everybody Welcome to the mayor and council meeting hello everybody at home hello everybody that's here um it is January 18th 2024 7:30 pm. Linda you there I'm here all right hope you're feeling better can you please read the open public meetings act and call the meeting to order in compliance with the open public meetings act the notice requirements have been satisfied the meeting dates for the year are confirmed at the annual meeting are posted on the public bulletin board in the municipal building and on the burrow website published in the record within the first 10 Days of the New Year and copies are sent to the Ridgewood news and Star Ledger notice of this meeting by the January 8th 2024 Sunshine notice was sent to the record The Ridgewood news and Star Ledger and has been posted on the public bulletin board in a municipal building and burrow website councilman delisio here councilwoman Homan here councilwoman Lis solo here councilman oconnell absent councilman otou absent councilman yino absent mayor wolinski here thank you very much everybody please stand and salute the flag flag of the United States of stand na indivisible okay next we have the approval of minutes January 4th Sadia meeting and uh January 4th reorg meeting minutes do I have a motion I'll make the motion second please second roll call councilman deliso yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes okay all righty um we were GNA have a presentation today but since we were missing so many people we are going to actually uh postpone that until the next meeting it's um Peter lofo from hoplight Communications that's going to talk to us about new 5G technology um so next I will have agenda review we have an ordinance this is an ordinance just to amend chapter 53 it's all the burough salaries of officers and employees this is done by law we do this every year so this is um second reading on the consent agenda the consent agenda uh oops I'm sorry for the resolution we have um the last piece of our resolution 24-6 this is when we uh changed the Committees we rearranged them a little bit to make it uh better and more suitable for for working for the next year so we have our finance Asar admin we added a it to that committee we have our Public Safety Committee facilities park and rec committee and now we have our Public Works that we added utilities because we still have a lot of work to do with the sewer and then we have our Landing committee and then we have our consent agenda which are items that are considered routine and they're in acted one motion but I would like to bring some of them to our attention because we're all doing such great work here we have uh first we have a Crestwood Lake membership donation we are happy to be able to offer the use of our beautiful Lake as a donation for our Allandale based um nonprofits so this is for the Allandale s River rotary club we also um are authorizing Crown ccil consenting for crown castle to who actually owns the cell tower to um to go to the l l use port and apply for an extension um of their cable so they are going to be on the LA the next land use board meeting so they want to make it a little bit higher T okay yeah um we also uh purchased a new vehicle for our building inspector he was very excited about that very happy to say that um we went to bid and the contract for our garbage bid was awarded to Suburban so the town will be very happy because everybody loved Jonesy and his crew so we're really happy that they uh were the lowest bidder um also our recycle agreement was also amended with Rockland County Solid Waste Management Company uh we have our list of bills Miss L solo did you have a chance to review that I did great all right and that's it mayor I think we're going to need a motion to table resolution 246 I'm just looking at the calendar as we speak to 2406 24 resolution 2406 oh the resolution yeah we're going to need to table it to February 8th because the bylaw amendments require a 2third vote of the council and this evening we do not have four council members so uh all righty hear that Linda I did all righty so we just need somebody to make a motion to table it to a date certain February 8 I make a motion to move this to February 8th and I'll second as a comment I approve but I will not be councilman deliso yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman Loa solo yeah Al righty uh public comment on any of the agenda items that I just reviewed anybody from the public wanna want to speak to any agenda items not seeing anybody I'm going to bring it on back and so now we have our second reading ordinance 24-1 Linda please read uh our second reading by title please yes the following ordinance published herewith was first read by title only on January 4th 2024 and posted on the bulletin board of the lobby of the municipal building and burrow website ordinance 24-1 in ordinance to amend chapter 53 of the code of the B of Allendale officers and employees to fix the salaries wages and compensation of the officers and employees of the burrow of Allandale for the year 2024 does anybody from the public wish to speak or have any comments on ordinance 24-1 not seeing anybody we have our consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move I moved on the ordinance love solo second second uh councilman delisio yes councilwoman Homan yes councilwoman Lis solo yes do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda still moov home second please second well call councilwoman delso yeah councilwoman yes I'm sorry sorry councilwoman a Homan Council woman L solo all right it's a gender neutral roll call reports Council woman L solo landy's board is going to meet next week so I'll be able to report more on that then and um far Finance uh we met with Allison and um department heads are starting to submit their Capital requests and we're going to be moving forward on the budget very soon and that's all I have right now councilwoman home in so exciting news here in allenvale first uh for the water just to give a little update and hopefully I'll have more of a formal update um at the next council meeting that I'm attending um but violia has and a thank you to everybody in the burrow that helped them get the media into to the vessels over on West uh Crescent so they feel very positive about the initial readings that the posos uh treatment will be up and running for the springtime and we'll have um you know non detect levels so that's super exciting and I just continue to share that to the public anybody that listens to this because I think we've really made a good choice working with violia the idea that we could actually be completely you know non detect in the treated Wells within a year and a half of our system selling is enormous um so I'm grateful to everybody that's worked together for that um on the sewers we also uh Saddle River appears as though they will be bringing a contract that we've um negotiated over quite some time for their approval at their next council meeting and that what that does is it puts into place a new agreement between Allandale and Saddle River for us to accept their sewage and basically it just uh formalizes the charges that were you know charging them the same way that we're getting charged from north um northern Bergen County Utility Authority and it also creates an agreement whereby if there are repairs that need to be done on the portion of the sewer system that Saddle River sewage also flows through that we have a partnership in being able to fund any of those upgrades or repairs um so I'm pleased about that and that will formally probably come to the Allandale council at the February 8th right our next meeting so I won't be here but I do want to make sure that I'll talk to each of the council members and kind of just share exactly what I did tonight um and then I think Saddle River is scheduled for next Monday right yeah so it's good it's the way that we want to have paperwork in place that was an old agreement and um it makes sense to have it redone and then as a team we will move on to working with ramsy which is an even older agreement and look to do the exact same thing excellent that's my report so thank so much thank you so much with you okay so um I just want to say this is a new committee for me taking over the Department of Public Works um very excited to work with Andy agugliaro who's going to be a great superintendent had the pleasure of having our first meeting last Friday when I got back from my trip uh we do plan to do weekly meetings which uh which I think is going to be really good as Andy's getting you know acquainted with our town and our facilities and our equipment and our our Personnel um so it's going to be it's going to be great I mean Andy's already doing a great job you know came on got to deal with some heavy flooding uh got a couple of snowstorms so you came you came right right at the right time um one of the couple things we did speak about we're looking at the our vehicle and Equipment Fleet uh we're looking to see what we have what's outdated What's um things we possibly need to make things more efficient and and better for the residents in the town uh so Andy's working on that uh he's done a great job already starting to clean up and uh organize the facility down the down at DPW and I know it's still ongoing um doing a great job with the camaraderie and the teamwork of of our of our guys you know those guys are they're a pivotal part of our hound family and uh with your leadership I know it's just going to go even better continuing so I appreciate you for that uh I know we did speak a little bit about the imp menting a work order system also taking care of getting the guys potentially some clothing so we can all feel like we're one big part of the team I know you're GNA look into some training courses and um it was a good meeting we're gonna have another meeting tomorrow I know Andy's gonna give a report so I'm not gonna say too much but uh welcome to Allendale I'm I'm really looking forward to working with you thank you like you've been here for so long he says that the rain in the snow is swoll I would agree with that all right uh staff report uh Linda you want to start with you do you have a staff report I don't have any report tonight thank you thank you make up John Gill you have a report uh just that Allen Dale is hosting our rabies clinic this Saturday from 12: to 1 at the Red Barn so we will be in multiple layers but it is a drive-thru so we'll be doing that oh it's so well run that I loved it when I went I was like here's my dog okay a couple different layers yeah it's co for you guys but what a great job you do Tao and orell animal hital oh Tao's gonna be there too yeah Tao helps us get that together there you go how many residents do we have last year we did around 50 oh my gosh and it's just Allen uh no it's it's regional oh it's regional okay so we anyone from New Jersey good B attorney Ray West uh councilman homman mentioned councilwoman homman mentioned the water utility in sewer update so I I won't uh belabor those uh office has been doing a lot of work on the cell tower uh and 5G issue and uh part of it will be tied to the presentation on February 8th uh we've had what is apparently at least at the committee level a successful labor negotiation with respect to our White Collar unit um both parties have agreed on the terms of an you uh and hopefully that'll get translated to a contract very shortly uh and uh working with the administrator and with Andy on some implementation issues on our one of our contracts as it relates to the weather and uh also with the administrator on some Personnel matters that's it mayor all right thank you very much Chief Michael Dylan oh thank you Madame mayor uh Public Safety has been busy working in public works to address winter storms and mitigate flooding in identified areas of town I'm working with stakeholders to update the Burrow's Emergency Operations plan along with preparing for the Burrow's application to the Bergen County Hazard mitigation plan new police officers are in field training experience experiencing various types of calls while forming relationships with our residents especially our special needs population and youth good the department has grown by Leaps and Bounds with the support of the mayor and councel thank you for being such staunt supporters of our department absolutely not thank you very much DBW supervisor andyo thank you very much M off Council luio thank you very much for the kind words about the DPW staff they've been working extremely hard and very happy that it's not have noticed um so we've survived some more rain and snow um since our last meeting everything went very smoothly this time I think um they're calling for more snow tomorrow um anywhere between one to three inches so um but I think that's going to tizzle out as as we get closer um Christmas Treet pickup is still in full swing we got a little left behind because of uh the weather but uh we're still picking them up all thank you oh thank you all right I'll do my report real quick um 210 if anybody noticed the back wall of the gym went up so it's starting to get built um obviously with the weather as well it has there has been some delays but um we're looking to have instead of like a a ground breaking what we're going to do is um when the last beam goes up we're g to have everybody come and sign it and have like a last beam party when do we think that data we don't know yet I'll make sure you're be in 2024 oh no it's gonna be in like yeah month or so yeah couple like yeah a month or two so uh looking forward to watching the progress of this go forward I'm going to try to document as much as possible and hopefully the weather get better and I think we're going to take go up very quickly if it's any indication when our 70 units went up um then it should be up literally in like four or five minutes um and speaking of the 70 units they will be available um in like the next month so um they're going to start uh getting rented out so that's going to be a little bit interesting with moving trucks and other trucks so might be a little chaotic there and then us building our building so um we shall see but it's all exciting things for Allandale um we're getting ready for a great year we're going to um have a presentation at our next meeting talk about our goals for the council goals as a burough we're going to set some dates for some town halls in the near future so I look forward to getting the ball rolling this year um our mural there's a there's a big um push to get our mural done for years and years so there has been this um sculptor artist that came and approached me so it's not a burrow project but he is um leading this project and it really mirrors 30 years ago what the goals were for the community for the mural so the the if you read articles back 30 years ago when they first painted it on the wall it was all about art and it was all about getting the communi together and all about his history of Allendale so our our pillars of you know for this project mirror that 100% so we we it's going to be definitely different it's going to be kind of the modernized um mural I met with the burough historian for two hours this week and we really went around all the different buildings and and came up with a great uh I think a great plan that will have people from eight eight years old to 80 years old to be able to rec recognize something on on the wall so I think everybody will be really happy um and so we're looking to form committee so if anybody knows anybody that wants to be involved looking to form the committee so I can kind of St in the in the background um Ry has mentioned we worked on the UPS you contract so I'm glad that is all buttoned up uh and as Chief Dylan mentioned we started a a flooded flooding committee and we're looking um at the flooding issues that we have in town as they are similar to many other towns but I think with a multi-prong approach we be able to mitigate that a little bit as much as uh possible um we are getting the ball rolling on sprucing up the chambers here so we're just GNA do some painting and new carpet we picked out some colors today I think it's going to be really pretty not pretty uh it's not going to be pretty it's going to be handsome ATT it's going to be masculine attractive it's not G look like V anymore um the uh the kitchen as well and the kitchen um I I'm really excited about the kitchen because it's really in terrible tble shape and it's very important for all of us to have our employees to be able to go to a place that's nice and sit and have a break so they're not eating lunch at their desk so um that is in the works as well so hopefully in the next couple CLE months we'll have that done and uh congratulations yeah Andy on all the storm management issues that you have had so far and uh good luck tomorrow think you will'll be fine and that's it for me so anybody have any unfinished business new business one more time I'm open up the meeting to the public on any comment on any comments come on up Walter you let excuse my voice uh Walter Whitmer 38 Hamilton not this I paid my taxes in the previous month previous period I paid my taxes with PC [Music] banking I got to notice that my taxes are had never been paid MH I then went to the Revy I went to the bank canceled the check had them write out a new check brought the new check to the tax scal downstairs and she's very very nice she was so nice she let me vent and get upset and I I want to compliment her for that and I brought the check here and gave her the check for the uh tax due I said Thank you and she said then she said you always uh pass to you know interest on the money and uh I said what the hell's that for and she said well that's the way it is I I owe town of Allendale I think it was $28 for the taxes that were due for the interest that was due on the taxes that I had paid make a long story short I think a week later she called me and she said she said she got the check and of course cross my mind there big deal I'd like to have an explanation from someone as to why you ow the $28 so I will tell you what I know and um I hope I can say this uh as clear as um their tax assessor will but that you're not the only person that had this problem with their bank so there's a couple of residents who actually went through their bank and their bank for whatever reason took months to pay the burrow there's an ordinance or there's a law a state law or something that if it comes in late that we have to collect interest we can't wait wave it even if we wanted to wave it we can't wave it the other person not wave that way wave the wave the fee whose's weight the burrow the burrow cannot wave your $28 because you might have written the check but the check didn't get Al Allandale wasn't paid so that because I've had it happen to me too and I've had to pay the late fee because my money Allandale hadn't received the money so you're your taxes are leak my taxes were leak so and and it's not it's not like a formula that we came up with it's like it's it is like a estate formula so another person that had the same thing their their fee was like 60 something dollars and they had to pay and they were upset but it it was something that again we couldn't we couldn't wave because I did ask I didn't know about your situation but I did ask for this other resident and the answer was was no that we couldn't so um that's the explanation that I can that's the only explanation I can give you right now so the delay was on the side of the bank it was the bank fault if anything the bank should should pay you should be able to get that back from the bank this wasn't the bank it's the mail the mail that was a physical check mail from the bank yeah yeah the same thing happen apparently a common thing the bank sends the check to the town and in this particular case theyed the check I I don't know the exact time I believe one week after it was du yeah and obviously I could prove that I paid it I know it's not it's not that it's it's a little bit more complicated because it's taxes and then I had the can I had to pay for the cancellation of the check yeah that's well that that I would actually fight the bank for because if they couldn't mail it in a timely manner but like I said for some reason it's it's it's happening with a lot of banks I don't know why but you're not the first person it's happened to that doesn't do much good does it it doesn't help I know but at least it's an explanation that's what you ask for sorry Walter good job I can't Sol anything else from the public motion to adjourn so move second oh two