Council people versus me and some of the questions you know when I responded to you on the phone I gave you some some input on what I felt in terms of the questions that were proposed to me I personally feel like if I'm a counil person and you're a council person and you want to know something about another councel person my thing is you need to go directly to that Inderal not to ask Jane you know what she feels or what she thinks and whatnot and I feel like some of the things that you did ask me was unfair to me and I felt for me it was a disrespect toward me because I shared with you on the phone more than one time that I didn't know and I felt like you should ask them I was curious when I got off the phone why you chose to ask me about this council person and this council person and then and two other people and I'm not even going to bring their names up and I felt like I'd live over here why would you even ask me are they ABC that's something that I figure you being in the administrative position that you're in I felt like you had the ability to ask them yourself because they're your co-workers and I felt it would have been respectfully fair to them versus you asking me over the telephone I don't know what I was supposed to say in response I could have said ABC but what I had been right or would have been wrong had I said anything at all I gave you some suggestions even regarding going to the manager in my building in regard to information that you asked me about as far as doing ABC things for the building things for the people I can't answer a lot of that I talk with a lot of different people on and off to ask to say are you this or ABC I felt that it' be right if you go to the manager in my building set up a meeting with her if she's willing to do that find a designated time I said to you over the phone and see if this doesn't conflict with anything else that might be going on in the building and then ask the people yourselves I can't speak for everybody in the rent house I can't speak for anybody but Barbera I know what I feel I know what you suggested I know what you brought up to me even when we were at the men that cook okay I don't want to get involved in a lot of that stuff because to me it it STS a prodt up that I chose not to be in and choose not to be in simply because that's not who I am okay I don't like conflict and I don't like anything that disrupts who I am at as an individual because when I do something I have a strong passion for it and my passion is to serve the Creator number one and I serve people that I care about so me moving around and asking everybody different Flyers that we had in the building throughout the months I pressed hard to try to get people to go to some of these things I like doing that but I don't want to go outside of the Arena that's going to create conflict these two Flyers that I brought with me today that are Flyers that Laura put out flyers that you put out I overlooked some of the work that's on them different things were confusing some people were asking one lady said today why can't they just put one flyer out and get together and I didn't say anything what I wanted to say is well it would be nice if a lot of this hereit was coordinated together but Laura's Flyers went to everybody in the building she brought them over and they made sure they went under everybody's door in the building so I took your flyer as well as Laura's flyer and I was sitting down and I just chose one dat and I was just looking at something and it was a discrepancy noia spoke with me when she looked at the flyer that I had which is your flyer and she said to me well you know Miss Mar this is not right I said I have nothing to do with that and time is up I said to her you have to speak to the individual thank you for the time just to save so so that's my reason that I'm choosing to uh remove myself from assisting with the Flyers because I don't want to I don't want to get involved in any conflict you know i' rather stay neutral and whatever Flyers get put up in my building I'll just deal with that Laura knows I come over there when I'm when I'm curious if we have any additional flyers and i' rather just let it stay as is thank you rather than for me to continue fantastic thank you anyway for the time uh and allowing me to do this for you just to say I appreciate thank you wellow uh Doug Adams 9 West over just uh with regard to the um the uh Garbage Contract I just had a couple of points I did want to say though that was an amazing discussion on all of your part um your your decorum your questions your Insight um I just think you did a phenomenal job um on option three it says that it's a no cart option but at the bottom it says fiveyear net savings with cart costs so um I probably don't have all the information you have but it it did pose the question of what Cart cost is included if there's no cart uh involved in that so the math just didn't work well for me um I did think about the and you guys asked and talked about the cost for small businesses um one thing that occurred to me is the carts have a 10year warranty on them um the first five years um there's still a cost associated with it so you don't really recoup the cost for the expenditure of the carts until the second fiveyear period that's your break even point so after 10 years you're at the break even point and now the warranty is up um and so I'm sure they're great carts and everything but it just seems like by the time you even break even you don't even make money on the carts until after that uh period so what's the lifespan of the carts after that 10-year period what's the maintenance of it um lived in Chicago for 10 years Chicago has a huge roding problem and not just rats or mice squirrels and they had some very robust animal resistant carts and they literally chewed through those mugs now I don't know how long it took but they chewed through them and the guy who owned the multif family place where it was is his business was past control and and it was still a challenge um I think the issue of the carts being chipped is cool um except for the fact that um I struggle a little bit with using carts for policing um that that just is a little bit um challenging um because it just is a little bit challenging um I think that the size and the placement issue is a concern the challenges and council president you said this very astutely about about having a cart inventory so the question becomes if the town owns the cart now I I have my family in my house so we generate a lot of garbage we have two recycling bins we have um three cans and we still have to put out bags and the 32 gallon can at one point was the legal limit because I actually bought a bigger can and then couldn't use it because it was too big and so um the the and I understand that's when they were doing it mechanically but I have two of the 32 gallon ones that you get from Home Depot they're pretty strong you got to lift the lid but then I have other cans as well uh particularly like you say during holidays and celebrations and I'm I'm very meticulous about Recycling and so I will go through my family's garbage cans to take garbage out to put it in the recycling bin and so a smaller recycling bin is problematic because in the moments that we do have recycling fol are just going to throw the recycling away if I don't have enough space in it I'm just going to throw it away I'm not gonna mess around so I I do think there's a challenge because those things can be big and depending upon what you put in them it can be very heavy to take down so having the space to have smaller cans was a really big thing um to consider the cost of additional staff because there is Management on it um what happens when the property gets sold this guy requests smaller cans I buy the property it was a mom and dad they sold went down to the shore now it's me and my five kids and my wife and now we need bigger cans do I have to pay more for it is the town going to go get cans where do you have them at how are they coming in so those issues if we own them become important and is there an exchange program if we buy a certain number of cans if the cans carts are slightly used or unused can we exchange them for cans of a different size since we're going to have to manage now who has what cans and what size what what benefits does the provider give to us with regard to those cans your time and I did not hear the answer about what happens with the six cans that I have that now I got to get rid of what happens to those thank you hello my name is Alicia K I'm a little bit nervous um my name is Alicia CR do I have to give my full address or can I just give my street that's fine Street okay I live on L Circle um I guess the concern that I have is I live in a condo or a townhouse I don't know the logistics of um legally but um those carts are very big and I have to keep my in my I have to keep my garbage in my garage and I'm not sure that I don't have that big of a car but it's big enough that it would be tight to have um such a large garbage can and I wouldn't know what to do with my old garbage can um if everything doesn't fit and then another concern I have I'll just go for it but um I guess over the last couple of weeks you guys have been um I've heard about um like affordable housing and whatnot and for people like myself I don't qualify for any public assistance but then at the same time I make too much money um I make too much money for public assistance but not quite enough to um do what I want to do on my own so I don't know if there's any programs that the township can maybe do like nort does or um Irvington may do where they help some of the residents but I know the cost of living is very high and it's a struggle not to be able to get affordable housing or get um affordable taxes or affordable whatsoever so I don't know if the town can do anything but I just wanted to throw that out there that's it can you repeat your last name I'll spell it um c r a d d o c k okay thank you thank you good evening um my name is Courtney burcher I live on Forest Hill Road Courtney I'm sorry your last name birchler Birch like the tree um uh I live on Forest Hill Road and my daughter my older daughter goes to Playhouse Nursery School um and um so I'm this is totally off topic of any of the agenda items for tonight but this morning there was a car accident on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Chestnut Street and a um a car ran the stop sign and then hit another car that wound up on the sidewalk right as all the children were going to school and so I was um we've been talking among the parents and I and so we heard the council meeting was tonight and um so I'm asking that the council look into whether there's additional things could be done um more uh police presence there to S because I know a lot of people cut through that Franklin a like to get to avoid that part of Harrison from Montclair um so more policing around the the traffic violations in that area speed bumps would be really awesome because especially at 9:00 am and you know 3 P.M and 5:00 p.m there's a lot of really little children walking around there and a lot of people blow those stop signs so to the extent the council can look into whatever kind of traffic enforcement or um speed reduction um uh capabilities you can do to help our Littles it would be really great thanks thank you good evening Todd moovie Bernette Terrace um couple things uh on the garbage and recycling contract I think it was two Council meetings ago at least three of you on the council agreed that the bids themselves should be posted were made available I don't see that they've been made available um it seems to me the administration just ignores what is asked of you and figure if you don't do it people will forget we don't forget post the bids the complete bids including the one that was rejected for whatever reason it was rejected so that we can understand what they actually said and it and not not taking somebody else's word from people who um unfortunately we can't trust sorry so I'm asking again that our council members insists that this Administration provide what's been asked of them that's the first thing second thing is there's a resolution for a municipal Insurance Fund that also would have um Mr smdo as the commissioner of it um I'd be curious to know more about what that fund is supposed to be is that where our premiums that we're paying are are is going to go and those funds will get invested until claims are made or I mean I don't know much about those but that's my basic understanding of what a municipal Insurance Fund is but I we should know more about it the resolution provides zero background which is frankly which excuse me which is frankly typical of what we get from the administration I also question having Mr smar Aldo as the commissioner do you have insurance Andor investment background that sub substantiates having a second full-time job or maybe a second job on top of an already full-time job I'm generally opposed to having our town employees wearing multiple hats when they're supposed to have a full-time job and all of a sudden they have two three full-time jobs and being paid accordingly for those this is why the city this town's budget is is insane and it's why it's out of control and there is no fiscal Prudence being exhibited by this Administration thank you for your time thank you anyone else seeing none we are going to close public comment uh I want to thank all of those that have um raised their issues with us tonight I'm going to ask my colleagues to respond we're going to go in reverse order this time going to begin with councilwoman Williams thank you council president uh greetings West Orange thank you so much for giving us your voice this evening I just wanted to respond thank you Pastor Adams for your comments obviously we still have much discussion and debate regarding the garbage collection and thank you for uh reminding me that the pickup of the current containers that are already in use um was not addressed I did ask that question um we do have uh several traffic concerns so miss um burer uh Chief will certainly respond to the requests uh for increased enforcement and safety in that area U Mr devoi thank you for your comments um yes we have continued to ask for things and sometimes we unfortunately don't get them so we will continue to request um the garbage contracts be posted on the website so that everyone will have the opportunity to review them and also um Miss kraic at Len Circle just also wanted to note that um we did talk about the different sizes of the containers based on the fact that some people may not have um the uh location or the property real estate to actually store the larger sized containers so duly noted with your commentary as far as affordability um that is something that is very very important um to me I have not only do I understand that there are persons who want to continue to live in West Orange and affordability is a critical um issue but it is not only for people who want to do well but we have our seniors who are on fixed incomes that we have to be concerned with and the affordability um Factor weighs in heavily on them we have young people who are just leaving their homes or returning from college who have lived here been educated here all their lives and without going back to their house their parents' homes they can't afford to live um in West Orange as well as far as programs that the municipality has available I'm certainly not aware of any you sound like you're right in between that hard um rock and and nowhere um but certainly I think that we can try and see where you are and if there are any other um suggestions or recommendations that we may be able to to have but it's it's tough it's tough and I understand that so I want to acknowledge that um thank you Mr Fagan for continuing to highlight uh juneth um juneth is our Film Festival this year we have celebrated juneth in West Orange for the past four years um this year we have the three days of the festivals please everyone go to the website um and click on the links and reserve your tickets um our Festival venues have limited capacity and we want to be able to have as many people present as we can um so don't wait until the last minute to to reserve your tickets and as a reminder um only the opening reception has a nominal cost to it it is $25 um that we have vendors food entertainment as well as a meet and greet with the different actors producers and script writers that um are being featured over the weekend but all of the other events are free free free free um so again please make your reservations um all the information is on the township website and different uh Township um social media Outlets that's all I have uh council president I think I highlighted everyone because there were so uh few comments thank you councilman councilman SC thank you thank you Joe for all your comments and for highlighting ASPC we had a wonderful time Saturday night I want to thank Noelia and uh Laura and Mr fansen know for getting the party bus for the seniors they were so appreciative and they had such a wonderful time it was a beautiful night they loved getting out of the house and Rosemary Clooney is an old favorite um unfortunately it was a very very light turnout so it's nice that the seniors were there because they were about half the audience it was one of the lightest turnouts but hopefully as it's graduation time as I had reached out to many people they had wanted to come many of the seniors but they had graduation parties and family events so hopefully uh this Saturday will'll be much more attended and a lot of them would love to go to Sister Act which is in July we have a full and we'll bring up the full uh compliment of of services and and programs there but there's a lot of wonderful things all summer and it's a great fun thing to do for five dollar um Barbara um thank you for sharing your thoughts with me um as you know the flyer was put together um at your request for a calendar and a lot of seniors had been asking me for a similar kind of thing for a very long time so that was a great incentive for me to do it at no way did I expect you to be the distribution mechanism and certainly don't want it to be a burden for you we will find an efficient way to um get the flyer out it's you know it's in its initial stage stages it encompasses a lot of things that are going on around town at The JCC a lot of things that the county does so it's a little bit beyond the scope of what Laura is doing and both are really important pieces of paper for you guys to have um I have been putting out in a lot of different places around town it's gotten rave reviews and it's been a invaluable resource to a lot of um seniors but um we C I certainly don't expect you to take on that birth and I'll make sure that we find a more efficient way to distribute it Pastor Adams thanks again for your thoughtful remarks about the garbage um I am in agreement with most of them um we do have a lot of hurdles and uh hopefully you'll be involved in the discussions as we move forward particularly when we can have more participation from our residents this is an area where I really believe residents need to have a voice voice many don't even know it's happening it is going to profoundly affect their lives and I still say I really believe a referendum is the kind of thing that should be a referendum and we could easily be because education is a real issue Communications and education with our re residents has always been a challenge and we haven't even begun to educate people about what this is going to mean for them and their families so thank you for for bringing it up um Alicia I have the same concern as you do about the garbage I I live on Gregory Avenue and I have three nice small garbage cans that I'm able to tuck away one for recycling and two others and the size is overwhelming to me I I'm thinking about where I would put something of that size on my property so I do um understand your concerns and thank you for bringing them out um Mrs Booker uh buer Berkshire um uh sa pedestrian safety has always been an issue in town and we work very seriously and very hard on that I live on Gregory Avenue and it used to be a Speedway until the parents of the Gregory school children came out and had continued to Advocate to put the crosswalks at lawren and at lington and I can't tell you how much more manageable the traffic is on my street I as a child growing up I used to W I live right on the curve um in between Lawrence and lington and I used to witness accidents constantly and now I haven't seen any so keep coming out and advocating for the safety um councilwoman gber Michael is on pedestrian safety so she might have a little more to talk to about that and and go to them and hopefully there are things that we can do to make that intersection safer for the preschoolers uh Todd doovi again I completely agree with you and I will ask um the administration to post more information on the website relating to the garbage contract and I don't know if you want to do it now council president or later but I guess the administration can address his concern about the municipal Insurance Fund the change of employees from con yeah we'll have you Administration respond uh at the end of public comment thank you councilwoman scotford councilwoman gber Michel good evening everyone thank you to all of you here in person and council chambers and on Zoom uh for joining us this evening and for your feed back um so I am going to start off with um Mr Adams thank you for bringing up your questions um I am against reducing garbage pickup to once a week and I also don't think we should be getting the cards um this is just me and and my tractions with residents um so it's G to you know it's not an easy decision no matter which way we vote or what bid we decide some people will be happy others won't we're not going to make everyone happy so it is a really tough decision but the one thing I do not support is reducing Services um um Miss uh uh cadok kraic I'm Sorry Miss kraic um I have the same concerns as well I also live in a Town Home Association and my garage just fits my car and we can't leave our garbage bins out either right so you know if we were to go to the cart system I would have to go to the smallest one possible in which once we pick up is definitely not enough for me um so I Echo those those concerns as well and your questions regarding what uh other Ser uh programs we have to offer for our residents in terms of um Citizen Services I'm going to defer to the administration um Mrs burler uh thank you for sharing your concerns um we have a pedestrian safety Advisory Board and our next meeting is tomorrow not tomorrow evening sorry about today is Tuesday we usually have our meetings on Tuesdays uh our next meeting will be held this Wednesday on June 12th at 7:30 p.m. at the Thomas Edison Museum it is open to the public you should come uh you can also go on the on our website and type in pedestrian safety board and you can send an email to our chairperson um unfortunately I will not be at that meeting because we have an ABC hearing here in council chambers at the same time it's a crazy week for us between council meeting ABC hearing Wednesday and then budget meeting on on Thursday so please do come to that meeting meeting um and then Mr devoi thank you for uh sharing your concerns um you know we can only do our part we ask the administration to do something and you know we'll ask again I do believe it should be posted in timely fashion I believe that before as soon as we get the information it takes you know just a few minutes to upload it on on the website so everyone else has access because that would have been helpful tonight for those who took the time from their busy day to listen in virtually or come here and sit down to have that information with them and I also feel aside from just the bids we should also put up Mr deo's presentation online as well so and I'm not sure if that's been done but Administration if you guys can please please do that in a timely fashion thank you so much and um that's it I can that concludes oh one last thing with Le Leon announcements the open space board this year's open space tour is scheduled for June 23rd at noon please arrive 10 to 15 minutes uh before so the bus can leave on time it'll be about 2 to three hours so plan accordingly and uh everyone will be meeting at here at Town Hall at noon on June 23rd and the next meeting will be held September 5th no meetings the Summer with the open space board thank you concludes my announcement thank you councilwoman uh councilwoman Celina thank you council president thank you folks everyone for coming coming out this evening with all your great uh comments and information um so I'm going to start off with uh Miss monk I want to thank you for coming in I'm gonna ask my Council colleague if if you could just please have a conversation with Miss van djk about um the the concerns over at Rena house so from what I'm hearing and I appreciate your effort and what you're the information you're trying to get out but I think it's important with senior services that when we talk about flyers and information coming from the Department that it has to be streamlined and I know Noelia uh Prez um and miss van Dy if anyone wants a flyer mail to their home I think last time I said if you if they call their number is 973 325 4106 for those who can't go online don't have access or rather not just receive the flyer they will mail the Flyers directly to them as well but where my concern is and and hopefully I'll talk talk to you about this offline is that the in like we just don't have confusing information going to to our seniors uh our seniors so that all the information is streamlined and I I know the need for um for a calendar and I think that was important and thank thank you very much for getting that out um and hopefully I believe in the mayor's office uh Administration the mayor there's going to be um someone working in the mayor's office now so they'll be able to update is one of their tasks to update the calendar on the township website I know Miss Quirk used to do that and that's why information would be posted up there with a lot of the events so I just want to make sure that there's just not conflicting information going out second um Mr Adams thank you very much for all your questions and concerns about the carts and with the chips and whatnot um and this why I love hearing feedback from the public um with the chips I was thinking I wonder if that played into the pricing if we ordered parts without the chips I'm not sure if that's a benefit or not um but yeah there's a lot of variables with with us moving to carts or changing the service at all option three I believe you asked the question uh the difference with that one I have the benefit of having the paper in front of me um that one was option three was only one time a week pickup no carts no commercial collection no electronic waste and then the onetime reservation uh by both and township owns and selects the uh recyclable market so um my other question I didn't ask Mr defil tonight was those cans um seem very square and big shorter and bulky I know they come in taller um and thinner I'm not sure if that would help as well so this is a lot of work we're not there yet especially you know with the commercial businesses but um hopefully we'll have better conversation next week uh at the budget hearing as well because the problem that we have and I mentioned it earlier in the evening is the budget that we're working with is already set for the option four which is one time a week with the carts no commercial no electronic waste one time reservation and we own own the market for the recyclables and to now go to the other options we're going to have to really you know figure that out with our budget and to see if we keep the remaining service what that looks like and as council president stated some numbers earlier um will will be a higher uh percentage so it'll be interesting conversation next week but I look forward to more information coming in uh Mr doovi I appreciate um you asking about the posting the bids and I did have a a conversation with our purchasing agent last week uh when I went in to ask about um the posting of it online the problem with that is other towns don't also post the bids online unless they're redacted and our contract is VE our bid was very complicated and there's very so many variables in it with all of the pass through contracts that we do for example lellan Park the other associations even though they pay for their own pickup we still have to provide the service so all of that is um computed into the bid so there's a lot of information that needs to be redacted before it gets posted to the website and all the bids um I saw the pile it's it's it's this big so that's a lot of redacting that would have to get done by uh the purchasing department I'll let Administration speak to that um but I did ask Mr defo what other towns post their bids and he said they do not that's not what they post online so um again could that be done um anything's possible to do and it's a matter of the expense and I'll let Administration speak to that with the redacting of the information so that was the answer I received and I I appreciated um the opport but that doesn't mean my colleagues at any given time does not have access to those bids we do have access to those bids so if any one of us want to sit there and read that stack of paperwork that came in we have that opportunity I have not chose to do that because I have not had the time yet um but if any of my colleagues would like to they they you do have access so you can come in and you could read those bids at any given time uh I look forward to Mr Aldo's response on the resolution and let's see Miss kraic um I know there are some housing opportunities with HUD in the cities that you mentioned we don't have that available here unfortunately um but definitely understand because because it's just Cost of Living has gone up tremendously and it's just so frustrating um just make an ends meet these days so um where we did approve some more affordable housing options in the town with some of the various projects that we did um you saw the library dedication the opening so we were able to move our library up to Rooney Circle and have 65 um senior housing affordable 100% affordable uh apartments that are going to be across the parking lot so open up by the end of the year um so um again we try to work on our projects and and be mindful in that respect and then uh Miss berler thank you very much for coming down and yeah that had to be really really scary with that accident and I know Franklin Avenue in the morning they do they do come down there quickly you asked about the speed bumps and the speed bumps U Miss carbal and administration could speak to that so the residents would have to weigh in on that street a letter would have to go out and um we've had a lot of um action items in the past couple months in regards to various stop signs and some other mechanisms to C uh calm and slow down traffic and so you know Administration I'm sure has taken notes and they would have to send miss carbal our Township engineer out there to look at the site and to see if um you know if they could do something uh there um that's that so with that I appreciate all the speakers for coming down I do want to note on um Mr Fagan's comments and I just want to thank him um we haven't met since Memorial Day service and I have to tell you Mr Fagan you you took over uh the lead this year and you did a tremendous job and I really like to thank you it was a beautiful service this year we uh honored our uh our lost Heroes on the honor rooll that sits outside council chambers um and it was uh 80 and very appropriate because uh the other day we celebrated in our country are recognized and remembered 80 years since D-Day and and those those uh honores on the wall outside council chambers were were listed there so I thank you very much for taking over that service and it was a beautiful day and and speaking of Team efforts I just want to thank all involved with the downtown allian Street Fair uh Miss BR was I we'll have to have pictures for the next time but what a great event uh it's over 6,000 people once again attended our main street over 130 vendors uh 16 food trucks uh we had more cars than ever for the car show um I really have to give a shout out to public works even on both events but they were tremendous that day uh our police and fire uh Fighters just assisting all and uh it was just a great proud day here in the township and so many volunteers we had over 55 volunteers uh help us this year and uh we really appreciate all and a lot big thanks to our downtown director and all our commissioners for all their hard work of coming out to really uh put together great team effort uh to host that many visitors to downtown Main Street thank you council president thank you councilwoman um want to thank everybody that uh responded again uh in public comment um going to begin uh with M Mrs monk I do thank you uh for your uh um comment tonight and raising the issue I too have heard uh some concerns about the flyer do think it's important that uh one set of information go out from the senior department so hopefully we can work together to incorporate uh some of what um uh councilwoman scarp is trying to communicate but uh make sure that there's one uh consistent communication going out to everybody without any conflicting uh information um to the rest of the comment um I am I am going to reserve commenting publicly on the rest of that and we'll have some private conversations um with with regard to the rest of your commentary but I do thank you for your advocacy and bravery tonight um to uh Pastor Adams we are still in the process no decisions have been made um I think one of the general consensus amongst the five of us is that we are not interested in cutting service from two uh times a week to one um I I there is no to your uh question about the break even Point uh there is no break even point on the carts we don't we don't make money on the carts that is a sunk cost uh we will buy the carts we will not uh recoup those costs um outside of the normal property tax paying uh process um so to provide that service based on the numbers that were presented to us tonight um um that's a part of our calculus is what do we do uh with regard to options uh one or two uh at least as far as I can tell from our my colleagues tonight uh do we do carts or not um I do understand your question about policing using the carts for policing with regard to the chips I think that was covered during the presentation uh it is not meant for that purpose um I think it is meant to collect data uh on uh usage particularly with regard to recycling um now does that mean that uh data can't be abused or misused any data can be abused or misused um but in this case uh the data um I you know I think I think we can um I can I think we can do what we as a council can do to make sure that the data had maintains its integrity and is used in a way that's consistent with our goal uh the the question about what happens when the house is sold the the carts remain with the house um and that's a part of what the chief was discussing earlier folks may decide they want a larger or smaller cart they would then reach out to the township the township would come and pick up the existing cart and replace it with the one that they wanted uh which was my understanding of why we would need to have some inventory uh even if we um get Advanced orders from house households uh and there is no uh there was no discussion about what happens to the cans that are currently owned uh my assumption was uh that those cans uh would be repurposed by each individual homeowner uh or become garbage themselves um that could pose a problem um uh with the cans becoming garbage uh you know just another form of waste which is a part of what we're trying to address in this contract uh but I don't know uh if we'll be able to work some out around that I'm sure we'll discuss it at our next meeting uh and at uh in our new business tonight we're going to discuss what the protocol well what our next step will be with regard to addressing the Garbage Contract um Mr CTIC um so uh want to direct you to uh Essex County as well they are limited resources here on the township level uh but the county does have some additional resources to help homeowners particularly or residents particularly even if you're not a homeowner um this is for renters as well uh depending upon or or folks that are similarly situated as you I don't know what the qualification criteria are uh but I do think you should at least investigate some of it is um yeah some of it is not quite as restrictive as you would expect uh councilman gber Michael um would be a perfect contact for you uh so if you would reach out to her I'm sure she can direct you to the right uh resources and departments to see what additional help may be there but with regard to your general comment about affordable housing we absolutely need more affordable housing I think we owe uh based on our last um uh the the numbers that came out uh almost 10 years ago now I think it's going to be redone soon about 1100 units or at least thousand units or so uh so we certainly do need more affordable housing we are not alone it is a national crisis uh every Community is dealing with it in one way or another um now that doesn't make it any better for us uh but we are very much focused on it so we know that there are some additional projects coming uh in the in the next few years uh that can help us alleviate uh some of the pressure we have on those seeking affordable housing um uh that is not uh uh an issue that is going to be resolved quickly uh and it will require consistent and intentional effort from both the council and the administration uh to do so um but you can be assured that I for one and and I believe my colleagues uh as well uh are both aware and uh intentional about addressing that issue um Miss burler uh disappointed to hear about the accident grateful that uh at least as far as I could tell from your comments that no one was hurt um I I am very much aware and have been advocating for sidewalks and uh increased traffic enforcement um in various parts of town uh Franklin and Chestnut um certainly is not exempt from that uh we know that there's a series of stop signs and and many people choose to do a rolling stop if a stop at all uh on Franklin Avenue so um I'm going to uh defer to the police chief on what we can do I've I've uh requested in the past or asked if it was possible to have increased traffic enforcement in a rotating space you know we've got some uh resource constraints we can't have police everywhere um we certainly don't want to create a police state in West Orange but we do want to crack down on the on the traffic enforcement um we've seen in other neighborhoods in other towns rather um people are afraid to speed through some other towns and people are afraid to run stop signs and that's because they don't know where the police may be um and I would love to have that kind of culture here uh for folks to be afraid and it's not uh an urban or Suburban thing uh if you go in East Orange people are afraid that they're going to get pulled over by the police because that's the culture there if you go to rosand or Verona people are afraid to uh have traffic infractions because they're going to get pulled over by the police so whether you're east or west of West Orange um they have been able to create that type of culture um we I would love for us to create that as well so when people drive through they understand if they don't pay attention to the speed limit um they are going to get a ticket um now I will say uh in in many of these cases um at least the ones that I've raised uh both police and DPW have been um very responsive uh I raised an issue several weeks ago uh on Main Street uh by Edison and uh there was an immediate action taken by our uh director zabeth carbal uh to put a a Crossing um sign in the middle of the street and that was followed up with additional request from the county via email I think the email went out it may have gone out today or yesterday but recently it did take some work to make the request but she immediately began working on that problem so uh I am grateful to our Department of Public Works in general and our director in particular um uh for addressing it there we're going to raise it with uh that department uh going forward as well um now uh uh Council mge Michael informed me that the pedestrian safety Advisory board meeting is cancelled for Wednesday yeah so I apologize sorry council president I apologize for misinforming you when we had our meeting last month they said it was cancelled but I went on the website and was still on there so I thought maybe it was still on so I apologize to West orang and anyone listening for giving wrong information um feel free to email me and I'll find out for you when the next meeting is so I just didn't want you showing up on Wednesday evening and no one being there but that is the proper place for these kinds of concerns and and um we do want to um make sure that they are aware because they take a global approach to pedestrian safety in town uh and uh we are a town that is committed to Vision zero uh which is reducing the number of traffic accidents um both vehicular and pedestrian uh townwide uh so please do raise your concerns but uh we've already noted them and we'll be um doing the work whether we actually interact with you directly or not it's another question uh but we certainly will pick up uh that uh consideration going forward uh Mr doovi um so to to the point about the bids not being posted and I understand that uh councilman calino and I thank you for that explanation I think it would be great if that explanation was provided right away and then we wouldn't have the question in the followup um um but you know I do understand um you know private companies not wanting those specific details uh put out it would it could perhaps Prejudice other municipalities it could force adverse actions uh or unintended consequences um uh in the in the in the uh with regard to those particular vendors that have the contracts or those that have responded to the bid now we have to balance that with the need for transparency because we are uh the public sector we are not the private sector uh so there there has to be some balance um between what we provide uh and what we receive uh and and I'll defer to um Mr abbit to uh or Mr Smo to address that um so there is a need to provide more information exactly what additional information can be provided I I think is a is a a concern that is going to be driven by the administration it is not something that the council can force them to do uh that is an executive branch function uh we do requests though to your point and uh on too many occasions requests have just gone into The Ether um with regard to your question about uh the commissioner role I will just re um defer to Mr smdo to address that as well uh the resolution that's on tonight and I think there may be some misunderstanding about what that role actually Ina entails um but I'm happy to have Mr SM moraldo address uh that as well um and now um I wanted to to uh do two things um uh first uh wanted to in just congratulate the West Orange African Heritage organization uh on their outstanding event uh fundraiser yesterday menu cook uh my colleagues uh councilwoman G Michael and councilwoman scraa and I all supported the event um and it was an outstanding uh turnout outstanding time everybody had a great time there great food uh and they raised a ton of money for scholarships which is important in a Township like West Orange um uh so I'm grateful to have been able to participate uh there yesterday uh I was uh I'm going to make uh some comment in new business tonight I just want to get it out now because not everybody will be on at that time um and so I want the township to know I was alerted to some challenges with uh the new auditor that we have Mr Klein um with regard to other towns where he's done that work so I'm going to discuss that in new business tonight um and I'm going to follow that with a renewed call and a focus call I think I'm now prepared as a result doing this work uh looking at Mr Klein uh to request a for G it I'm going to present that to my colleagues and see if we can uh get the support to go down that road now I am clear on the direction that we need to go in uh with regard to the forensic AIT um and I will also ask for a followup on our CFO search uh all of these things are related um um you know we dealt with the contract tonight that's a a budgetary concern all of these things I think have a dollar value attached to them and certainly want to um make sure that we do our due diligence as a council um with regard to um how we handle taxpayer funds um there are some other issues I'm going to bring up with regard to Public Safety they are I don't believe will be controversial uh but in new business I will bring those up as well um um and I think yeah I think that does it for me um Mr Abbott could you please address the uh traffic enforcement uh issues as and Mr smor Aldo could you address the resolution uh for the insurance commissioner uh I've a list of things if that's okay for me please expand on what you've asked for um the chips in the carts as I think you covered is really just data and how far down we drilling at thata is entirely up to us us um you know it somebody steals a cart that helps us track a cart things like that but um to to search garbage in New Jersey a government agent needs a search one so nobody's going thinking through anybody's garbage I think that cuts it off right there and ends it um Mr doovi I'm not aware of anybody drawing multiple salaries I know some of us myself included wear multiple hats in 2012 mayor Pari asked me if I would be the director of operations for the township I did that from 200 12 to last August I never got a dime for that I still don't get a dime for it um mayor McCartney asked me if I would serve as the intern business administrators I'm doing that tonight I'm sitting here for free not collecting any money for that um if you're you're on the budget committee as councilwoman scarpa's appointment if you two will collaborate and if you can identify anybody who's collecting multiple salaries I think we can all dive in when we have our next budget meeting and go right head on at that uh as far as the Insurance Fund that's a uh commission it requires a full-time Township employee it can be anybody it meets once a month I don't think we want to run out and hire somebody just to do that but I'll let Mr smarald expand on that um Mr Jenaro is going to handle the bids as far as the playhouse uh we did do some traffic engineering enhancements down there to allow for more parking for parents safer drop off and so on um as you know with council's uh assistance we were able to restripe the intersections down there um but we'll we'll be sure to add that to the rotation we do have all the public and private schools in town in addition to other daycare centers so it's a it's a moving Target but we can definitely spend some time down there we're not going to just assume that everything's good and do nothing um and I'll speak with our Township engineer miss carbal about this feed Huns turn over to Mr Moralo yeah thank first of all um regarding the U the bid documents going on the website that was at the last meeting I did bring it back to the rtion to discuss it um and one of the things we wanted to find out is whether we should or could put these up on on the website and as was pointed out by councilwoman celino one we have to make sure and I'm G ask Mr Jenaro to give you the legal on it but we have to redact it plus also if we put one bid up we got to put them all up if we put them all up we don't have enough time in a day to prepare these bids and let a loan start redacting them all so In fairness to everybody we'd have to do them all if that's something that is requested of you and and you did ask me last meeting so I I did present it to them and I wanted to make sure we got back to you tonight so we did have an answer prepared for you I'm sorry it wasn't ahead of time but you know we we wanted to make sure this was uh presented to you but um you know for us it's it's laborious for us to do every single bid document that way um and if that's the case then then when we go to budget hearings then we have to start thinking about positions if that we want to hire somebody just to redact or send them to legal to pay for it that's that's a decision and as it's been pointed out no other municipality really does that for those reasons it's just a cost-saving effect if if somebody wants these documents Oprah and we'll send them out and they this particular as you you witnessed this one's voluminous it's it's like you when you go to when you go to a deli I'll I'll have something this size please you know so it's one of the things we uh you know we look at so I did bring it back to the administrator I want to make sure you understand that and we do take it serious that you want things done and we we're trying to do our best to make sure that we adhere to that if you would like uh Mr defos we'll put a his we can put that up there that's not a a document that we have to work about we can put up Mr teo's presentation for you that that's a simple ask okay um regarding the commission well there's three people on the commission it's uh put in place by ordinance I know the two people right now council president councilwoman Scara um if you so inclined to support putting me on this board tonight i' be honored to do it I appreciate it it is required by our ordinance that somebody from the municip house municipal government has to um to sit on this board we put out a resol we put out an application of the 310 employees well so uh you know yeah it's an uncompensated position I was asked to do it because Mr gross is retiring as we all know and he they came Mr gross the mayor Mr a came to me and said would you mind sitting on this board for us we would like you to do that I said yes so if if you feel confident that I will do a good job for you then please vote for me if you feel that You' like to get another employee on board we'll have to try and P that's about as best I can answer that thank you for all you two thank you gentlemen uh the next if you'd like Mr jaro further on the ordinance sure sure just before that the next insurance commission meeting is on I think the 25th uh and if so uh would you then if we vote tonight would you then be sitting in uh Mr gross was uh okay so it would be you thank you thank you Mr J think chiefo essentially laid out everything now if they are there are requests for them obviously there's going to be some redactions under Oprah certain financial information is UND disposable under Oprah um and there's material that may be considered advisory consultative and deliberative obviously we'd have to review the documents go through the stack referen um to make yours thank you sir uh any any follow-ups from my colleagues before we move into our agenda um so I just will say I I had every intention of voting for you Mr smor Aldo both Council M and I serve on that commission we know it's an uncompensated uh position uh and uh it's an important role actually in town um you know for those residents that have to you know um use those services and um so bore board you know should should have passed tonight um all right uh Madam clerk okay the review of the consent agenda uh approval of minutes of previous meeting public meeting of May 21st 2024 and exec session of May 7th report of Township officers none reading of petitions and Communications and bids none uh Bill list are there any questions on the bills list s okay consent consent okay thank you resolutions are any resolutions being pulled this evening yes Council mcab Michael 174 176 and that's it for 1 uh councilwoman Williams 174 176 were pulled by councilwoman gbra Michaels correct councilwoman Williams questions regarding uh 174 uh the types of permit equals what well that was pulled yeah I pulled 174 so we'll discuss it then yes okay um 175 that was not F you're pulling or questions questions these are questions I have questions uh five LS legal just more information if we could have it it just says the first offense second offense and third EV um I just didn't understand what this was referencing so if I can get an explanation on that so you get a ticket you get a ticket the first offenses uh was it $100 second is 200 third is 500 I think that's what the scill said violations right so I just wanted to go back to a request that we had made previously that when we referenced an ordinance we put what that ordinance actually discusses or is I don't understand that made request SE Sor I've made a request several times that when we have resolutions they mention a ref ordinance number but they don't mention the title or what it actually is and people don't know they don't have that context they don't know I put it on the website I literally put the or with it on the website this time thinking I was doing the right thing yes but our version does I don't go to the website gosite I have it right here in paper so for me I don't know what some and that's why the name of the ordinance thank you so you need the title of the ordinance yes and and a little summary of what basically what it is so people know parking and fireing well I know but that was that was for councilwoman Williams that was her question and she mentioned how we've asked in past and that's one of the reasons why I pulled 174 because I have no idea what it's talking about when you read it like 175 at least says it's fire lanes All right so so hold on so let's get through all the questions I I yeah let's get through all of the questions first so 175 we've got a question no 175 question is answered I just want to know duly noted okay so the question was answered anything else Council Williams yes no sorry 177 177 councilwoman Williams has a question anything else um what do you want me to ask the question no no no we're going to do all of the questions we'll get them all pulled or question now amongst all five of us and then we'll go through them in order I'm confused I'm sorry so I'm gonna ask you which ones you want to pull and have questions on then SCA I don't want to pull I just have a question I don't need to pull right so now we've noted the question once we're done with everyone we'll go through all of them that have questions okay so 177 you don't want me to tell you what the question is now you want me to wait no just yeah okay um 184 184 yep and then 190 190 I didn't realize we were doing it that way I just have a comment on 187 okay comment on 87 councilwoman scraa no I'm good councilwoman Cino uh I got all my questions answer I just want to make a comment at 190 we go to 190 okay or a reminder letter all right so so that we're we're we're clear we we'll take the questions first 175 was answered we've got questions on 177 184 and 190 and they were by councilwoman Williams 177 um 177 how many inspectors so with this contract it seems like we're subcontracting out some of the inspections that are typically them by the health department this is director fonos this is a grant supported position he's just asking this to get um Extended because we received a grant and this inspector works I believe it's two times a week to help us with our health inspections goes for one more year it's it's a grant it's not it's a continual grant for somebody that we have already in the position so that's what I was asking so we're not subcontracting the workout through the company the grant is through the company and we already have the person y this is in place and we're just continuing with this service and it's just one inspector correct correct thank you um 184 um my question regarding 184 was um what does the uh administrator for the municipal Insurance Fund actually do and you actually answered the position and the statutory requirement and that you're filling it but I still don't know what that Insurance Fund is for or what the purpose is so if you could explain that because I don't know myself the Insurance Fund is established through the ordinance as I said before and it's for the purposes of there's money set aside every year to defend the town from lawsuits and that this board or this commission looks at all the lawsuits that we deal my understanding is that we deal with the the uh the claims and we we make decisions on what's best to represent and protect the town in so is this the same thing the J fund it's all claims it's all claims okay this is mostly workers comp uh claims that we've had we've had a couple of property uh claims come through generally speaking um if the township is in a liable position um our attorneys are going back and forth and and uh sometimes they recommend that we settle they recommend an amount that we would settle on and then we would take a vote to decide if that is appropriate or not or if we want to settle at all um it's not the GIF uh the GIF is different if you guys want to address that you can no I'm fine with that so I'm just asking about functionality so you you just made a comment and you said then it would come back to us for a vote it goes to the insurance commission so coun SC and I are on that as well as a representative from the administration used to be Mr gross uh you don't mean us meaning the council you mean us meaning the Insurance Fund yes fund or the insurance commission whatever it's called okay just clarifying yeah reques a majority vote okay thank you you're welcome you had one more 187 uh no well councilwoman yes had a comment on 187 well I had a question though oh I didn't know that I didn't catch that one you had a question on 187 too well I had down that it's the Mac award I just wanted to confirm that this is a municipal Alliance commission award it's going to be award it for the next three years is that correct you talking about 187 yes um this is a grant it's an agreement with the county doesn't cost us anything I have to look at the actual parameters on the specific resolution I just wanted to know that there's no matching funds that are required from the municipality for this Grant and typically we have had some challenges um making sure we get the programming done so that we meet the grant requirements so I just wanted to make sure um as we continue to partner with this grant um that we make sure we meet all the requirements okay so this the County's handling the grant we don't handle the grant we we're passing part of it to use um well they're they're providing the service we're we're we're partnering with them our residents can be a part of this service um Joel Torres is great we've worked with them for years and uh you know I can't say uh good enough things about them so I really wouldn't anticipate any problem not anything about him I think the challenge has been that we haven't been able to schedule the workshops at the high schools so they're normally done with some type of assembly or programming and by the time we try and get on schedule we have to reallocate those funds internally so that we can maintain the grant so I don't know where and how we need Ty on the end of the Board of Ed I know okay throw them under the bus here but not not on the part of uh Joel so um you know they listen In fairness today and they have tyght curriculums they have a lot of mandated curriculum that they need to address with their student body and stuff to get you know get these presentations in but I I'm confident that they do their best as well hey thank you also there's a I thought I remember seeing this there's a a report that they have to do each month the update the county so I don't know if that helps you or not for what your comes from um Senior Services Department Miss vany uh and Council mber Michael you had a comment just the comment uh I am very excited for uh resolution 187 it is an initiative it's near and dear to minart um most of you know I lost my younger brother uh it'll be sorry get emotional I think about for three years in November and um so I'm really happy to see this you know West arms collaborating with the county on the rides initiative to provide Innovative Support Services to individuals dealing with substance Ed disorder and the program targets those who come in contact with law enforcement or Municipal Court staff as well as those who self-refer or referred by family members so Research indicates that such initiatives can boost participation in care services and reduce costs the criminal justice and healthc Care Systems and individuals receive support you know within their community so um Q orange to to piggyback on that I do want to compliment the police department on their co-responder program uh we've gotten our emails uh on the I think the last report um they do an outstanding job I think we are one of the leaders in the state with regard to that program uh so anything to help bolster that and to move further in that direction is certainly welcomed by this Council uh and don't apologize these are issues that hit home uh which is why they are so important so I want to compliment the administration um particularly on 187 thanks chief for all you do thank you and we have a we have a uh an interesting article that's uh in draft form it's about to be published that was a really in-depth study which has some great data as far as the uh the connect and protect grant that we had in the program we've really made tremendous strides there so it's paid off uh dividends there and uh Council gber Michael nobody doesn't have some experience with some loved one family friend otherwise that nobody's Exempted from that so never feel uh ostracized thank you um yes sorry um uh there were questions uh councilwoman cleine I'm sorry councilwoman Williams on 190 um I wanted to not ask a question about the information that U councilwoman castelino wants to go in but I just wanted to know if we're going to start the education process how much information can we add into the estimated tax bills for the community since that's a CommunityWide mailing just wanted to understand if there's any other information we can put into the tax bills is there anything specific that well we know the garbage is coming up so maybe we could start there with some information about garbage collection um just wanted to I I don't know if there's a cost for weight I've heard that in the past that you know we don't want to put too many flyers in there I've heard in the past that we don't want to do front and back because the tax bill by statutory requirement has to be um you know stand alone so I'm just curious as to what information can actually go into the to the estimated mailing um I'd like to speak to the the tax collector and see about that I don't want him to speak here what the legal requirements are um I I don't think there's any limit I'm not sure people really read that stuff I I do want to add something into this also so I spoke with Miss Longo the other day and uh Mr Bross we are looking to draft a letter to put into this bills because at the last meeting you asked about the sewers try and collect the data so we're going we're putting we're putting something together together to be included to try and get capture as much data as possible because we know that's a concern of your so we're working on that so that will probably be our biggest Focus within that next tax bill because we need to get that information and as far as the garbage you know we we really don't know you know right now what direction we're going so it's kind of hard to you know send a a letter out saying well we might do this and we might do that when do the bills go out soon uh they've got to go out soon like in a week or two still you know do an estimated third quarter this year they're going to be I I don't know the exact date but I I believe it's going to be within next couple weeks that's why I spoke there the other day we're going to be putting something together so we can have it all ready to go and and what does the sewer bill information State remember the last meeting you were looking for changing the the the steart tax services we're going to be looking to collect all that data that that Mr gross said that we was hard to obtain from the uh from the S uh from the residents so we're going to ask them for their you know their their ID their their account numbers and and things of that nature that can help us identify how many I wouldn't give you my account number well well we not the account we don't be the last it could be like the we need some we need some kind of identifiers on there whether it be the bill or something on there we're we're still working on it we're going to craft it it's not complete but we're working on we started working on end of last week to get this thing done and ready get as much information as possible so that we can somehow obtain that information so I spoke to um a couple of other municipalities that do that uh user model and the concern that um Mr G talked about initially which was when you have an apartment building and it has one blocking lot and then you don't know the actual so for instance in a condominium they have a condominium identifier that is typically what the water company uses when you have a large development under the same block and lot so there there are continued ways to determine what what property goes to what tax bill or water bill rather so I'm not really I believe there was a disconnect between the the lot and block and the address I believe uh New Jersey American Water Company has everything by address not by I was I was I received similar feedback as Council Williams in that regard um you know that is not my space I am not a professional there um but it was presented to me that that um the information that we have should be adequate to identify um each of these residents even in multif family homes that uh you know three family homes but also in larger developments so I I don't know what that challenge is there shouldn't be one it's basically where I want to go right and that that's exactly what I've heard as well so we we were when we made this decision and this was a tough boote for all five of us to uh go to the bedroom based or bedroom based model we had a bunch of questions a bunch of push back and we were promised at that time because of the time constraint we had to do it and that the information was uh forthcoming and I think the information was expected to be received from new New Jersey American Water first quarter I I think they were going to get the data in October or November and be able to process that and and then be able to move to a user based model by first quarter of this year we've not done that now we've not been able to honor our commitment to Residents um that that we made when we took that very tough vote so I think what the council woman is is saying and what I am saying is the answers that were given at last meeting were not sufficient they were not satisfactory well they weren't accurate something something is ay we don't know what that is um I'll address it already gave a preview about new business but there's a a a lack of trust on the part of the public sometimes with regard to us sometimes with regard to the administration we need to to move through this process uh a little more quickly I don't know if that's a res resource constraint if that's you know having the people in the office to actually do that work I don't know what the bottleneck is um but the answers that were given in our last council meeting as the bottleneck for processing the data when um I spoke with and and uh uh councilman Williams uh did some additional research and I don't know who she spoke to I don't think she spoke to the same person I spoke to I only spoke to one person who's a professional they my response was consistent with hers that it should be able to be done so what we're saying is let's get that done so that we can switch to that user-based model and provide some relief particularly for seniors who live who are trying to age in place in big homes you know three or four bedrooms and it's you know one or two people there uh We've gota we've got to honor the commitment we made last year councilwoman I I just want to uh piggy back on those comments because being a a title closer for over 25 years I mean it's you know you can't get to the closing table with having water figures so there's there's got to be something that we're not getting or information we're not getting to make this job a lot easier uh on the township and also in regards to uh a Township employees rather um also in regards to that tax bill we've in the past we've mailed out one one letter in there because of the weight issue so you're not going to be able to put much more than that but we do need the tree ordinance reference in there because that's a big change um if we're estimating third quarter taxes I believe we'll have another opportunity if there is a change with anything else for the fourth quarter because there'll be have to be a fourth quarter final tax bill that would have to go at if we're just doing an estimated third quarter bill which is very disappointing too because it really especially those who pay their taxes um um in you know uh in cash you know if you don't have a mortgage yeah it's outside the mortgage it's it's it's you're getting estimated and you know the estimate the mess is always it's not fair yeah so this like the second third year in a row and we got to move away from that because it is Clos even if you're closing you're doing a a mortgage closing that estimated third quarter the title companies even add to that amount just to make sure that they have enough for coverage and they get it back and it's even more cumbersome for the township because then you're giving back refund checks on that third quarter after after that time frame so we really you know we started out late with the budget um it wasn't supposed to be this year and uh here we are again but with all that said and done um you know whatever information we could get out just don't forget all the items that we're mentioning so we know that they're in there because that is one bill that the property owners will read and especially we move to the commercial where we may take away the service from the commercial property owners uh for their tenants they have to be notified as well so that's it thank you councilwoman uh any other commentary on 190 all right so we're only pulling uh 174 and 17 you really don't have to pull on 74 I just I had a question and then we went back and for between 74 75 so we don't have to pull it I just yeah sure I mean I yeah go ahead please no no no what the reason why I pulled 174 was similar to what councilwoman Williams was saying is when you read that ordinance you have no idea what it's for other than when you look and it says wfd permit fees but which permit fees it's it's very very vague it doesn't tell you that it's for fire department permit fees what permits exactly so just please if we can have more information that's all um I guess the reason why I didn't for these couple in particular was because the corresponding ordinance is on for second reading today and was passed on first reading so they correspond with each other but all included in the future and also to your earlier question about what do type one type two type three they're established by the form fire code um so and I'm sure that uh CH best speak about this but my understanding is that um type one permits include like bonfires there's there's there's four different levels of perm that that when that people are looking to get things done whether it be ano systems whether it be bon fires whether it be anything to do with anything to do with the fire suppression system this is said through the New Jersey state fire Administrative Code which is what we have to update every once in a while based on what the latest and greatest codes are and and updating the fees that reflect what's current the trength in the syst um in in the industry right now so both and same thing with the with the the fire lane the fire lane is actually in this code here that's for the fir Lane it's not it's not a title 39 it's not a motor vehicle this is actually a motor uh this is a fire code that allows for Progressive basically aggressive discipline and for the people who have habitual Parkers in the fire and because there a fire code anybody appeals this they actually have to go to the construction Board of appeal which is run through the county that does they don't get to go to court or anything like that and one more comment just add on that if there's any reservations about the two ordinances that are on for second and final reading perhaps it might even better and I leave that up to all um I guess quote unquote these two resolutions toward the end of the meeting that way you see if those two resolutions do ordinances passed on second reading because if they don't pass on second reading then there's these these resolutions yeah I think I think they well so I didn't think there was any push back on the ordinances I think the issue was there's we had to do context clues right so and that that was yeah thank you and it's not just for us it is for us but it's also for the public because say they go online and I did link the ordinances with that so you cler just right you did it right I didn't know what this was all right so we're just pulling 176 correct all right um Madam clerk to approve all in favor any opposed uh the consent agenda is implemented councilwoman debor Michael you pulled 17 624 resolution prescribing fees is set forth in the revised General ordinances and implemented through ordinance 24724 amending the fees related to lead-based paint inspections I did because I am recusing myself I'm going to step out of the room while you guys vote someone call me back in when you're done sure thank you at midnight just kid no in like two minutes 30 seconds all right um so 17 yes any comments from anyone any questions any issues before we call for the vote okay is there a motion to approve 17624 second okay councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman scorpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president ruford yes can I question councilwoman Williams I will the funds be allocated from the fund I'm I'm sorry did you say how will the funds from the uh lead paint they go into a fund how will they then be allocated there's two uh there's two funds one is the is the state of New Jersey uh and first of all well I'll wait till Council won't get comes back um first one is U the first one is uh it's a $20 mandatory fee that the state of New Jersey requires us to collect we still don't have a mechanism from the state as to um um why where we're going to place that money so we're going to just hold it right now in escrow the other one is we're permitted by this ordinance to charge an administrative fee to administer the program for our staff and things of that nature so we we based our our $50 based on the amount of hours that we anticipate or the amount of minutes that's going to be in the St salary of the staff and everything that's allocated toward it that's where we came up the average of $50 for the administrative fix and then the lead based paint inspection this is um applicable to anyone who rents a property and or sales a property it's anybody for rental of properties and what we we have contracted with a vendor who's going to administer that part of the program you you approved that in a couple meetings ago um and they're going to uh identify all the properties that were built prior to 1978 to determine if they're lead free or lead safe based on um our our records and if they're determined lead free we will never bother them again if they're LED safe every two I believe it's two years to get this completed and every three years afterwards I think if I have the numbers right or it's vice versa I apologize but it's it's no more than that can we please create a site on our website where we can identify the homes that have been inspected and whether or not they're LED free currently but let me tell you why okay um that would be helpful for real estate agents Realtors now who are going to lease properties have to have this test done mandated by July 1st that's when the law goes into effect and my concern is some homeowners may decide that they want to have the inspection done independently not by the township and if they do then we will have only captured the homes that are done by the township well yes and no what we're our current vendor is doing is that we're identifying all the properties and we're going to look at the list because if somebody doesn't comply we're we're going to send them a letter and saying you're not in compliance you need to produce the only certificate that's approved by the state of New Jersey so they can either contract through the vendor we have or they can go to the Department of Community Affairs website and on there there's lead B which we have on our website by the way we have inors we have we have the certified inspectors which is updated continually I think three or four times a year by the state so they those contractors can then um submit those certificates to us and then we'll upload it to our vendor and this way we're building a database so right now we can't I can't give you that information because we don't we just we're starting to collect it's infancy but once we have it we're going to we're we'll talk to them as the best way as we could tell get it out whether it be you know accessing or linking I don't know but but one thing we got to keep in mind too with some of these properties we do have to keep in effect a reminder of Daniel's law so some properties we could list a property but not the name so we'll have to figure all that out yeah yeah we don't have yeah absolutely and it would be help we don't I I don't think the owner of the property would necessary I think just knowing that the property had been inspected for instance if I'm a real estate agent and I'm getting ready to go lease a property I want to know that I don't have to have the a homeowner spend that money if it's already been done and it meets the criteria and one of the complaints we had was U so far is that and it must be it's effective we're sending out letters to all the houses one family and above that were built prior to 1978 because one family could be rented so we're getting people going I'm not renting my house I've been there for 40 years okay then we're going to check you off and we're not going to bother you again but we're now at least catching that data of where who's owning who's renting and everything else that's we're starting to accumulate and with the 16,000 homes or so in the town you know it's going to take us a little while but we're hoping within the next year or two that we'll have notified every single property and identified which ones are lead free Leed safe or not in a rental capacity well this for the yeah want we well uh with the co they have to provide a ledge certificate I was going to say so even with the co it has to be done we will no longer be able to lease a property that doesn't have the cert certification so that's why I was asking if it can possibly put be put somewhere or at least us have access to it yeah I will talk to our about I'll ask our with that because we have to do some more work with them because it is you know we we have to know that also so um we will get back we can I'll ask him that question and get you an answer okay thank you president yes so so Chief to that point to my colleague's point so we already have a tab on the web uh web page for realtors so any the tree ordinance like anything that affects um property owner should go should be the link should be on that tab I know I don't know who you have we can add that to the tab we currently we have the lead based I believe on the M main page we have it on the property uh planning and development page I believe we have it on the rent leveling board page and I and there may be one more I think it's three or four places we haven't posted if we need to we could post it wherever you want how to okay yeah you could throw that on the there's a tab already there so in fact we found some information over this weekend that was just uh posted to the website that's from the DCA that's further for people who need assistance with the lead base paint so we're we're it's it's this is continually moving we're trying to make sure that everybody's safe first of all and just so everybody knows that West L our lead base level is low enough that we're considered a visual inspection Compu community so that we don't have as many people uh affected by lead based uh paint so we can go in and and still do a um a visual inspection for every property it's only one that they suspected is where they can go into the dust wipes which is a little more expensive and I'll say just for the Public's edification if you do have a home that's owned prior to being built before 1978 usually if you have a Fresh coat of paint and no chipping or peeling paint then you don't run the risk of lead um correct issues or concerns and that makes it lead safe and that makes it lead safe doesn't lead free basically we have to the only way we can really confirm a lad free is if we go through our building department it basically essentially is a complete ripout and every single piece of of wood that had any kind of paint on is physically removed from the property we can go out there and say yes we can certify this as we' have to get a or you can do a renovation if if the house was pretty much renovated down to the studs yeah that's mean it has to be complete any of the wood work I'm talking about finish wood work anything that has a paint on it that was painted prior to that that's how it becomes a lead free uh building thank you um do you mind Bing the air just a little bit it's cold Council C and I are uncomfortably sitting here as I have the Chas to on my shoulder before I do that I want to say thank you to everybody for your confidence in me and and supportting me on this Mission thank you absolutely you're welcome you're welcome mrdo okay forward uh ordinances on second and final yes 2846 d24 an ordinance repealing and replacing chapter 25 sections 27 of the revised General ordinances of West Orange excuse me establishing chapter to be determined for Environmental Protection tree protection removal and replacement is there a motion to introduce on Final second okay let's start all right now so move thank you second thank you councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Scarpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president ruford yes okay I just want to say to my colleagues that worked on this and uh for those of you that have sat through all of the countless hours Mr Jenaro as well and all of the community uh we are certainly happy to have finally and Madam clerk yes I'm sorry madam clerk Madam clerk if I forgotten anyone else please charge it to my head not my heart uh I am glad that this is now done behind us uh should there be any need for additional amendments or changes we can revisit it down the road uh but this is a victory for West Orange and for all of us just want to make sure we saw the email we saw the email as long as everybody's wait I don't see what email I'm sorry well hearing public yes okay that's right so we're just introducing now we haven't actually voted uh but this is a big this is a big moment um uh we're opening up for public comment on uh 2850 2846 2046 uh- 24 which is uh commonly uh referred to as the tree ordinance council president for the record I just want to state that I thought it was H something that was sent today that's why I was saying I didn't see it but it was something that was sent last week and I have reviewed it thank you councilwoman uh seeing none um on uh public comment we are not taking public comment on Zoom uh public comment is now closed we are ready for the vote Madame clerk I have oh any questions oh sorry one little statement so I I know this took a year in the Mak I don't want to mean to rush it but go ahead and a lot of comment and I appreciate the public and all who worked on it and again not everybody is fully satisfied um on with different opinions so that must hopefully mean it's it is a good ordinance because there's a middle ground that was met and um I'm just pressing the administration that I hope that they're going to be able to do what they need to do on on their end um and good luck with it so I know it's it's it's going to be cumbersome so I hope you're able to well for starters the five you going to have to collectively put up the money to plant 10 trees to replace the various we killed a lot of trees with all these grabs so that's a good that was my comment anyone else want a comment before we the vote I I just have one thing to say um so to be uh more precise I I certainly want to thank um our Green West Orange the environmental commission particularly Mr brick and Mr BND um uh my colleagues uh Madam clerk um Mr J Jenaro um everyone that had a hand in crafting this to Echo your centen it is not perfect it is way better than what we had um and I think this process we approached it we had some small group meetings and then some larger group meetings I think the process actually yielded a great outcome um and I think in the process of that we've been able to work on some other things um to a greater extent too to compromise a little bit better on some other issues based on the compromise we established with the tree ordinance so thank you to all of you uh and to everyone else uh in the public uh for what you've done Madam uh yeah I do I just wanted to comment as well that I thought that with this particular ordinance us going back and forth um I felt like as a council we were actually able to get to somewhat of a turning point um where we were a little bit more respectful we didn't always agree um certainly there's still some things that I would like to see at some point um and changed however I am willing to allow the process to unfold to see if these things are indeed problematic um but I do want to thank my colleagues for your flexibility um I do also want to just put again as a reminder my preference is to do these things at the table not to do them behind the scenes email going back and forth or telephone calls um so just moving forward I want you know it to be very clear that I know that these things are not easy um but I do think there is an element of transparency that must be um provided to our residents and communities and to each other um so that we don't have these small group um discussions and when we bring things to the table we all can hear and benefit from the thought processes that each of us has thank you anyone else before we go I make a motion to approve on second and Final on second and final reading okay I second that thank you councilwoman celino yes councilwoman G Michael Yes councilwoman Scarpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president retherford yes look at that that is awesome 28 28 53-24 and ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7-20 stop intersections of the revised General ordinances of West Orange various streets is there a motion to introduce on second councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Scarpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president retherford yes we will now open public comment for a second reading 2853 ordinance amening and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 720 stop intersections um at various streets uh is there anyone in Council chamber that would like to have public comment on 2853 seeing none public comment is now closed uh any questions comments or concerns from my colleagues before we move forward yes Council okay so just on this one um I know there was some concern on one of the streets on the top of SSH I forget the the cross street um because it's on a hill and with the stops on I I went over there so I could see the concern um I also spoke to some residents that live over on Walker where that same situation occurs they haven't had an issue um with um stopping at the stop sign not be able to get up the hill so I I'm gonna I'm gonna go uh I'm gonna respect uh our director's decision to place this here for now and if there are any issues you know um I just hope the residents could reach out to us and um you know we may have to Rev bu something in the future but um I I'll respect your decision now absolutely um thank you councilman for that I I uh noted um in one of the correspondences I can't remember which one uh but um director caral had included crash data in one of the requests she made yeah and so all them yeah yeah I am confident in her ability to to to get that information to us should we need to change it okay great thanks I make the motion to Second approve on second and final reading okay thank you second uh councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Mich councilwoman scarer councilwoman Williams council president Rutherford yes the motion carries 28 54-24 and ordinance amending chapter 18 section 1.9 of the re revised General ordinances of West Orange local enforcement of the uniform fer code Kermit bees is there a motion to introduce councilwoman Celina yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Scarpa councilwoman Williams yes council president Rutherford yes okay public hearing we will now open public comment for 2854 revised General ordinance of U sorry ordinance amending chapter 18 section 1.9 rise General ordinances of the township of West Orange local enforcement of the uniform fire code if anyone is in Council chamber wishing to comment now is your time seeing none public comment is now closed colleagues so Mo I move for the adop I'm move for the adoption so moved okay so you did it first Eden I second thank you to uh approve on second and final okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Scarpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president Rutherford yes the Mot carries 2855 d24 an ordinance amending chapter 18 section 2.1 of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange establishing a fire lane at Bernard M degnan Park penalty is there a motion to introduce on second and councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman farpa councilwoman Williams yes council president Rutherford yes uh councilwoman celino before we do public comment okay we are now going to open public comment if anyone is in Council Chambers wishing to comment now is your time seeing none public seeing none public comment is now closed uh well Council celino had a question so um well just so this just for the Public's sake the fire lane is by the softball field it's the entire length entire length of all the way from the Park tennis courts all the way down to the field housee okay and this also applies to parking in any fire lane established in West Orange so the previous ordinance did not have it so that the penalties applied to any to parking in any of the fire Lanes okay so part of what this ordinance is doing is making it so that the penalty applies to if you parked in any established firel in the township West Orange but the one in Deon Park is the one that SM what was the so so the $100 is for Dean Parker the entire town and I just okay mainly I'm I'm just pointing this out because I know the T reporter she always writes up something and this is something that uh I hope gets out there and we need to also public information officer I I'll mention it to Mr ban just so folks are aware of it so it's a $100 for for the first offense $200 for the second offense and $300 five of $500 so the third time really is a charm if you if you disobey and you insist on parking a fire lane so and just so the public knows as I mentioned earlier if you do receive a summons from the fire department for the uniform fire C you have to go to the construction of board of appeal to appeal this ticket the cost to appeal ticket is $100 oh wow wow so you're going for a zero basically because you have to file $100 fee to pay a $100 ticket to have ital it would all if you did if you were successful though if you got a subsequent ticket would be a first offense right right would be your yeah so the lesson is do not park in a fire lane you will get fined in West Orange thank you and um well councilman Williams you want to say something um just uh for the Public's uh benefit the fireing goes from the the the full length from Pleasant Valley Way or from the tennis courts all the where tennis courts to the um tennis court house to Toby cat Center got it and it's critically important because the uh fire rescue apparatus cannot get in as you're all well aware we have a lot of senior activity in there has a heart attack we can't have you know bunch of people scrambling trying to move cars to get ambul in absolutely and another little tidbit is that a fire lane actually extends out to 1820 ft from the curb so if you if you're not parked on the we've had people in the past well I wasn't parked on the curb well the fire lane of the C goes out it's either 18 or 20 feet and the re the reason being said so we can luse the uh the ladder equipment and things of that nature so so why they maybe think they're smart by parking in the middle of the road it's not that still gonna get feet that's the other side well depends on the different roads on on this one at D yeah C and just for the Public's sake so isn't there another fire lane at West Orange High School uh underneath the links there y okay just I just almost all buildings and especially now with the planning board you know we insist on putting in fire Lanes all over the place so okay are they are they noted as a fire lane like they have to be identified as fire lane okay especially at the high school yeah well yeah well because people abuse that all the time especially when there's like wrestling tournaments Regional tournaments and whatnot so is this something that we can put out in the tax bill mailer to let people know because you know sometimes people really quickly put their blinkers especially if it's food delivery people they go it's actually part of the driver's test if you park in a fire line you're going to receive a ticket okay still do something social media wise that I understand so so Mr you're saying this is a fire lane this is for fire lanes All Over West Orange not just park so again sometimes we have food delivery people who will like put on their blinkers real quick running grab food they can get ticketed it's just it'd be nice to let everyone know that this is something that we're going to be enforcing now because obviously we wouldn't be doing this we we put on the I don't know we can do that we could we could do that but just say you know we've been enforcing fire lanes for a long time I was but not with these fees though not with these fees no but let know and what the appeal process is like and what that cost we could do that education so so so to kind of wrap it and I do thank Mr Fagan for putting the map up to show uh where the fire lane at degnan will now be uh it is from the tenness courts all the way around to the Toby cat Center um uh but yes please do put out some public information via social media website uh digital board Chief something like that uh are we we take didn't take final vote all right I make a motion to introduce on second to adopt on second than get it eventually no this this is totally not to this so I don't want to interrupt the vote but I was saying the tennis courts are also going to be repaved the photo of those were up there yeah um we didn't talk about that we just approved it I do want to let the public know because that was a big ass last year that we didn't do um in the capital budget was to repave the tennis courts um so I think that is important to note Madam clerk councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman SC councilwoman Williams yes council president yes the motion carries ordinances on first reading 2857-20 and ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7-10 point1 stopping or standing prohibited During certain hours on certain streets of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange I make a motion to introduce thank you who second thank you councilwoman celino uh I'm GNA yeah yes we comment okay councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman councilwoman Williams council president Rutherford yes uh GNA have some commentary as well but I'll defer to my colleague um to begin oh okay thank you so so my first question is um because I didn't get a chance to call this in this morning is is this the county so the county made this recommendation the County engineer because um there was some complaints in the area but the majority of this parking or non-stopping is in front of the sh um where there's always been parking so is there any way to override that or is Miss carbal on the call yes she would be available tonight if you want wanted to discuss any of these yeah yeah I think it's important because actually Mr Fagen if you're playing with Google Maps if you want to pull it up Pleasant Valley Way yes please yes if yes she could come on and get yes please uh Pleasant Valley Way um because there's four houses there that have very tough driveways too that's the other problem over there couple houses Greenwood Avenue across cross Greenwood Avenue uh West W Westman Drive the Pleasant Valley Way off 280 yep and then if you can grab director um good evening everyone good evening council president and council members good evening good evening yes this was a request made directly to me by the uh County one of the principal Engineers had emailed me to make this request if the township could extend the um the non-stopping or standing regulation down to Westman Drive yeah so that's exactly what we did so there's been parking there so now you're saying you're not going to allow any parking I mean that's a there shouldn't be any parking to begin with alone Pleasant Valley Way where is he here wait that no that's not it um let's see we there yet yeah there it goes right there okay so right yes in that area there yes the county is requesting that there's no parking or standing um because of the synagogue Services the people tend to stand or park in front of their houses instead of going into the uh just dropping off right in front of the synagogue I'm sorry can you say that again director cabalo the county requested to extend the no parking or standing all the way to Westman drive because currently it is only in front of the synagog okay so the issue is that I believe those four homes the driveway are very they're very difficult so they they have issue with like they need the additional pork and my concern was if there are homes there what happens if they have deliveries or visitors yeah yeah where where are they gonna go park I mean there's not even public parking anywhere and then you'd have to cross the street if you park on one of the side streets and that's a four lane and sometimes five Lane Road director cabalo and so just so we're clear we're talking about from the corner all the way to no well this there's already no stocking or parking in front of the synagog right soending all the drive that's more one two three four five did an incident occur or what what prompted this whole they've done a lot of they've done the county has done a tremendous amount of adjustments on Pleasant Valley way and I'm saying that because that's where I live um okay so that you know apparently a complaint was made to the county by a resident was it do we know if it's a resident from well I'm not going to disclose anything so my I mean my concern when I read it it I I travel that road uh very frequently and you know it say often stopped cars create a bottleneck um there are some stopped cars sometimes uh we can still get through actually in two lanes even with some of those sto cars I don't know that they come wide yeah it's wide um yeah but it's it's still possible even with park with cars on the side of the road to still get through with two lanes it is certainly Tighter and it may not be ideal I I just don't know if in addition the change is going to the change is going to make a bad situation worse uh for those residents it may make it easier for some of us to get through but now those residents aren't going to be able to do have any l in front of them there's also a possibility and there's property on sale with a cutout right there before you get to the to the end and if that property is sold and development happens that's also going to be very challenging I think that's a flood plane the the property closer to 280 yeah I think that's a FL it is it has concerns but it's there's some developmental potential well you got got W I mean I think that's a very difficult anything's possible but this current situation are we are we addressing one problem and then creating another I think that was um at least the concern that I had and I think councilwoman celino has as well and are do are we mandated just because the county asked us to do something do we have to yeah that's my question well if we look at it is the county road and the the number of driveways that get affected are approximately two driveways because the one house at the corner has a driveway facing uh Westman Drive can you zoom back in all right so this house has a driveway facing Westman yes and then one two it's not four houses still yes but the one next to the uh synagog doesn't have a driveway so what are they going to do so if they get a delivery are they is the delivery driver now going to get a ticket as far as I know there is no parking or standing at any of this uh allowing parking on pleason valleyway is there crash data have there been either pedestrian or vehicular accidents as a result of cars parked on the side of the road that we're aware of recently plan that was brought up is because uh the the cars are parking on this side of the road during during services so this reads the ordinance extends a Prohibition for stopping or standing on the east side of Pleasant Valley Way Northbound from Westman drive to just past West Orange Mountain High School so this will go all the way down past the high school which I know that's been a major problem in front of the high school they have to have big poster signs to tell people don't stop and drop off which is par yeah you can't park there starting from the synagogue all the way to the high school you can't there's no stopping and standing now correct but once you get past the synagogue it's my and I could be wrong I'm going to memory I think it's just the park and then the high school oh no there are two houses I think oh no there's maybe one house right there's there's there's house there so what are you supposed actually on Pleasant Valley they look like they have parking and their back I mean I don't know what we should be seeing or not seeing on Google on TV so I don't know Mr B yeah I don't know don't want to zoom in so much um so your recommendation director is that we extend it Beyond uh all the way to Westman yes but there's no no crash data no no no vehicular or pedestrian accidents it's just the resident complaint it's a complaint well not yet we don't have any accidents yet that I know of so you and do you is it your um position that we are risking that I mean like is that is the reason you're doing this is to avoid that kind of an accident yes because you have the people parking or extending in front of this houses and people are getting off their cars to attend Services what prohibits a car that is going to try to go around them not from hitting them or hitting anybody else so and so we're going to extended at all times and we have essentially a Friday Saturday issue right now we have an ordinance in place already going from Greenwood Avenue up to the curve line of Dawson Avenue so now we're extending it basically going from Greenwood Avenue which is the same point up to Westman drive my question would be that or statement to to counter that would be if you went into Verona Pleasant Valley Way is the same with you go to Verona Park you could park there you can park there on both sides of Pleasant Valley Way people get out to go to the park they're opening their cars and we don't have crash data or incidents there and we are lab able to park I just I just feel that we're being overly restrictive because if you can do it at Verona Park why can't you do it in West Orange and we don't have as many people parking to for the synagogue or up and down that stretch of Pleasant Valley way that they do at Verona Park Verona Park is from the corner of Bloomfield Avenue all the way to the golf course every Thursday Friday and Saturday and Sunday I mean even during the week people park there they go to you know walk and walk the dog and exercise and I don't know if we have crash data from Verona but it sounds like we don't have any crash data from here uh so yeah it's Troublesome for is the RO is the road any wider up there I'm sorry bet my Layman's eye looks wider right I don't think it's wider I think it's pretty uniform across no it is just to just to point it out I mean I mean Pleasant Valley Way is also part of the vision zero plan and it's considered what they call a hin which is a high Injury Network can we table this maybe until we get some additional information because again I well we passed on first reading we don't have to bring it back for second reading until until we have more information yeah so can can we table it no we can pass it and table it to we have more information that's no just don't bring it back for a second not first reading that's why we're having discussion so we pass it to discuss if we don't want to move forward with it it doesn't come back until we're ready okay um director I I would I don't know if you can do this or if you can request the information I'd like to know the width uh of Pleasant Valley way I get you the width I could get you the width and also could get uh contact the police department our traffic be and see if there's any uh accidents reported on this road that might uh go in accordance with the time for services along this roadway thank thank you for the crash data but just to be clear I would like to be able to compare the width of Pleasant Valley Way at Verona Park versus the WID you know say at Westman drive here okay um yeah and councilman so just the way this is written from Westman drive to just past West Orange Mountain High School I I'm full agreeance that there shouldn't it should be enacted in front of the high school and in the park so even if we were to bring it back and just you know change it to I guess what is that there's already no stopping and standing but then why is it written in this document I have no idea but I'm just saying you cannot stop and park on the stretch of the high school so that's another thing director so why is it why is it here why is it here because the ordinance will Encompass the whole stretch so it's G to Encompass the high school we're mending it right we're at we're you're adding to it okay we're adding to it okay so where does it stop now you measure stops now at Dawson Avenue at what Avenue DW is that the one that's right by dgan Park that little street dead end better for Park okay that's 1846 okay that's the street almost straight across from the uh synagog stre from the synagog he just passed it well he's weing we're looking to see the the Verona Park with it's probably about the same it's got to I'm telling you it's the same I'm telling you it's the same okay we're about to see now it's a little wider foot foot the other was 18.4 okay less less than a foot yeah that's in meters 19 the other so the reason why I knew was wi is because they actually have a full Lane to park yeah we don't actually have a full Lane to park it's enough for two lanes to still go through even with people parked there Verona Park does have a full Lan to park though um but you know look I mean can we make designated spot like is that somewhere where you put designated spot if you're going to if it's only to go into synagogue then we can do some other restrictions well I I I think the request came because there folks that live there that's what I was going to ask they have you know tough parking situation I think we just need to do more investigation yeah have we talked to the residents the four or five residents who live there I think uh cabalo yes have we spoken to the residents who live there you know Mr Fagan maybe I don't I don't feel GNA be so zoomed in on somebody's house I would have my I wouldn't want my house up there view is fine but okay answer the question from Mrs carara is to say that no I have not asked so so what are we agreeing to we're gonna asked we res I'm sorry go ahead director I have not spoken directly to the resident but it is clear to me in the email that the resident approach the county directly to made a concern about like you know that's one resident that's one resident we should talk to all of them all right so so I I think she understood those concerns um I'm going to ask my colleagues to forward any additional concerns in email form to director carbal um I'm I think introducing it on first and then waiting for some additional information before we vote on second uh is the sentiment of the council so I'm not going to put it on the next agenda don't put it on the next agenda unless you get okay gotcha thank you okay are we ready to move forward yes 2855 2858 2858 an ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7- 26.1 bus stops of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange Roosevelt Middle School and move for introduction on first reading councilwoman C yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Scarpa yes councilwoman Williams yes council president Rutherford yes we are now uh this is first reading right yes any questions colleagues it's just addressed wrong just one um that's all right any questions or comments colleagues on 2858 none he vot on no yeah yeah well for first no first reading all right um so we introduced it we don't have first we don't have public comment that's correct that's done so we're pending matters new matters Council discussion I have some new matters do we have any pending matters I think we have the uh um what do we have I think we have the ccrb oh sure yeah the CCB I never got any resumés to contribute to anyone I haven't gotten mine either I am still waiting on M too I um I will send a note to get it as quickly as possible NOP uh councilwoman gabra Michael okay um I have two questions to the administration the first one is if we can get an update regarding Rock Spring and I know that we applied for open space like is everything fine ANZ are we good to go uh second thing is regarding our covid vaccination policy we still have a vaccination policing in place which doesn't make sense to me we are past uh covid now so I mean my understanding is we still have it in place and I think that's going to hurt us with hiring now so you know I thought it was dropped my understanding when last year towards the end of last year or mid last year know yeah but it's been dropped this halfway through this year yeah I think it's something back my mind we we went through our professionals Dr Kelly and our attorneys and everything else so um I think it was what February March somewhere somewhere in that time a back yeah it's been at least two or three months it was a requirement our applications we have removed that since removed that from our applications so it's not part of our our our protocol foring thank you and then the other questions regarding Rock Spring we have a million dollars coming through uh Green Acres and we need to make decision well that's the F it's paid over the years it's not paid all at once okay um with million dollars coming this year and we need to make a determination before we draw down on that what we're going to carve in carve out leave alone well I I mean my sentiments were that we don't carve anything out and aside from just the clubhouse and put out an RFQ and see who bites the apple right and and see what there's a lot of limitations if your car at the clubhouse out what you can en Camp do so could you explain those things to us because we don't know these we have liation work we have um a session where we have I don't want to working session can we have a session where someone comes and explains exactly what the options are for us um yeah we can we can see if we can get the uh gentleman back that met with us from Green Acres that exp that would be helpful thank you basically you can't you know in a nutshell you can't have you can't carve out anything that's going to um not be open space and Recreation profit and supplement okay the the golf course like a hotel and things like that can't do so can we schedule that for the next meeting I I can see if if this gentleman's available to come on the 25th and and if this person does come if we can have a light agenda conference agenda so we're not here till 2 am. like we were a month ago why us to it by now 930 to be commended this evening only 9:30 we started at we started at 5 that's right started an hour and a half early that's really really no no no no which which may mean that no we started at seven we actually had yes yes and we did it five so yeah we would certainly like to get some type of presentation I um I'm I've been um so I I know what the council woman wants I think you know each of us have different concerns yeah um I don't want to do a workshop if we don't have to uh we still got to get through the capital budget we're not done with the operational budget yet either I didn't mean to say work say working sessions we can have people in the public comments yes um so yeah in in a council meeting that's if we could just schedule in a council meeting that would be great um earliest availability call his name thank you anything else uh colleagues before we councilwoman um wanted to know if and I'm share the information with everyone um about the pla um working with the Carpenters Union um to see if that would be something that the township would entertain my colleagues would entertain um so I'll have information for everyone public um agreement with our Carpenters Union so that we would give them priority whenever we have jobs in our community over a certain threshold um that we would give priority to that so I want to make sure that that in information is um I'll send it to you madam Clerk and if you would send it to my colleagues absolutely our projects or for public projects yes not not private projects West Orange projects any development that we do we would give some consideration to our Carpenters Union um before that we would put it out to public bid but I would like for us to review the information and then I don't I don't think that's and then have um um some discussion about it may mayor pares and I met with the Carpenters Union going back um obviously when he was mayor and one of the things they were looking for was for our influence to force private projects do but with our own we were subject to the public bid loss so I'm not sure we can do this um I I talked to Mayor paresi and asked him what was the reason why we didn't um um and so I think it would be to our benefit with some of the changes and the different things and opportunities that they have for at least them to have an opportunity to come and present to us I mean that's that's fine if you want to have them come in and give a presentation I I know we have to pay prevailing wage there's no question you have to pay prevailing wage but I don't know that we can mandate that a union I don't so so so there's a there's a I've done some work in this space um in my other job um it is from what I understand it is possible it requires act an action on the part of the municipality uh to do it which is why it generally hasn't been done because when you go and en Force union labor you are forcing a higher cost on the developer um I am still for it and I and I don't I um um I don't know you know what the right balance is uh but I am still for it um so I do think we we need to understand what our rights and privileges are as a municipality in that regard additionally last year in the economic development committee um uh we had started talking about a database for local um contractors so that when we have projects we can um have a local hire uh component to that project 20% or whatever the number is and be prepared to provide provide a list to the developer of those local contractors so that they can choose you know from that list and and meet that mandate one of the issues that other municipalities have had is they put the requirement in and then the developer says well we couldn't find anybody and so then they don't have to honor it um particularly given what we're looking at doing down here uh on Main Street um I I think it's important that we do that um expeditiously so I don't know councilwoman if you've continued in that Vein on the economic development committee so I I will come back to your meeting if um if uh at the next one if I'm able uh but certainly want to move in that direction I do recognize that there's a cost there too um but there's also a benefit to the residents that do work in the union I I agree that was where I was going with it uh I think the benefit to our local uh Community um far outweighs the cost um and I do think we've gotta you know we've gota you know be principled in some of these things and and with regard to unions in particular I think um I think we need to do what we can to help strengthen them so to the extent we can I think we should the uh the administration certainly has no objection to it and personally since my brother-in-law is a retied union carpenter if I want to get invited back for Thanksgiving dinner you might might want to have you might want to have Roco come through absolutely um all right so I think we've beaten that one up pretty good are we anything else on that before we move on because I have some what I expect to be some touchy matters the only other thing I'd like to add before we close out on that is that they do have a strong relationship with the high school um they have an internship program and they come out from the high school and they go straight into the union job absolutely and that is uh to be commended um not everybody's going to go to college not everybody's going to go to college and and a lot of people are choosing trades now or or more are more students are choosing trades now over College um and the data shows that you can make about the same or more over your career getting started right out of high school in a trade uh then you can't go to college and then professional absolutely so yeah so the price of college so max Gman works very closely with the Union he's our um person at the high school yeah he does a great job and does a great job so we we just want to give as many opportunities to our students as we possibly can and our Township sure totally agree anything else before we move on councilwoman celino scra no I'm good all right I um see too before we move on I I in new business I uh when we were presented with the uh new auditor I did a quick Google search and I didn't find anything I it was one of those things that was presented uh late um and um and I didn't see anything in my initial Google search and I think I referenced that in the meeting since then I have been alerted to the situation in our neighboring Community Irvington uh well not directly neighboring not uh contiguous with us but uh a couple Towns over where uh this same auditor was the auditor for many of those years for which they were cited by the state um and the state came down pretty hard on um Irvington not to throw them under the bus um but uh the state uh in their summary conclusion listed one two three four five six different um uh items that the township failed to do all of which should have been reflected in their audit report now we got to this point to choose a new auditor because two items that we feel and I still feel to this day should have been included in the report were not included in the report for two years in a row and the gentleman and this was really the overwhelming reason the gentleman that came to our meeting via Zoom was um poorly prepared I'll say uh to address those issues so we've left one situation and it appears that we've now potentially opened ourselves up to a an even worse situation and so I am I am concerned about that I don't know uh Mr Jenaro what legally we can do um if it were possible to we send that contract I would I don't know that we can um this is uh not about any particular auditor that works for the firm this is solely based on what happened in a neighboring municipality um which required State intervention and I think once I was made aware of that I would be remiss if I did not act on it so um what can we do I'm not I don't know I've not pulled my colleagues I don't know if I have any support for this at all um I but I would like to know what we can do at this early point in the relationship um if if there was the will of the council to do something different well I don't know that if I'm hold on can you answer that question is are because we may not have any tools at all there may be nothing we can do professional service contract you don't have to use it the contract but that's my understanding when I review the contract I'll ask Madam clerk to send me a copy of the executive version I'll review the contract see if there's anything in there about it Etc we can go from there thank you I was just gonna say that um I was not aware until now that you brought it up that this is the same fund where Irvington has had a tremendous amount of problems um urbon was stated cited by the state for 20 councilwoman for 20 different issues um Financial issues and they were only able to resolve uh some of them the majority of them yes but still to your point six were outstanding um I do recall in the article that I specifically read um that with the transition of the administration that the new Administration was not brought to speed and notified um that these errors had occurred until 20 either 16 or 18 once they were notified or I guess there was a followup to check and see why they had not met the increased standards or been able to accommodate the changes that were necessary um they still have not been able to meet the standards that were implemented so I'm concerned but I don't necessarily know if it was an accounting problem so much so more than a notification problem so I would like for us to investigate that before we terminate any other questions or comments so just reading an article I EO I Echo your sentiments so yeah I would agree supportive support I think I think the issue for me is not necessarily that it began under this auditor or this Administration it's that it's the job of the auditor to alert the administration and the council to those deficiencies uh and then you know obviously there has to be an action plan created and implemented to address them and that would involve the auditor as well um I I don't know what happened there it is entirely possible that it's a oneoff I'm not trying to disparage anyone yeah I'm just saying given our situation how we got here we should not we should be we should be considering you couple you know one is um the gentleman who when I was invol was not involved but it's my understanding um was involved doing this ba role at that time that was given the presentation was given like an hour's notice and really wasn't prepared as you said um I think Stephanie was originally going to do it and got a call feet and asked him to do it and it went the way it went um so that that was that um Samuel K was just a well-known name that was you guys didn't want pkf for Conor Davies we went with Samuel kin we have no dog in this fight I mean I'm not going to stand here and defend the guy I don't know him any more than I know pkfl Conor DAV it's a firm so it's a firm it's a professional service contract so again Mr Jenaro should definitely read the contract and and make sure I'm not misspeaking here but with most of our psc's if you don't use them you don't pay you know you're just coming into an agreement that if this is they do what they do they build this much an hour so I would think you could probably retain a third one it's just like we have several engineering firms that we give pscs to we only pay them when we use them so so I would I I I will be uh you know now that we've had this conversation on the record um if a bill is presented from um that particular auditor uh after this date you know so you know give it a this is now the 10th of June if if there's work done Beyond say a week from now uh I am not going to approve that bill um and I do think we need to know what our our options are and I'm looking forward to hearing back from you Mr jingar thank you Mr foret it is thank you sir uh second this happened 2009 it started in 2009 but I think the then it then it started in 2009 the the original s the original citations were in 2009 Administration Chang and I think but there was a followup and I'm going by memory and I think I think there was a followup in 19 and in another year and even those follow-ups were not miss um satisfactory and I'm trying to be diplomatic in how we talk about it it is a neighboring municipality yeah I'm not trying to inform yeah it is public let let the public go and get it but you know we're aware we should I think take that into consideration looks like they were given 13 recommendations and they were never fully implemented by the Irvington Administration um there's a lot there there's several articles written about it and there are uh at least two or two um notices from the state okay we do need to be cautious because I if I understood you correctly don't want to pay any bills for any work that's done if they do work for us I think we kind of have to I don't want to give them new work Beyond this point right so if they're to have an auditor by I get it by law so we they are our auditor so it's kind of hard to not have them you know if we're gonna we're GNA go another Direction and I'm not trying to persuade you not to just I just want to be clear that if you know Mr jarish should research this and we may need to move quickly in that regard we're not going to use yeah do we need to put out another RFQ let's do that I think we probably have over 60 days right from yeah but if the if the um person who submits The Proposal agrees to remain in those terms you can go it's it's just that we can't do it on our we can't force them after 60 days to engage I think we should rebid it do that so we have some more options yeah I mean the mayor's gonna make that decision I think but I do support that as well recommendation I would personally I would feel a lot more comfortable with Mr Crow weird away in this because this is a CFO thing you know I'm I'm telling you things as I understand but I may innocently misspeak here and I don't want to will he be at the next meeting I hope I hope he's here and so to that to the statement that I made at the last budget hearing you know we do need to make sure we're covered all right so I that that was a in my opinion a poor decision um and I know it's a CFO driven decision I think his voice was the loudest in the room even though it's probably you know ultimately is the mayor's call uh but you know you you rely you have advisers to take advice right you have people that are responsible so that they can handle those responsibilities um so that was a major disappointment and given some of the other challenges that we've had um it made me want to revisit this forensic audit now we talked about it multiple times um and I think it's I think it's now time to actually um to do it so I know that there's cost involved I don't know what the process is I do think it falls under our investigatory Powers um I would like the Town Council to um as a as an entire body all five was um uh choose our own auditor to conduct a forensic audit to look into um bill payment to review our Professional Services contracts and awards including all aspects of the award process uh from proof of advertising to the award uh to review our bank account internal controls for payments deposits and our compliance with accounting guidelines to review our employee and Union contracts for compliance with state and local laws including Deferred Comp payments uh and I'm going to capture all of this in an email but I want to get it on the record tonight um review the accounting guidelines in general um and specifically with regard to all the all of the grants that we received management of Grant funds uh both monitoring and Reporting I'd like them to look into our bids the methodology for award compliance with our qualified purchasing agent recommendations and compliance with state and local pay-to-play laws and guidelines um I'd also like them to review salary ordinances and this one is because in particular of uh my already on the record uh criticism of um the inability to claw back any of the additional pay for BBA I know you're not getting paid for it but we took a vote as a body uh two or three years ago and the premise of that vote was the additional pay was for the additional work as ba and now that that work is being done by someone else we should be able to claw that money back and we can't the contract does not allow for that um so uh yeah I've got a few more I'm coming and and I I knew this was G I'm glad we had an early night because now be an early night no no I'm not gonna argue about it it's just it's it's just that we knew whether it was right or wrong decision depending on how you look at it at the time your mic at the time we knew that that it was a contract because he was taking on the CFO was taking on the responsibilities of the ba and we knew that at the time so again you could have that reviewed but it's on tape I went back and looked at the tape I know you look at the tape and was explained to us so it wasn't like there was a misunderstanding we knew ourselves into it but let let me let me finish so that particular I've looked at it and I actually have a first- person recollection of it um I we all of us specifically spoke to um Mr gross's additional pay for being ba it's not that he was doing the responsibilities because he had stated in those meetings that he had been doing those performing those responsibilities he was assuming the role and that additional compensation was for the role and what was explained to us by our town attorney was that we would save money by uh making that additional payment to him because it would alleviate the need to have uh someone else Serv in that position which would cost $200,000 when you included the benefits so giving him the role and the additional compensation were tied together in multiple meetings but in the contract it's not captured that way um so look it may not be wrong I could totally be wrong I don't think I am otherwise I wouldn't be going down this road but if I'm wrong I'll I'll be happy to admit that I'm wrong clearly stated at that meeting if you're not the role of the ba and he clearly stated I am getting paid as the CF but no no so we I don't want to litigate it but what was said was and Mr trink said we're going to pay him under his CFO pay not if you're not the ba anymore do you no longer get paid that specific question was not asked at least in in the tape that I review and in my first person recollection asked it I remember I asked it I I don't recall that question being asked if you're are no longer ba will you then no longer get that money that question at least if it was asked it went past me because I don't recall that and I didn't see it when I reviewed uh the tape but having said all of that I think um those that kind of a contract in particular is a problem um but I but you can't just review one so let me finish with with the areas that I think are important um for us to to look at um um we've had some complaints with regard to a pension retirement benefits uh additional comp paid to employees raises and our salary ordinance um I would also like to have this forensic auditor review our temporary budget compliance with state and local law um um and I think I think that's I think that's it I mean those are the areas I'm going to capture it all in an email and I'll send it to everybody sure um but those are the areas that I think uh are of the greatest concern um I don't know what that scope of service would cost us um but I'm happy to find out and review whatever the responses are uh and I would like uh the council to make the choice of who the professional will be to conduct it having said that I'm happy to hear the feedback uh Council gber Michael followed by councilwoman Castle I am supportive I EO all your sentiments council president Rutherford thank you for doing your due diligence um I uh fully support doing a forensic audit obviously dependent on the cost and learning what that process is going to look like using our investig investigatory Powers um but I just wanted to just respond to what uh councilman castelino said um as two newer Council people myself and councilman Scarpa I mean to me when when Mr gross became the ba as well first off I mean was violation of our code which states the CFO reports the ba and it has to be two separate people because you can't report yourself there's no checks and balance which is important because of reasons like this because of you know what what we read when Dober uh was audited you know that was very concerning to me um and for him to be the ba I understand obviously he's going to get he got compensated but what I don't understand is why is it that they tacked it on to his CFO Civil Service tenured role instead of having a separate ba contract that the appropriate thing to do from what I understand from an Administration standpoint from an HR standpoint from a financial standpoint would have been to have a separate ba contract and let him and pay him the $67,000 a year whatever it was that was agreed upon when you guys were on there because myself and Council mcara weren't on there yet and and then now he's no longer the ba right I sent an email saying you know expressing what the code stated and how you can't serve in both roles and he stepped down as the ba why is it that he still gets to keep that $67,000 extra a year who gets a $67,000 raise and keeps it he shouldn't be getting it it doesn't make sense to me and and that's not something that just impacts West Orange residents it's going to impact all New Jersey residents because he will have one of the highest pensions in the state of New Jersey and that affects everyone who who pays taxes in the state I mean it doesn't make sense to me so and I'll end there yes thank you okay so let me answer so um councilwoman and I believe when you first took the position and we were talking and and you came to me for some guidance early on I always said this job is about the day you make uh the day you vote the information you have on that day and sometimes there's going to be information that comes after the day you vote when we voted on that decision and the information that we had um there was a very how can I put it it was a very sensitive time we had a longtime ba who became ill and we had a lot going on it was the heart of Co the heart of CO as you know you worked up and it was you know scrambling how do we keep everybody safe and well and it it was a very very very unique time and again I'm gonna you know I don't want to get into an argument because that's not what this is about you remember things differently than I do and that's fine um but I know it was explained the way it was because to her credit uh councilwoman mat Brown did not support that resolution that evening um and and and we did I mean for our various reasons and um it was a sensitive time um and I believe if I my recollection so I don't want to you know misspeak but at the time I remember we questions being asked um and you know it was the mayor's race and there was going to be a new mayor eventually uh which there was and um Mr gross didn't want to get caught up in that so if he was going to take the position which he was doing the work anyway for the past maybe almost a year with with with a lot of extra responsibilities that he just took on on his own um you know the mayor um there was going to be a new mayor so he wanted to make sure that as a CFO and chief you could jump in because you were there um he was was protected in regards to his position with the new mayor ba could be replaced by the new mayor I think that was I'm I can hear you with this Fair conditioning going now she was saying why did it why was it set up that way because if there was a new mayor my question no my question is why is it that he gets to keep the extra $67,000 a year to be the ba when he's no longer the the ba he was given a contract it doesn't make sense the contract should have been a b separate ba contract what what would should been or shouldn't have been or might have been it's all AC why what is is his contract his contract specifically states that that's what he has compensated to be the CFO what what went into those machinations and and the folks on the council at the time and president folks were on the council at the time you know that those were decision where I'm coming from even to this day he's no longer in the ba and he's getting paid $67,000 a year to do a role that he's you know he's not in7 but that's not no that's not that's not accurate that's not accurate that's not accurate yeah okay I thought it was 67,000 may have gone into your thought process but the his compensation's based on his contract his contract's based solely on being the CFO and you know something we should address as well if if Council wants to is that the our ordinance conflicts with the Faulkner act till this day as I sit here our ordinance conflicts with the fauler ACT it's not that Mr gross's role serving both conflicted with conflicted with our ordinance our ordinance still really needs to be changed but I think the main thing with the ordinance is the checks and balance right but but but but it's still out of balance understand but but the way it reads it's troubling to people who don't know that right so it's states that the CFO and the ba have to be two separate people because there is a checks and balance CFO reports the ba how does he report to himself it's it's well it's not it's the it's the the controller it's the Control Function so the CFO isn't necessarily p a controller I mean I don't want to go the tangent here you know we'll be here till two o'cl but the point is my point was we should really change the ordinance if if if you if Council was adamant that they do not want a CFO serving as the ba we really should change our ordinance because our ordinance is is in conflict with the fauler act right now as as I sit here right now it is so I I heard that Chief but it was it was my understanding that the Faulkner act it's not in conflict with the fauler ACT um doesn't say you you have to have one person as CFO and ba it says you can right you can't have the controller you can't have the controller reporting to the ba right now the controller reports to the ba right I okay so yeah I don't want to we're gonna be on night yeah yeah I listen it's a it's a it's really a technical thing it's not it's not there were a couple other challenges with that contract too and and this is the the big issue and I think Council C points it out she and I remember it differently my understanding based on you know and I said this was a tough vote I talked to several people there were people that were um asking me not to vote for it I put it on the record it's a hard vote for me yeah it's hard I made that decision because I saw what happened in Dover and should we have had a new mayor and the CFO leave which is a statutory position the mayor and Dover couldn't make payroll there's no way in the world was going to put us in a situation where if Cindy Joe or myself became the mayor and then 300 plus people just couldn't get paid because the CFO was now upset that he didn't get a new contract or or whatever the case may be and I'm not saying he would have I didn't want to put us in that position I put that on the record then it was a hard vote and and sometimes in politics you're choosing from a bunch of bad options that's a great example of it um and it was a sensitive time I I mean you only understand that when you're in the moment so so I think I think we what we should have is an independent voice on some of these issues give us a report help us understand what these things are and how they've impacted us thing the chice thing R do it and then we'll go so I just wanted to make a recommendation hold one second you said you're gonna put all on an email because it's obviously a lot to digest and remember absolutely um I'll give it the legal they'll look at it uh you know my understanding this contract come from the mayor to the council but this is you're claiming part of your investigatory functions you may need to speak to your uh existing attorney on that I I don't know I just I don't want to give the optic you know or bad illusion that uh the administration is trying to block you or opposed to we're all about transparency we believe we're doing everything right so I appreciate it and I and I and I think this will clear so there are critics of both sides right of all five each of us individually mayor you Aldo almost everybody in a leadership position there's some criticism of us I think this kind of thing will alleviate some of that because it will be an independent third-party professional looking at some of the most critical matters in town and rendering uh either giving us advice or rendering or providing a position on these issues so um I'm happy to hear that I'm looking forward to getting it done I want to make it as um I mean this is the function of the auditor so you're going to go with a different auditor I mean yeah well we can RIS I don't if you want to pay two people to do the same thing I guess that's my point because it's pretty expensive proposition well forensic a is is different than your regular audit yes more I talked back when this came up last time I I talked to a couple Auditors to get you know better uh understanding of the matter and they said a forensic audit is generally geared at something specific right people are stealing gas people are doing you know right this doing that so we we don't really have that accusation here I mean you've said yourself for I know everybody did everything right I just want to have a you know third party come in tell me that well I do I don't know that it's a forensic audit it seems like it's just a regular audit no no no so I there was one council meeting where I said to Mr gross I'm not accusing you of anything and it was in reference to this pres friend of garden I actually I actually misspoke right because what started and what is already on the record is um my understanding that Mr gross made payments to our town attorney without Town Council approval before the lawsuit before the judge yeah and and if and what I've said to him privately and and to some others is if you've done it once how can I trust that it hasn't been done again so I I'm not trying to make it contentious and I don't what I've been intentional about this year is trying to minimize the amount of fighting we do in public um I think it's been destructive to the community it's been destructive to us um I and we talked about this a little earlier with the tree ordinance we were able to kind of work through some things in that process that allowed us to not quite fight that same way I want to continue building on that I don't I don't think uh anyone else would disagree so I don't want to be contentious I don't want to be accusatory but there is a reason um to go down this road um this is not just like a fishing Expedition there are there's there's a cred there are credible reasons to take this action counil you want to say something or did I miss that oh yeah because listen I I have no problem I there's if we've been doing something wrong for years I'm all for correcting it so get some pricing see what we're talking about because again we we you know we talked about the garbage earlier we have a budget already crafted how much more you want to add to that budget and that th that these are great conversations for Thursday I totally agree and I'm glad to hear your response um so that was that on the forensic AED and on the auditor um oh you had com yeah I had a couple comments and questions I just wanted to say usually with the forensic uh audit you kind of also specify a time period um and I wanted to know if we have any specific times you you mentioned a lot of different things but could we as we go through this process if we do decide to move forward could we narrow down the window so that we just don't have an unlimited um so councilman I cannot possibly tonight go through the full tonight not tonight in the process that would certainly be a part of the and then also when we do look to if we do look to secure some additional Auditors um for this task can we do an RFP with the parameters again understanding that some of these bids do come through the administration with the particulars on how they're going to word them um but it is my desire if we get to this point that we actually have the opportunity to craft the RF P so that the things that we are looking for are included and we don't have to do guest work I don't know that that's our capacity but if it is I would certainly look forward to that I would support that wholeheartedly but it is a mayor function we understand but we want to work together I would love to work with her on it but ultimately she has to say yes or no to to us but it sounds like there are at least four possibly five votes to um you know influence that RFP ult you know ultimately the mayor is going to decide if she wants to to do it or not well I I think there's some concerns because I understand that ultimately it is the mayor's call but at this point we have received countless emails where bills are not being paid and I think that's important we still don't H or I'm not going to make the assumption but are 2023 books closed or are they still open I believe they were closed in February right I believe they're no we don't know that I don't we voted right but we're looking at a budget if we look at our budget it doesn't have final numbers for 2023 in the budget that we're doing right now so I totally I haven't gotten any more emails about people who haven't been paid and and since last some of those emails where people hadn't been paid were still within the time frame of you know I go to Paul and say they're complain haven't been paid you know she's like I still have 30 more days by Statute to pay them you know so but not the St though not the students that are coaching those the that was the problem last year Reon for them that's again a problem this year reason whatsoever so there's some of the some of these things again we don't have and we don't know it's not our department but when those red flags continue to come to us and we get the emails those are our concerns and again because of the relationships that we have or don't have and the questions that we get the questions that we have on our own we just need confirmation that things are being done properly and because we are coming to the very end of his tenure we know he's retiring we don't want to be in a situation as a municipality as an elected body to not know what we don't know I think there was an issue with the with the coaching too though we didn't have the time records or something no no I could tell you right now absolutely not absolutely everything was so but hold on so what we're going to what we're doing now right we're litigating this we don't need to think there is support to go forward there's legitimate reasons expressed by multiple council members and at least the willingness to to entertain it by others uh and I think that's that's exactly what our next steps are going to be um Council I think that you know I I hear what you're saying about the administration how we should do it because it will be a conflict he is the chief of staff to the administration the right hand to the mayor and there is going to be a big conflict with the mayor writing this and getting involved and that why we have to find out from Mr jenero or Mr Tren what our investigatory powers are because it should come from us and we should be the one to select and choose the uh whoever the the auditor is um I mean like whenever the bids come in we should be the ones sitting and looking at them and going through them and deciding who we are going to select it should not come from the administration at all one two my recommendation would be reaching out to that firm who did the audit in Dover because they will know exactly what to look they know everything they've went through his work there they know what to look for and to me that makes the most sense well if they respond I would certainly um be supportive if it's a great response right was gonna be my recommendation to and then we have to also keep on and note just for the record because we're not being accusatory that they did not find any discrepancies or criminal actions that were done when they did the audit so they're doing that work now though yeah no but but I hear you and and we don't so that that's the the balance right like this is a public meeting it's permanently memorialized like I I I I I I think we've had a good conversation we've struck a good tone I think each of us has weighed in I I I think the next step is to send this email outline at least the the broader scope see what the next step is going to be from a vote standpoint um so that we can then take formal action um all right I I got a couple of more things that are going to be far less um involved um our last budget Workshop uh Chief Veo um made the offer to have a a workshop on Capital so that we can start to plan we know there's a lot of development my my my question to him at the time was I mean we were talking about it from a financial standpoint but informing that budgetary concern was all of the development that's going on in town um and then the understanding of what can happen after that um and so um he we we had some discussion during the workshop he sent an email I would like to set a a a workshop in advance of our capital budget which we don't even have on the schedule yet but I want to put this down now so that in our timing we understand um and not just for fire but for uh public Public Safety um in general uh and I think that would include DPW because we have some uh snow removal concerns uh I mean some snow removal responsibility there that does require capital investment not necessarily that that'll happen this year but so that we can understand what our multi-year expectations are and begin to kind of plan that through um so I just want to put on my colleagues radar um in advance of our first Capital uh budget Workshop um I want to have a a meeting with our Public Safety uh team and in this case it would be police fire DPW so that we can get an understanding of what the future holds for them and be more prepared and intentional about how we spend those dollars sure I'm happy to hear whatever your feedback is I got one ask you if you would be willing to um also because we have had some Capital Improvements done in the firehouses I think it would be imperative for us to go and see what Capital Improvements have been done as well um just so that we will have an understanding of progress uh tours can be set up I'm sure um we can do that in advance it is probably another department you'd want to meet with oh yes it okay yes okay uh yes ma'am so I get it with the tours um but so each year and Mr leapor had we had started this guess 2017 yeah I got here 2015 2017 where he during Capital uh improvements capital budget rather that we would see a presentation with pictures they go around and take pictures throughout the township of projects that were done and then what was going to be placed on the the need for this coming year so miss caral miss cabalo she's listening I'm not sure she was part of that last year or the year before when she got here but I highly recommend that that is done for this capital budget season was actually director Pelosi that did that last year oh he did that oh God bless him we we'll figure it out we can get okay okay so so that's one way that we could you know see exactly what's going on and the chief from what I heard I thought after we set this because they kind of have their I guess their needs already in for this year is that yeah he forwarded that by email as well I don't know if you guys got that and um but with the fiveyear plan had to mention at the uh budget hearing is for the Strategic plan but I like to see where we get on the 13th I I hear you I think we defish have those kind of meetings we got to get this part of it done well absolutely so this is so this I'm just planting a seed um you know we we're not going to get the capital budget immediately following the operating budget I mean we we never right so uh hopefully we'll get it you know by maybe August or so I think we we've made a tremendous amount of progress so far in the operating budget um and who plans on being here on Thursday are we gonna all of us no no I'm sorry not directors are the the rest of directors going to be on call for Thursday well we'll start with Janice because was here um are you putting a time limit on it because I don't want to over no no I I don't want to put a time limit on it because you know I guess we'll have the the balance will probably be here they're all much smaller than the biggest part of the budget that we've already done yeah because yeah the the quicker we get this part of it done we can move to that Capital piece and then start scheduling that out presentation last time so you get another so that's true yeah that was an hour's worth of information induction stuff like that what did we do last time police fire police fire health and um one more Denise was here but yeah she didn't go so there's there's there's there's Senior Services was here too and we didn't get to her yeah we didn't get I would I mean if you're willing to stay late we could we could get all six of them in um yeah I would I would like I think 8:39 oock latest uh colleagues what do you guys think I'd rather go to 10 I I like to try to if we could try to get it banged out I mean what time are we starting 10 if we could go to30 5:30 is what time some of them are quick I mean zat's probably gonna engineering is going to be a while and there's some considerations for you with regard to uh both her salary and the assistant salary and so on so um that might take some time but you know some of them are pretty um I'm good at 9: 5:30 to 9: Let's we can well we we'll have everybody here I mean do we have to have do we have to at this particular time time good point we don't so think about it but I I would encourage us not to go too long I think we had a productive meeting we don't know how Wednesday's going to go and that's the other thing we know very late you think that's one of the reasons why we shouldn't have a long meeting I spoke well we can we maybe select a a third date now if you decide to go well you guys want to do it optional third yeah I mean I won't be able to do a long meeting we don't have a long meeting we don't think we're gonna get a why don't we set another meeting down for in the event yeah who's the third one we did Mike mono Mike okay that's I would always suggest that because otherwise you're going to be debating this on Thursday night too and it's going to take it longer to debate so why don't we well we still have ABC here too so that's Wednesday no we have an ABC in hearing right now yeah we're not done we're not done I I mean that's well I got one more thing too I got one more thing too all right so um do you do you w to uh get your calendars out and look for an optional third date for the budget yes no uh we either gonna do it tonight or or Wednesday do it we're not gonna have to do it I'm speaking into existence I'm with you we're not gonna have to do you wait until you do the budget meeting on Thursday yeah then decide well that was Pete's point was instead of taking another 20 30 minutes Thursday night we could do it now but that's fine just I only made a suggestion I'm available the last Wednesday and Thursday of July you'll have a clear what are you talking I think would have a clear picture on Thursday to yeah not and how much time it'll take and if it can be done on Zoom um so that's a good point okay uh all right um so other towns in their Council meetings have uh updates from Public Safety um we don't do that here um and some people have asked about you know updating us on on you know crime in town and those kinds of things um but it when that uh was brought to my attention um you know I looked at what other towns do and they also have a liaison to Public Safety and we don't is there is does and you've been on longer than the rest of us is there a reason why we don't have a liaison because some of these things that we're talking about could be worked out in advance of you know some of the workshops and things if we had someone in regular communication I mean for years I've never saw the need for it I I mean if something comes up we address it I mean we have the right here at the at is that why other Town yeah usually have that like in a commission form of government um because the the public safety officials report to the in this former government so for the council to come and influence them I mean you've been around long enough you know we all try to work together you call me pick the phone up if I can help you out I don't say you have to go through the mayor but but that's the the real reason why there's no le on like that it's not that form of government gotcha all right so wanted to also go in that uh gauge um interest amongst my colleagues for having periodic updates from Public Safety with regard to crime stats yeah crime stats but also responses from fire department as well we've got EMS and those kind of things um I think that would be helpful and I think that would also give the public the capacity to understand when we're talking about Capital budgets and improvements why we need them for instance especially with response time what we don't have is data but what we do have is people who might say on social media or any other platform oh my gosh it took a long time for the EMS to get here and then that might go viral on social media when in fact it wasn't really a long time because we have support data to show that the average time is two minutes three minutes whatever it is I'm just saying but I think that would be very helpful in helping the public understand how each of these departments work I think also when there those requests for items that they need again it would just the transparency the information I don't think that as a we can give our residents too much information colleagues any anyone else want to weigh in but that also adds time to the meeting I mean we could also time box it and do it you know at the at the front end of the meeting as part of the conference agenda or whatever it is the early part yeah that's what you probably want to put it and and it doesn't have to be every meeting quarter once a right right I think it's good idea yeah yeah it's a good idea yeah yeah so I like what the police department does with um and I'm not on social media all the time but when there's something that big that happens they always put something out there whether it's a missing person whether there's you know something a fire or or something you see it time to time um to put it in conference agenda would be good um maybe once a month but again I I mean we can make our meetings as long as we want you just if there like for example tonight I was going to ask I didn't get a chance to ask she to bet but there was a big incident at Burlington Co Factory and I don't know what you could tell us about that tonight A lot of times things are still being investigated so their information is a little limited but there was something that occurred there and I know folks were upset about that so there are a few people went to Burlington co- Factory lit off some fireworks some towels caught fire as a result of that which is an ORS so is under investigation much more to report it right now on that we're working with the um Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms ETF Federal Agency on that uh they came in to assist us and they have a lot of uh you know technology that we don't normally have access to because we use it on a routine basis so um for example so if the rest is made you know that's something that could be shared I guess with that report is that what you're looking for yeah yeah just a you know and I'm willing to kind of figure it out as we go to see what the most important information is and what the right timing is I think if we started you know on a quarterly basis I I yeah I think that would be fine just give us you know today give us the prior three months we'll come back three months from now and give us quarterly the prior three months quarterly we'll probably do do you want that on the next conference agenda um yes um councilman thank you council president speaking of fireworks um we did approve for the golf course to have fireworks but there have been a lot of inquiries and we have not had an official statement that the township of West Orange will not be having fireworks so can we please have Clarity at at this meeting for the public indicating Yes No Maybe So because that's the people just don't know what we said what our official response was was that we are having a food track Festival food truck festival at 10 Rooney Circle but people are still saying well does that mean no fireworks maybe fireworks so can we just have an official statement we're not having fireworks thank you thank you what we're doing is I had a meeting today with u all our police are fire Public Safety our office Emergency Management and and the recreation department um we are celebrating Fourth of July our independence day like we do every year which it's the West Orange Independence Day celebration it will be from 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 10 Circle it will include fire trucks it will include bouncy rides it will include um um musicians um some top quality bands that are Jersey Shore or other venues that are going to come in um and we're setting it up at at ten ring we're going to be having um we're we're looking at um all aspects of parking we're going to look at the US utilizing the dog park we're going to utilize um a lot of different uh um ways of trying to have family fun and entertainment while celebr in the country's Independence it's just that this year we chose not to utilize fireworks included in the in the presentation and at a new location thank you and we will and at our meeting today we had draft um uh Flyers that were made that we were we were going over to make sure that was right um I will talk to director Kio to make sure that we get it out tomorrow we'll go through Mr Fagan and get it all publicized so everybody knows what it's about is it possible for us to do some type of I I understand it this is what we're gonna do but is it possible for the administration just to go out and and put something on social media that just says no well we can address that tomorrow now that we have it finalized and we we just met this afternoon and we met up at the site just to go over we wanted to make sure we had everything finalized because it's it's a different venue we wanted to make sure that everything that we're planning for is going to be a safe fun time for all who participate that's what that's our concern and so we we we feel confident that this is going to be a much more safer environment than than we've experienced in the past thank you so we will make sure that and we will have that posted tomorrow uh councilwoman c c just to that part and I know it was a switch from last year and and a different venue and I I respect all that but it's already uh June 9 so June 10th June 10th rather so we have to really get that advertisement out there because to a councilwoman's point we're we're getting Hammer with people asking us what are is we will address it we will address it tomorrow like I said we had to finalize to put the plan together with all our professionals to make sure that we you know we we are we are moving forward while remembering what we went through so let's let's move forward and make this a safe a much safer event for all to who want to come and visit our town okay councilman um another matter I I we don't have to discuss it tonight but I want to put on everyone's radar so we can discuss in the next meeting we need I think it's important via residence uh and Via an ordinance excuse me to dictate what pools or what we're going to do with the Cannabis Revenue 2% is a lot I see what other towns are getting and if we're going to get that much or even you know whatever it is we I think that we by ordinance should decide and allocate several Pockets whether it's for seniors whether it's for Parks and Recreation for the community Public Safety pedestrian safety I mean there's so many different Pockets right and I think it's important that we do that do we know when uh any of these entities are going to open the two that we approved they're waiting on we've done everything on our R okay no I'm just something we need to think about right because South Valley Road should be emminent and Prospect South Valley Road hasn't hasn't finished their construction it's closer to being done than South Valance so with that being said if we can just maybe in the next meeting because it's getting late dedicate think about we know General thing goes to our general budget but instead of doing that I think that we should allocate it towards certain departments or divisions whether it's for senior services or or pedestrian sa whatever it is you know it may end up alleviating pressure it will alleviate pressure on the budget so that the general budget can go other places a little bit easier but if you if it's in an ordinance then each year you have to adhere to that particular and it might be I think category you might have different needs but then you limit need elsewhere we get well then maybe have like a general allocation too I don't know the reason why I I bring this up is because for an example we get $2 million in in Revenue right and you divide by five different pockets that's $400,000 a year that can really help what do they do in other towns can can you find out what the model is for other towns we know Bloomfield we know I don't I don't know what they do I don't I so I don't know Mr jengar I guess our legal department a weigh in on it I don't know if they are I know that there have been discussions throughout the state on doing this on segregating cannabis revenue for specific purposes I don't know that anyone's actually done it yet um but I do think it's a good idea and and I I think a part of what we can accomplish with that is addressing some of the community concerns about having it in town in the first place so Downtown parking could be another pocket right paying for parking you can all figure it out yeah we just keep it General right so that way when you have the money you can use it for whatever you need towards that space in that space space though like for senior services for downtown right you can say downtown and maybe you want to save but if you get $400,000 towards downtown every year that might help towards parking issues or whatever it is right like down parks open space parks and I mean there's so many different I I think we I think we're all in agree I just think Madam Clark could you'll just ask any of the other um townships that have cannabis if they have any and then let us know if there's something yeah talk go through it on our state regulations that would be helpful very thank you thank you you want to leave yourself in a skatee b Toby because if you if you need that money to to not have a gigantic tax raise yeah you don't want to know that well I Gotta Throw 400,000 over here and 400,000 over there and they're fact because they got that 400,000 for the last five years and now I can't use it and have to raise taxes so just also if we could find out what the flexibility is if we don't do Pockets how do we dictate where it does go because I think at the end of the day I think that's really what we're trying to say is we want to be involved in as a council it's just not the administration making the decision that it's going to go for X I think that ultimately the council controls the pur R well that's what that's what we're saying that's what we're saying I mean the American SP any budget you know she wants but if you have four votes you can change it so um you you always have that option you know another consideration is um you know Bond debt if you want to do large projects you can use it for Bond debt and you can get things done right away so if you need you know several million dollars to build a parking Deb or something like that and you say well we're going to take this revenue and we're going to earmark it for we we want to have that conversation so you know we we kind of talked a little bit about it today I I think it's a great idea I don't know that it's been done before so I'm not sure that it's legal yeah I don't but if it is legal I think we want to weigh our options because to her point if we don't do it this way VIA ordinance it's just a part of the general budget and then we vote up and down the same way we do three gos to to uh lower it and four votes to increase it um you know once the mayor presents our budget thank you anything else colleagues before I moveed to a journ I moved to a journ into ABC second second second all right so we gotta say good night well thank you all do appreciate the uh collegiality tonight um soon as we take the vote we'll say good night and move into our ABC all in favor all in favor yes just kidding good night West orang thank you all everyone a Happy Father's Day We wish all of our fathers in West Orange the best Father's Day that they could possibly have we are remembering you and um we wish you a good Sunday all right good night everybody okay that's right forgot