that's where so either like either either I have certain problems with your firm for the redaction good evening everyone today is Monday November 13th the time is 6 10 p.m. and this meeting is called to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all Madam cler roll call please council member brusher here council member Coyle council member Harris here council member Patel here council member PTI here council member pointer pres Council membership Freeman Madam clerk adequate notice please adequate notice of this meeting is required by the open public meeting Act of 1975 has been provided by the annual notice sent to the Home New Tribune Star Ledger Sentinel and Desi talk on December 1st 2022 and post main lobby missal complex on that same date item Four review of minutes item a combined meeting September 27th item B work session meeting October 23rd any any comments questions or concerns see none five administrative agenda uh a appointment of Deputy Dida as presiding judge any questions comments or concerns seeing none uh six reports from all council's committees I'll start from my I just WR councilman brusher um I'm going to uh send out an invitation for our Amazon committee um given the light that that I just heard that they're going to Institute re re up the railroad tracks um because that could play into a whole thing since we don't know what's actually happening there um so I'll send out an invitation this week um and we'll convene and try and get to the bottom of it um that would be it thank you thank you uh Council vice president Harris none from either Cultural Arts or Library board however I just want to say a word about the U subcommittee to the shelter and uh actually councilman Brasher councilman patile and I are going to be meeting this week to discuss the uh the startup of that committee and so uh that we should have it up and running for next month so thank you thank you Council vice president councilman Patel none sir councilman ptil none at this time uh and for myself um in regards to the deer at hoc committee we are meeting with the uh state representative it's figured for November 29th we're just putting together a list of areas to check out around the township thank you uh Seven Points of Light any points of light any council members council president excuse my laryngitis um this is going to be interesting to get through um first all I want to congratulate uh councilman brusher councilman Pati and uh councilman Coy for their re-elections and uh I welcome uh soon to be councilman Asaf schm to our Council um I wish Jo I wish councilwoman Joy ship Freeman all the best and thank her for all the contributions that she's made to this Council and hope that she remains active in uh in Edison and in all the interests and passions that she has for Edison uh also wanted to mention that on Saturday on Veterans Day there was the street naming ceremony and it was it was very very well attended there were 11 Street naming signs for veterans who live in Edison and veterans that go back to from the Vietnam War through desert desert storm and Desert Shield and it was a truly meaningful experience so I want to thank all of those veterans and their families for their service and congratulate them on having these street signs and of course also devali was uh the devali ceremony was uh the event was November 4th extremely well attended beautiful day beautiful weather and the fireworks were terrific and so if you if you get a chance to get down to papani park and I'll look at the lighting for it that was up for Dali and that will be up for the winter wonderland it's really magnificent so um that's all I have thank you thank you uh Council vice president any other Points of Light yes uh councilman Patel I also want to congratulate the winners on the recent election and uh I too enjoy the diw festival especially Jan I did not think I would see him at Edison performing so thank thank you councilman Mel and uh likewise for my myself the Diwali Festival I thought was a tremendous success um I thought it was just amazing so thank you any other points of L seeing none moving on to uh review of the agenda eight from the business administrator a resolution awarding contract purchase order to various vendors for Furnishing of walk-in Building Supplies not to exceed 497 th000 B resolu ution accepting bid awarding a contract for office supplies not to exceed 25,800 C uh resolution increases permiss permissible expenditures for the Professional Services contract for municipal attorney for March 1st 2023 through December 31st 2023 not to exceed 250,000 D resolution awarding contract purchase order for the purchase of various technology supplies and services $50,000 e resol resolution awarding contract purchase order to Verizon Wireless for Furnishing of cellular phone services wireless cards and accessories not to exceed 220,000 F resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the New Jersey Department of Transportation safe Rouse school program G resolution authorizing the award of a fair and open contract for Edison landfill engineer Consulting and item H we are going to be removing from tonight's agenda are there any questions comments or concerns Council pres yes uh councilman P I have a question on C uh is there a plan to discuss this in a close session on this topic or uh so this wasn't part of the original close session items um okay quick quick question through the council president to administ ation is this 250,000 is just for the council or this is combined with the mayor plus Council plus labor union contract all all that together or it is a separate this covers all of the municipal services that the township attorney is assigned to that includes all of um Council Administration and including labor and how about special projects that's also part of this it covers everything okay thank you uh thank you councilman ptil any other yes I question oh I'm I'm sorry any other questions councilman p f the submission of application it's a good thing but I would like to know where do we use this fund if we get any from State for the school program so this covers up uh Tingley Inman um there's a couple of um intersections over on Inman that it's going to cover I can send that to you tomorrow it's being finalized um with our um uh Lieutenant Turner absolutely because those intersections are important but we have many more in Edison town and I keep saying about calart and grow but we have many more like that that does impact the school those are the the school routs and if you can please send me the list so that we can keep adding into that list yep and my next question is on G the landfill I think in after probably 4 years I'm hearing about this landfill are we making any progress or are we closing or this is the final thing that we are doing with the landfill so with this is um this is the last step that we'd like to do in order to cap it out so what we had to do though is go out get a new Engineers um uh new we had to put an RFP out in order to qualify new Engineers to get the project done so what we'd like to do is get that moving forward and that's why the resolution is on for tonight and if I heard correctly this is going to be the final just to cap it and close thank you and the last one the salaries uh do we know when the last time we revise uh just for clarification I I I pulled that um thank you sir my apologies no problem that's it thank you council president thank you councilman p uh Council Vice President also on c um my question is I know that it's been uh relatively recent that um The Firm the law firm has started reviewing all of the Oprah requests and I'd like to know first of all when does that go back to what what led to the change from not reviewing it to reviewing it and how much of the what what percentage because I know we get a lot of oah requests and that the clerk's office is having a hard time keeping up um can you shed some more light on the history of the uh firm uh looking at the Oprah requests and uh what led to it and what uh what percentage of this uh 250 would be would would that involve so first um yes I can thank you um we actually don't review every Oprah request what happened was that as as you know in and Cheryl's office certainly knows and Marlene Marlin certainly knows also there's an enormous volume of of Oprah requests and and in some respects kind of an overwhelming number of requests and my office was always asked to review certain kind of categories of the opr Oprah request but what hap what was happening was um I would get an email that says um I need you to review op request number five it's uh P to I wouldn't have oper request number five so we'd go through the I'd have to email everybody get the op request so our op the op requests I started to get copied on them but we weren't reviewing all of them because there's a lot of over requests that are let let me call them routine and it's uh anybody who has sold a house knows that we get an opr request to see whether or not there was ever a underground storage tank on the house or there any open permits or any of those things we don't re so that it's a it's a misnomer that we review all of them we're reviewing the exact same number I've just my office has just been copied on them because we were concerned that Opa requests were slipping through the cracks so we're only reviewing the same types of opa requests we reviewed before I would like to tell you it's not a significant amount of time that's spent but everybody knows in every municipalities Oprah is a very has become a very costly item and I don't I I wish I could tell you that I had some magic wand I know that there is a bill that's been dropped in the legislature I know that you know some of the stuff that is in that bill is you know is stuff that I know I've heard clerks and our clerks talk about um that would streamline the process and make it faster but I so uh it's in in the overall scheme of the township budget is not it's not I guess materially significant but but but there's a cost to it there's a cost to oper but we are not reviewing every single opener request because it's there's no need for us really to do that I'm just I'm just aware of them all because they come through my they fill up my inbox um but at least when when somebody has a question about it I know I have it in my inbox and I can go back and take a look at it and that's that's really all we tried to do because it was just a matter of trying to get a handle on it um and I think and the administrator can talk more about this I think we continue to talk with the clerk's office about how we can make it better and um but but what would not make it better is if my office had to review everyone that would not make it better I can guarantee you that and I'll just add to that part of the process is that I I'm included in all of those requests as well and that's more of a do I answer them all no not the routine stuff but um there's certainly quite a lot that would come that would obviously that I need to know about if it's Personnel related or legal things of that nature that may require Mr Ron's office to look through so um it to me it is something that a ba would normally do that isn't different than um any other Township unfortunately this is the the issue we're all dealing with in terms of Oprah requests I know there's a lot of frustration out there for people who are waiting a long time to get those either the Oprah request to be granted or that they get um they they're told they need they need to have an extension on that and so whatever can be done to streamline this process would be of great benefit to to everybody I think but especially to the public right and and just one once again I hate to add editorial comments but part of we have Oprah requests from citizens and we think we have a good handle on those one of the big issues that I think the legislature is now grappling with and I know that when they wrote Oprah they didn't really see it coming is the commercial aspect of it because what we essentially are you know in the old days you used to hire an engineer and he would do a due diligence on your property now that engineer writes an Oprah request to us and we do the due diligence um so it's a and they bill for it um and we and we Bill 10 cents a page or we don't bill at all so it's it there is the commercial side of it that is it sometimes it's overwhelming and and and we try to do better so we we'll continue at it thank you something to talk about during the budget by the way yeah in the clerk's office any other questions Council vice president no that's it for me thank you thank you councilman Patel um for the safe rout to school uh Sonia I would also like to to be included on the list uh and I'm excited for the first steps that we're taking I'm hoping that we get more safe rout to schools and more kids walk to school or bike to school and hopefully that will also alleviate our school bus issues that we're having in board bed uh question for G um I had a question where is the Edison landfill because I'm not familiar with it next short sorry if this is sounds like a dumb answer it's next door to kinbu landfill right so it's it's a long the river so there's the bo Basin by The Boat Basin correct okay that's it for me thank you councilman councilman Brer yes um back to see on on the expenditures um most people here would probably know that that I I have issues with redactions right um but I was I was told that they'll look into that and and get back to me on that I'm going to take their word on that that we get that resolved by the end of the week but going back to my Council colleague's question the the question on the increases um I guess we received the documentation that showed us that these numbers are in line with the previous Law Firm that we had and I I'll tell you where we as a body were expecting that number be quite lower it's it's actually lower I well no but let let me just explain why because what we had with the with the past Law Firm was the the past Law Firm spent tremendous amount of hours um on a Suez deal okay so we we knew that they spent that we didn't know what exactly was spent on Su and what wasn't and now when we have legal bills and they're comparable so we were assuming that it was probably related to the the open OA so I guess the it's not the Oprah is what you're explaining that's kind of like standard operating procedure right and I and I do know that probably 90 I I request I think I requested every Oprah request for a year and it was like 90% of them were for sale homes or any open permits on it that was 90% of the oer as that come through um it was remarkable actually um so I guess our question then is is is why we're you know if we took out Suez and what the last attorney spent on Suez where would we have been you know as a benchmark if you take out Suz you'd still be you'd still be less that that year that you were involved in the Suz deal I think that your your legal fees were almost a million dollars so this you're what where you're going to by the end of this year is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars less than that so I I don't I didn't go back other than that I looked at the numbers but I saw that in the end I think we end up being less even on a normal year and I understand what you're saying about the SE year because I I looked at that also the other thing councilman and this is actually um a suggestion that I kind of put in my head from having read um councilman PS um um email is I I think going forward I'm going to try to break these down in a in a manner so that you can see monthly what's what's administrative what's Council related what's Labor related in in a way that might be easier for you to just look at it and then track it that way better so so the extent that to the extent that that's helpful I think actually be helpful to me but I think it would might be helpful to the council too especially at budget time it would because I mean you you did give us your bills we I was able to see them yes um they they're bills that are like $100 175 you know it's not like one big so we would have to go and and add them all up and um you know so when I got it it was kind of over overwhelming you know being that we get it on a Friday right I would had to spent 10 hours on Saturday 10 hours on Sunday just doing the math no but but it I so and that being the case then it would be helpful for you to have to know that you have five bills and it's $2,500 for the council and $5,000 for yes labor and five yeah and I and I um I've already started to put that in process from my point but my uh perspective so I will do that going forward make it a little easier for you to track and um because then we could just spreadsheet it for you so you could see it all right thank you you're welcome um f uh I did ask about this um there are sidewalks that have been requested over by JP Stevens I I might have the street wrong it might be Floyd Street um or Fletcher um Floyd okay and don't going me wrong I lived there for 50 years right and I forget which one is which but um the past administration I know made an application and I said this before that our engineering department made an application to put sidewalks in but they had to get approval from the D or the EPA because there was a stream within 15 ft or something like that um so my impression was that that engineering firm was continuing to do that work but then we got rid of that engineering firm we brought a new engineering fir him which is fine um and I asked if were doing anything with that and I never got an update on on that one so I don't know that we've applied for that but that's an area that that a lot of kids actually walk down that street and it's a narrow Street and the parents do drop off there so it's it's even more hazardous um so if we can get that added here and kind of get the engineer to give us an update as to what they need to accomplish to get that done for us [Music] um G um I did get an email saying that you'll get me information on what we've done with this landfill um and this is another frustrating issue um as my Council colleague said I mean he's been he's been hearing about it a lot longer than I have but under the previous administration we were talking about closing the landfill but but doing it in a way that it was going to be enlarged so that it left us with acreage that we could actually use as a facility for what whatever you want you know a field for kids or a field for someone to use or or even solar panels um and it was designed in a way that Edison would receive fees for The Dumping of soil into there that would be clean soil and there would really be no cost to us above what we already have saved but I don't think we've started that process I know that our assemblymen um received money that we allocated for that but I I don't know that we ever moveed forward with it or we have so here's part of the issue is that we carried over cers into this Administration however we did not get any responses in terms of the closure so the process we had to restart all over again and that's why we went did an RFP to go out and do exactly what you uh what you're describing is what exactly should we do in order to completely close it off so that's what we're looking to do with the new engineering firm and and this money we received from the state correct it's still in good standing because what we have done is tried to at least provide um the steps in which we've taken in order to continue to be able to get to the funding part of it so getting this RFP helps us to keep that funding in order to proceed with the closure okay so the funding is available to us yes and that was for this design portion for the engineering that's that's what we're talking about here yes it was about 300,000 okay yes that's actually that's what I remember all right thank you very much council president uh thank you councilman berer any other questions comments or concerns council president yes councilman e the cell your phone service contracts I don't need it today but can I have a list of what departments are for it by employ these Contra these phones okay and um as far as the landfill the one question I had too is the money for that's being allocated for this is from the pre-existing funds we had in Surplus or is this new money we're paying for this for the it for the landfill it's grant money it's Grant this is separate from the money we have in Surplus right okay and um I know there were opportunities uh to do a lot of work to the landfill with solar but I I I would definitely not be for anything that has to do with kids on this landfill so I would disagree with my Council colleague to the right of me there's no way I'll support kids on this landfill for any purpose at any time ever thank you thank you councilman Coyle any other questions comments or concerns see none moving to nine Department of Finance a report of dispersements through November 8th B resolution authorizing refund for Redemption of tax sales certificate C resolution authorizing refund for tax overpayments D resolution authorizing refund for water overpayments e resolution authorizing refund for sewer overpayments F resolution requesting approval of the best practices inventory questionnaire for calendar year 2023 G resolution requesting approval of items of Revenue and Appropriations for 200 I think maybe 22 Drive Silver or get pulled over labor date Crackdown in the amount of $8,750 H resolution authorizes the settlement of tax appeals I resolution authorizes settlement of tax appeals J ordinance of the township of Edison canc cancelling approximately 1.9 million in bond authorization and or Bond or Bond anticipation note proceeds not needed for the original purposes and to transfer 67132 and bond or Bond anticipat note proceed proceeds to Capital fund balance and K resolution authorizing the transfer of funds in the calendar year 2023 current fund Appropriations uh pursuant to njsa 44-59 any questions comments or concerns counc yes councilman P probably this is on B uh many times I have this question let me try one more time probably this is my fifth sixth time how much premium of this $117,000 in tax sell certificates that Township is going to keep do we know the premium amount premium amount for this tax appeal want it's B was asked whether or not at the time of the tax sale there was a premium paid Y and every council meeting I asked this question so we should have the numbers if not you know I can wait and please send me in the email if you can please for people who don't pay their taxes I apologize then ta tax sale certificate the the detail form that's attached you're looking at the premium amount so it states it's 91,000 okay for the premium and what I heard last time was that we keep the premium we don't refund the premium correct okay so under what category this fund goes to under what category is it under in the budget because this is a miscellaneous not I would shouldn't say miscellaneous but this is an additional income or revenue of the tax sell so what category we appropriate these premiums I I'm not sure where in well it obviously goes to the general fund but what I'm not sure is whether or not it has something to do with our calculation for the TA um the res the reserve for un um uncollected taxes it may factor into there but we can get you the answer I just I know what you're saying there probably is someplace in the budget where there's a miscellaneous Revenue tax sale premiums we'll find well if there is we'll tell you what the line is sounds good and and just to extend that question Sonia if you can give me the roll up number the summary year to date how much that amount is the premium premiums y only thank you my next question is on I and J the tax appeal and the first question is you know how many tax appeals we have outstanding so far council president I have our tax assessor here if that's okay sure she's good evening Council um as you're aware the answer is fluid because every year a new set of tax appeals um get filed uh right now our commercial appeals that are at the state tax Court are average ing about 100 um 84 was at the end of the year but then again that does stack up and and regenerate it could be new filings as well as continuation filings so about 100 would be a steady number um of what's presently active at the tax court and as an average do we know the uh the tax obligation in terms of the re as an average based on the historic IAL Trend 2015 16 17 18 19 we would have seen some Trend well you're not going to see a reduction as the average because again there could be a continuation of appeals that are steming as far back as 2017 um we have done a lot of cleanup so um as I've explained in the past um when I came on board in 2017 we had appeals that stem back to 2010 um which have been cleared up so presently our backlog is approximately 2016 2017 um that 100 average can include properties that are going back to that date so the average number that I'm giving you are properties under appeal not the total number of appeals okay so by law we don't have obligation to settle like 5 years prior to the current year or we can keep that hanging well the that's not something that is under the discretion of the administration or my office that has to deal with the backlog that's presently at our tax court and that's partly um at the fault of the fact that there is um a insufficient number of judges to hear these appeals so um we're doing the best that we can um but it is a lawsuit and there are our Discovery processes and some things take longer to handle than others I appreciate that and I I do remember you we raise the the amount for you to enable the negotiation so there is history to that and I know we have done good work in clearing that backlog really appreciate for your help my only the question council president is is very linked to this and I believe there is a misconcept or people don't really understand what the impact of the tax appeal is on the budget the township budget so not just I and J but in general when we settle the tax appeal the township is paying back or giving that credit to the applicant well if you're asking me where the funding is coming from and if it impacts the budget there is a reserve set aside for our appeals and so today um um The Reserve that we have for each year has been able to cover those funds understood understood you know and I'm I'm very well aware that you know we have the fund allocated to cover this one but I'm looking at the tax impact because this refund also includes the tax toward the school towards the county are we getting the tax back unfortunately when we do settle an appeal the township Bears the burden of that refund um so the school board is not responsible and that's based on State Statute um so we do brunt the whole impact of that refund to these Property Owners um and that's just the way it's written as today yeah thank you and I wanted to make it very clear that on this Das uh that the township budget or this Township does bear the cost of this tax appeal and even though funds were dispersed to the school and the county and other entities including Library they are not paid back their portion is not paid back so this is taken care from the budget but just a question on I council president it says from H says that from 2018 to 2023 so they are pretty much exhausting their fiveyear bracket but for I I don't see 2018 and 19 is this something is the applicant didn't apply or this was a settlement that we said as a part of this settlement you will not get anything from 2018 and 19 okay so I is that 510 Venture H is H is the fight and Ventures and I is we shopping plaza but I just think that so H I believe that those that we listed the years that were under appeal and I I don't think that there were appeals for 19 and 20 no so I I understand your question your question is are we just settling those years or were there dismissing the other appeals just so you know I'm looking at the backup uh 20189 or 20 were not included in in this here so it's just uh 21 22 and 23 those are the only years under appeal understood the reason I'm saying is that because this Council once we adopt or we approve 2021 2022 23 applicant tomorrow will come back with 2018 and 19 so why didn't we ask last five years as a part of the settlement so so the tax appeals are a little different so tax appeals you if you're going to file an appeal for taxes you have to file that it's there's a deadline in the year so 2018 you had a file in 2018 if you didn't file in 2018 you don't have have a tax appeal no so these are when we say five years I think what the the assessor is saying is that typically we have we have some appeals that go back as long as five years I've had tax appeals here that have gone as long back as nine years I it took nine years to settle the one Ford went out that's how long it took it's you know different day but it was so there's no there's no there's no statute of five years it's just how many years if the tax Court loses their judges will have six years under appeal correct okay in this case they only appealed 21 20 20 21 and 22 is that the the years for shopping yeah so they they didn't appeal in 18 and 19 in other words or they had a tax appeal that got settled some time ago but they can't come back for those correct are we sure that they will not come back for 2018 and 19 well they can if they haven't surely they cannot okay that's it corre thank you counil thank you councilman ptil any other questions comments or concerns councilman Brer yes council president um K uh K we're transferring funds right um I believe a million dollars from the police into a million dollars for insurance if I'm not mistaken I can't guarantee that a a one for one but the the amounts line up yes right so so we're taking a million dollars from the police Department um and I guess the public you know the the concern I guess is we we're taking a million dollars from the police department we heard about the rising crime um that would be number one but what the public should know and and it was I don't think it was shown I think the video got lost but when we did the budget presentation I'm sorry I didn't catch that last part I was going to say um cutting a million dollars from the police department would inherently be a problem especially since crime has been on the rise and our mayor has said so so so that would be a number one concern but if we were to go back to the tape which I don't think exists for the budget presentation I believe I pointed out that I thought the police department was overfunded this year by a million dollars and on multiple occasions I thought that our insurance was underfunded um because of the increases for the insurance so I just want to go on the record that what we're seeing here is exactly what I said um was going to happen at the budget presentation but with the issue that we have with the increase in crime is it is it a good idea to take the money from the police department is the question if our businessman would like to uh respond this transfer would not um I would would not inhibit the police from doing their day-to-day jobs of protecting uh the citizens so would it would not impact what they need to do as far as covering Township okay so the the mayor had put out a video saying that crime has increased right and now we're taking the money from the police department do you think maybe having more police officers on the roads during these times that crimes are taking place would be more prudent um is there any place else that the money could have come from I I mean you understand the logic how it makes no sense right where we say that crime's on the rise and then we're cutting the police department I it just doesn't seem to fly what I would say to that is also that the fact that we have um a lot more I would say we've come up to in terms of Staffing um there's and I can get you those numbers I just want to confirm in terms of the overtime and what may not have been um what may have hap happened in the past as far as overtime and and Sal there were uh large salary increases or or at the top level for police so there with all of the retirements that happened last year I'm sure that there's some sort of coverage here so I can get you a full report as to what we've spent what that looked like in comparison from last year to this year because that would probably give you a little more of a color in terms of why we're able to transfer from one uh from salary and wages under police in order to cover our insurance costs all right and uh request the council president we we have a Public Safety Committee could they present the council with um the crime stats for the last three years I mean they all get reported I think they're like a year or two behind but so so it's like a you know it's a public document but if we could get the upto-date version over the last three years so we could see whether it's actually increased or not increased I mean I feel just as safe today as I did um well okay let's say I remember back as far as 1970 um but I'm sure crime has increased so if I could just get a you know copy of that and that that would be it for this council president thank you I just wanted to confirm so you're looking for a three-year crime report overview overview yes any other questions comments or concerns council president yes Council can I just have the tax assessor come up again just for some questions on our process of uh tax appeals not and not just that it was mainly on the [Music] um our auction of our tax sales me yes sir first how you doing good how are you um I I think your department does a great job in appeals and I think it's very complex and I I think uh since you've come here we've got a lot done that's the first thing and I and I think your team is very strong when it comes to appeals and all the different variables that come with an appeal um and what you're up against the Curious the Curiosity of a question is for the people who are listening is can you walk us through the tax sales happen here and the incentive of that they tax sales when we do the Au we auction tax certificates okay for non payments of sales so that would be handled by the tax collector okay um I have participated but the expertise would lie with with them more so than me um it is a process uh the previous the I'm not looking for an expert opinion I'm just the process people come in we there it's it's basically an auction yeah I it's probably I I guess the tax assessor is being very nice it's a tax collector issue not a tax assessor issue so we can get the if you want get the tax collector to give you a a short memo on what on what the process is but essentially we do tax sales we do Accelerated Tax sales once a year um you'll see the notices in the newspaper as to all of the all of the properties that are there um it's and it is effectively an auction correct working its way down from the standard uh percentage rate down until it gets to the premiums that councilman ptil had guess what I'm trying to get at and again I prefer to get an tonight and I'm not disres counting what you know and what the counselor knows I don't care who answers it is I'm look just for a novice answer tax sales come up because people don't pay their taxes correct what I'm challenged by is is members of the de on this Council want to reward those who don't pay and I'm conf I'm confused whether that's what we're trying to get at because there's an incentivized reason why they come they come because we need tax bills paid we have debt that has not been collected and would there be a significant difference if we do it for Less because if every Town's doing it this way I mean if the same people are are still going to come hey I I get it but I don't understand why we'd make any reduction or reward anybody who doesn't pay their taxes when 99% of the people in this room have paid and paid on time so and we there's no extenda C circumstances for anyone I mean when went through coid I had businesses crying to me on the phone who were just tenants paying $60,000 in taxes for the year couldn't pay it through Co but had to pay it had to pay it or they'd be in tax sales so I just what the question I have here is there's an incentive of why they come because these tax sales go up for a certain amount and they're bid on I believe they're bid backwards right they bid from 18% to zero correct is that correct counselor okay correct and most of the time they're picked up for zero or one correct no that I wouldn't have no it dep well it depends it's an auction right so it depends on the economy it depends on a lot of different things right and at that that time that person could be paying uh 50,000 in taxes a million in taxes whatever that company is so I guess what I'm just trying to get at and it it doesn't have to be today but the novice answer I'm looking for is they come from a reason to be incentivized to pay these taxes so we can have our debt paid and we can put that money into our current budget right that's what I understand correct correct and what we do is a an Accelerated Tax sale so Accel tax so if we remove the premium and remove this incentive are they still going to come to pay our tax taxes in the time that we need it paid no because you're going to because the issue is whether or not you're going to get people to come and bid on your you know the problem is if nobody comes and bids on our our tax sale then we don't collect the money then then what happens is effectively we own the tax sale certificates then after six months in order for us to collect our money we would have to go foreclose on properties so um the other part the short answer to this question by the way is that there's nothing we can do about this process because it's completely dictated by state law and we couldn't change it if we wanted to change it the only thing that the only option we have is whether or not we're going to accelerate or not accelerate and we accelerate because it results in US collecting Almost 100% of our taxes every year which is what we care about right everything else we don't care about because because what I'm listening to is that if we did have compassion which is challenging to do that when everybody it's an even playing field so it's you can't have compassion and lower it but what and if we did fall into this issue we'd have lawsuits and we'd be foreclosing we'd have another debt and we start taking on liability of a property we own correct correct yeah and um the the problem with of course you know foreclosing on taxes even though a a private lean holder has to wait two years we only have to wait six months but even an INR tax foreclosure I my office does them kind of routin ly there you could you could wait two years before you you uh you see that money that that is a problem and then that's the point and time where you then have to start account for it in your reserve for uncollected taxes but the short answer is that there is no we don't have any you know there's no way we can turn the dial here and make this more or less compassionate it is you know the problem is is that if people don't pay their taxes everybody else because everybody else pays pays for that people who don't pay their taxes because you literally budget an amount as a reserve for an uncollected taxes so you raise it if you're reserve for uncollected taxes is $5 million that's $5 million you budget and collect from the other taxpayers you you brought up another good point too is that for the certificate holders who do pick up these taxes they have two years to foreclose right and they pay the tax by the way and they pay the taxes during that two year perod whereas if we were to pay them we can foreclose in six months right except we could start in six months but it takes two years after that six months before you get you know the I don't know how whether the Foreclosure unit has gotten any faster I know that they have literally hundreds of thousands of cases backlog but when the cases concluded at the Superior Court to get a foreclosure judgment out of a foreclosure unit in Trenton takes something between 18 months and two years so certificate older can't start for two years yeah so we so in other words we and and once again once we do all of that then we have to sell the property at a sh sale and then I mean it's it's pretty also it's not generating any tax dollars while corre our ownership correct you know I I've heard this uh brought up a few times by members of the council and my my confusion is we can't reward people who don't pay their taxes for those who are paying on time and this is an an issue that is being done across 560 municipalities across the state I just don't know where we can decide to be compassionate over one and another I just went through coid was just recent and I remember the people crying and I remember calling and we could do nothing for them so I just I'm challenged by that I'm not going to support it or ever going to support it if you can't pay your tax on time there's penalties for it that's just how it goes and I believe this is incentivized so we have a large amount of tax holders who will come and pay on time as we need that money and I think the the audience would have less people to pay and we'd have other issues and problems but um at a later date I'll go over this again with the collector but um I it's brought up again it's been brought up for the last three years and I just don't know where we're going with it thank you okay council president before the before Jan leaves well just one just a a a quick one quick question right right now I I think I just or we charge 14% initially is that what we said it at I believe it's 18% think it's 18% okay and then Works its way down to zero and then the premium Now now here's here's my next question and maybe you can't answer but maybe somebody else on the dis could answer it that's been here for a while I I don't know right but in our history of Edison right has that number been lower than 18 18% or 14 whatever that number is has it ever been set lower than that does anybody recall or know I can tell you and and I I only go back into the early 90s I don't recall it ever it always has been that which is the statutory right yeah as far as I've been in my field that is the starting point that I'm aware of so everybody does the same rate yes pretty much been doing this forever yeah it's directed by regulations Yeah by state yeah all right thank you yeah council president yes counc just want to I think there's we discussed too many things and I don't think my Council go really the answer the tax cell process is a very complex process okay probably we need a 101 to understand what the tax sell process is it is done by an auction it is not just by done by the Edison Township it is Statewide if you go auction.com taxel you'll find hundreds of towns listed there every town has a different calendar I believe for Edison it is November towards the TA end of the November we get the list of the this Council used to get the list who are the defaulters in fact I spoke on this Das asking this Administration to send a letter so that the residents know that they owe the money because many people do it online and they forget coming back to the two question prominent question in a consent coil you said I don't want to give know free money there is no free money this is an obligation because we have an obligation to pay our salaries to pay for the infrastructure so we have to collect that money uh as a part of the tax sale process however the the way the tax sell process works either you put a premium so that you can win the bid so there is a bidding process either you put the flat amount or you put a percentage and on this Das I have said that is there a way that we can pass a resolution to reduce that percentage from 18% which is the statutory percentage that is set there which is not just for Edison but this is across the board not for Edison so it depends on the bidder whether he wants to bid 4% 5% 10% but I'm pretty sure you know there are people who are doing this as a full-time business they pour millions and millions of dollars into this tax Cel it's not in Edison but across probably United States so there are big lobbies and there are small investors would like to instead of putting probably $5,000 in a bank getting 1% they would probably get 6% or 8% or 10% or 12% so it's up to the bidder so does Township lose any Revenue absolutely not so is this discussion is about giving a tax break to anyone or give any free right absolutely not so just want to make it clear this is absolutely not we get every Diamond nickel that we put on a tax sell the reason I said this on consel Das is Edison Township properties are valuable more than what we think so anytime it the property comes for the tax sell believe me or not there is a line everybody's out bidding and the way the bidding process works is if somebody says 18% and another person 12% 12% wins not the 18% because that 12 or 18% Township doesn't get that Revenue that revenue is more to the investor who is giving the money for us to uh clear Our obligation so hopefully this clears so there is no intent to give break to anyone or oh okay council president if you're looking to lower the uh playing field to allow other people to get involved and you're regular working men to step up to the plate and and have an opportunity to get involved in this process I I get it I I was misunderstood uh by another premium that's part of why they come here and to make money but if you're looking to lower the premiums for people to get involved and act anyone in this audience uh could give a shot whe they have enough or not I understand thank you council president thank you sir thank you any other questions comments or concerns seeing none 10 from the Department of Health a resolution awarding contract's purchase order for hipa compliance software for the health department $2,170 B resolution authorizing Professional Services contract uh to People for Animals for veterinary services clinics $660,000 and C resolution awarding emergency contract purchase order uh for the installation of outdoor kennels due to overcrowding $848 40 any questions comments or concerns yes council president yes the Council of Vice President Harris yeah let me start with b um who is People for Animals where are they located and for what time period is this that this uh resolution covers so I know that they're based out in Hillside um we had passed a resolution July of last year I think it was a not to ex oh if I may um these invoices covered this year okay um and has this been I I'm wondering so it covers this year now we had been using sarbrook Veterinary Services had we not we've been using several Veterinary Services we're not we were not committed to just one some of the um performed different services for example some of them s did um vaccinations um some do more immediate care emergency care so there there's a variety of services that each of those uh vets would would do okay and so again this covers this $60,000 covers this year correct okay uh then going on to C for the fence for the which is great because we need all the help we can get for space for these for these kennels have these been built already is this are these because I know that there have been outdoor kennels that have been added on are these for ones that have already been built or ones that are to be built they have already been built okay all right thank you and just to clarify if I understand correctly these are the kennels that are when you go to the animal shelter they're in front of the building whereas we had a fencing resolution earlier in the year which was to replace the ones that were in the back the uh the open play areas in the back thank you any other questions comments or concerns Council councilman ptil on a unless you want to go okay counc thank you council president uh through council president question to Administration uh this is more on Hippa compliance software for our health department have you tried the shared service with either County or with any neighboring town in this an animal you mean no not animal this is for the health department because this is more of the way we store the data because it is personal information it's a health related information so this is this deals with the it um I we have not explored the idea of having a shared services agreement with a software with the county that's not something we would we would necessarily typically look into is piggy back off of perhaps theirs but we can certainly look into it this is something that would cover um our animal uh shelter vaccinations this is more specific to um our recordkeeping on vaccination school immunization things of that nature so it's it's Edison Centric understood but even though it is Edison Centric there is a possibility not possibility there's definitely a way I'm it guy there is a definitely way to use probably or collaborate with more than one town to reduce our licensing cost still secure the data and still the data access only by the Edison Township but again I can have offline conversation and see how we can save the cost here I can certainly look into that because that's something that we did do with the Microsoft so good point I will definitely um look at that see if that's a possibility thank you counc thank you councilman Council bression uh yes uh B this is a um this company here is a a 501 yes okay um and then let me jump to C C this was installed already so typically under an emergency that means that the work needs to be performed and then it would come back to the council usually after the fact that it's completed okay nothing different than if there was a water main break or something to that effect if there was a an immediate need and as you know with the animal shelter we've uh come into various issues and part of it was the um uh the capacity issue so having those outdoor dog runs were helpful to well I listen just over I I guess I guess the when we say emergency it we were made aware in July that there was issues we didn't do anything until until this body um started to look into it um and then even with some of the latest reports where I I see that um we we're getting rid of the um volunteers or they're recommending we get rid of the volunteers is trouble some number one and alarming number two um it's almost like the people that brought this to our attention are being retaliated against in a way um and and when we form this committee and we meet with this ASPCA guy from wherever he's has a lot of explaining to do to us because to me those people should not only be protected but they should reive some sort of um Proclamation by this body you know and bringing this to to everybody's attention so I mean I guess I'm okay with this saying it's an emergency but this is an emergency that's been going on since uh the original doctor and he's another one that I would like to say that the original doctor we had I I think is actually like a hero to the animal shelter um it's unfortunate what what has happened um has he been paid oh wait that's for my discussion items um okay um I'm good with defense thank you council president sorry thank you councilman any other council president um in anticipation with the animal shelter having been uh on the agenda today we do have the uh Monmouth SPCA the person we're Contracting with here glad to an to any questions you have but that again that's up to you if that's I guess during discussion items okay that's fine right time okay unless there's anything pertaining to the resolutions you would like clarification I don't know yeah it's not really there it has to do with during the discussion items absolutely all right thank you counc president I know Council I just got confused on the last speaker can you walk me through this resolution what the purpose this is for to the ba sorry which one the uh for the vetenarian on the agenda I'm sorry I just left the B for item 60,000 yeah yeah so we've um we had a not to exceed uh contract issued last year um their services have gone over that threshold so this would be to pay off those balances if I understand correctly correct and and what is the purpose behind the the initial contract would it for their work um is vetenarian clinics there were various Veterinary Services um vaccinations the do visits and um there were actually neutering Spang things of that nature for lower cost to our residents that bring in their dogs they get the shots and stuff is that word yeah I I don't recall the exact backup I think it had rabies and all right then this is what we've done before okay yeah and there's been there's been some neighbors who reached out to me waiting to get shots for their animals is that something that's on hold because of this extension of contract you'd have to be more specific in terms of what shots exactly what services and were they uh pets that were adopted and I'd have to know exactly what the circum what are we offering right now in the last three months for pets for uh owners of pets so as far as vaccinations and so the typical care um that would be a a a vet a private vet that would do it but as far as animals that are adopted to through the townships we have a day you can bring in your dog for $20 and get a shot your rabies clinic so those I'm council president could you tell her she's had order please all right I don't need someone from the audience she can go on Facebook and do that you do plenty of that okay you make no sense anyway but uh pick to you it's a rabies are we do we have that on our calendar we have those up coming um this year I believe there will be one in January and February well we'll get those dates to you okay is any of that being held up because the conversation I had with I guess part of this contract someone reached out to us and said they weren't getting their rabies for the the the shots for their pets has that being held up because of this again um I'd have to just confirm that okay I can wait for the I have a lot of questions for the progress of the animal shelter so I'll wait to the discussions and I'm sure Rich does and maybe other members I'm happy to see this then be extended because people been asking thank you council president thank you councilman Co any other questions comments or concerns none 11 from the Department of Law a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a shared service agreement for elevator safety with the township of Woodbridge B an ordinance amending chapter 37 zoning uh amending various sections pertaining to warehouses C resolution authorizing and directing the planning board uh to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine whether the proposed study area which includes properties identified on the official tax maps as block 340 Lots 102 1.3 and 2.01 AKA 41 Glendale Avenue qualify as a contamination area in need of Redevelopment in accordance with the local Redevelopment and Housing law uh any questions comments or concerns and before we go because item C pertains to some of the litigation items probably pertains to the closed session so there may be some questions we want to ask then yeah so my request would be because it would may cross over with that to wait for the close session thank you uh any questions uh pertaining any of the other items counil president yes councilman fatel I just wanted to make a comment on B uh I just want to thank legal and you of course for getting this process so quickly uh this was something I feel our town needed uh having a single definition of Warehouse makes it really difficult uh to pinpoint to our business partner exactly what we're looking for in town will be good for our town and where we would want particular facilities uh by having this definition we can clarify certain positions that we hold thank you thank you counc president councilman P Yeah question on B uh when we say the permitted usage you know are we sure that we are clearly classifying with the loading trucks not loading trucks versus Warehouse because Warehouse could be just a skeleton but they can just put the bay there for load loading unloading I'm sorry could you repeat that I'm I'm having trouble hearing okay on B the permitted usage for the warehouses we are modifying the ordinance what can be done what cannot be done or what is permitted there is there a way to put the Restriction just not the simple Warehouse because Warehouse could be storage facility could ultimately end up opening the truck loading unloading base like FedEx or something thing so is that some restriction in place into that or so with this it primarily sets up uh two additional well actually technically three additional two additional definitions modifies two existing definitions uh the additional definitions pertain to uh Distributing Center and fulfillment center when you look at the definition of warehousing in it of itself like one of the thoughts was do we include Self Storage as that but technically Warehouse in and of itself is self storage um the other definition being modified is the truck terminal uh to also include from truck and van because of the change in uh atmosphere of how items are being delivered um one of the major or differences is that this would essentially be restricting fulfillment center into the rar incenter so anything in the LI Zone that would be for warehousing and distribution center uh that would be the primary difference understood but my second question is isn't that supposed to be part of the master plan as well so what to allow what not to allow that's the whole idea we did whole niney master plan project not strictly speaking sorry not strictly speaking I don't I don't think I think that this was more of a technical um uh review of this ordinance specifically to add definitions that we think update what the the current economic view of a warehouse is right I think that's really what the issue because technically still in the zoning yeah we haven't changed the Zone we just changed the definitions can I explain yes the issues that essentially set this off was it during the planning board there was a case that wanted to use essentially Vans as a loading and unloading Zone and it would be very difficult for the town to we our zoning is worded be very difficult for us as a planning board or zoning board to legally Define you know their uses and to essentially say hey we don't really want that in that area so that was the reason I brought it up and the one of the suggestion from legal was to clarify certain things that we can do because having just warehouses opens it up to anything and we need to clarify so that was the reason we started this process and uh we go back and forth and we you know came up with this just so we can start something and you know put something on the books and clarify to our business partners you know where we are trying to have certain types of businesses inside where we're not uh so it is something we need to capture and that's why we started this no I understand that you know again clarifying is always helpful for Planning and Zoning Board but my question is the the washer plan should really rewrite or modify bunch of ordinances underneath of that so it will restrict or prohibit certain usage so in regards to the draft um it makes recommendations for instance in regards to reducing the LI Zone in of itself but that's re rezoning uh in it and it does recommend this change as well I think it is a little bit different from the master plan in the sense that this pertains to type of use not the Zone where they would be whether trying to think of the right way to phrase this um we're not we're not changing the the zoning of any Lots or Parcels understood that but again this specify is very specific to section Ron River area to me you know when we did the we when we wanted to do the warehouse tax assessment we told this will be spot assessment and you can't do that just one type of entity now we are coming back saying R what about the Herer Park L1 same zone now we'll be giving a different treatment to Ron Center versus the ker Park so if you can amend the ordinance in a broader way that regardless of where that L1 area Falls yes that makes more sense to me I think that that would be part of the next step because how like when you look at the zoning especially in heler park it is spread with Rd and the LI zone right but when we rezone based on the master plan's recommendations we can probably tidy that up so that to your point having more centralized areas are pertained and then we can modified this as well to so that it accompanies those zones uh right now the zones that are mentioned are those that directly have warehousing inclusive in it um RI being the most restrictive Li being the next and then rrd which we know is the rid Center understood you know as long as we are not liable for the lawsuits of spot zoning I'm okay and willing to extend this to make it generic Alli Zone then next step I'm I'm okay with that thank you coun thank you any other c i i um agree with some words of my Council colleague a ptil I think the master plan covers some of this I think uh I didn't get a chance to review this I'm asking to pull it or table it for the next meeting but I think our I just want to go over some facts of what our master plan is going to do versus what we're trying to accomplish here uh and they just have some questions of some Commerce that's in a positive way on some ends and some Commerce that's not a good thing for Edison with all the truck traffic um so I'm just not prepared tonight but I would hope that we can table this thank you that's B thank you um for myself this was already tabled before so if there any questions were to have come up prior to the last time that it was first put up I would have hoped that those questions would have come to me uh right after that okay councilman Brer yes um I guess some of the concerns that were brought up were like in that 37- 32.2 or 37 33.8 where it says um shall be conforming and I I I guess I I guess the question comes up with a um like the Glendale property if if that was a warehouse there currently and what they used the warehouse for was um to bring Goods in and store them right and then ship them back out so that it wasn't a distribution center or anything like that but then over time um they start running it as a like a distribution center or something like that and we're unaware of it and then they want to expand because they brought they they buy the property going down to the river even though we changed the zoning there to residential then buying that other property they they would get a continued use the way this is written no no because that new Pro property wouldn't be covered so if they it if if they bought more property that property wouldn't be the prior non-conforming that the the property they have is but but they property would right and their property would and if they were using it then as a distribution center well if they wasn't what it was originally for and they're expanding it would they still have to go like through Planning and Zoning for that yes yeah if they changed from a warehouse to a fulfillment center they would have to yes okay yes all right thank you thank you any other uh councilman pattil Patel wouldn't the existing uh clause protect them like because they would technically be before this was passed so then they now that you say yes no they they would have been conforming under under the prior zoning ordinance it would have been a permitted use under the prior zoning ordinance correct but if they expanded it it would be different and I think the question was if they bought more property could they expand I think that was the issue council president councilman Co I I um permission to debate this item because if we're not going to table it I have I just have a lot of questions you can absolutely could you first walk me through and again I'm for not having warehouses in districts that face residential including Silver Lake and a few others that were snuck in to this community which really you know hurt the areas there what I'm concerned with is other areas listed on here that would be included because we're changing orans are we changing it for the entire town or just specific locations that's just those three zones okay can we could you give me some locations of these these zones geographically the only one I know of the R1 is on the north side of Edison which is in the area of planfield Road the LI Zone there's six primary areas um the heler Park area Silver Lake um talage um Jackson Avenue as an example that's four um over by Kilmer that's five and there Ren renan is also the L1 renan Avenue Rion of the uh that would be the Li and then the rrd is um in the Rarity Center okay um you first started off with your not sure in the north side could could Hank come up and get specific on the area that she want to elaborate on I just want to get streets and locations of and I I definitely agree with a few that are on here server Lake Jackson a uh definitely through the through the council president to the ba could hang come up is that or do you want to elaborate council president if he would like um I can share with you a colorized map of all our Z that shows where you know each thing is if you'd like so that you know exactly where the R zone the red here is Li Zone dark red and I know the people in the in attendance right here cannot see but if you would like I can absolutely share that so that you can uh see exactly where those zones are the I guess the next question I have is that some some areas definitely have an issue I mean I think Silver Lake is definitely an issue that's challenging um I guess first what I have to say is that coming from Commerce and being being the president of our chamber I I can't help but that mention how important Commerce is the property values and the warehouse is getting the full economic utility of their property now today is is one lane people are using warehouse for tomorrow it's another and and you have to justify those values on how they may change change in the future I guess in the future when there's I guess we could just change it again and change it back but you know the areas like Silver Lake I get it you don't want you don't want that to become a uh you're calling it a fulfillment center correct so but when you look at places like um toage Road uh Kilmer and Ron Center how do you distinguish them from taking their full rights away from their property like R and Center is in the middle of nowhere like right now there's zero traffic in R and center right now well if it's a current use it's it will remain permitted uh to councilman pel's point before in regards to the master plan um my hope would be that we end up resoning certain items to be more concise and pinpoint where we want certain uh industry so say uh right now we're kind of bound within the current zoning as it is so to me this is a intermediary step to what we would like to see in the future um so as an example like eventually you could have talage Li Zone Kilmer Li Zone and have them each be different zones in and of itself even if they're the same permitted use by the way I think that would actually be beneficial to us because when we talk about substantial uh substantial importance in regards to the whole public Advocate thing they talk about that in the sense of the entire Zone well if the entire Zone accounts for six different areas throughout the township guess what two acres here on the entire Township versus two acres on a smaller condensed Zone you know kind of plays a role into that so um not sure if that answers your question exactly but my challenge is council president I I don't feel you're fully prepared tonight that's my first question I just don't uh see that you've proven that you know on one side the residents you know most come to he in this room and some are here today complain about areas like Silver Lake and they care care complain about Jackson Avenue but you're also holding people you're penalizing some areas that are good for Commerce and put them in the same bundle so am I wrong am I misunderstanding that because well the next part would be part of the master plan to rezone those areas more appropriately so I guess tonight why would we change Kilmer Road why would we change R and Center why would we change um Town W road today when they when they're not as impacted they're not impacting people I mean the complaints as Council people we get every day are from Silver Lake and Jackson Avenue but we're pulling all these other properties into the same am I correct I can't help how they zon things in 2003 I wasn't here council president it's wrong what you're doing uh we're not fully prepared and you're you're you're dictating what Commerce should be where and what the use of Warehouse should be in districts that have been going on for 75 years I mean uh it just makes no sense to me that we would take away from areas that have nothing going on right now in in their particular Geographic traffic territory of the town right now there's there there is not much going on in Kil road right now and there's zero going on in maritan Center so why would we take away from future tax base we can have because today it's a fulfillment center and if you went down there and and this is a fair argument there's nothing going on right now in Ron Center and there's not much going on in Kilmer but we're all you're looping them all into the ordinance without the master plan today to stop the word fulfillment because fulfillment is the economic opportunity today which will change tomorrow and the blame of town mro and Silver Lake now the blame of Silver Lake and Jackson ay now R and Center Kilmer Road are the victims of this ordinance because of that so I don't get why we would change all of them when they are great fertile areas to continue because there's no traffic there today and it's fine I've never heard one person com and complain on hilmer for a fulfillment center or a warehouse or every complaint R Center where there is still future land of opportunity I just don't get why we're doing all of them and and and um that's where I I say this ordinance doesn't make sense and you're you know when it comes to our tax base and how people decide to invest here and how why land owners get an opportunity how we receive taxes is based on these opportunities their full economic utility you're taking that away and that's a fact you're clearly taken away because today that's the popular demand today it's we didn't come up with this they changed from Warehouse of fulfillment Warehouse of distribution how we dictate what that wording is but we should change it because the people complained here the fun word came from this audience because of Jackson a and because of ser Lake which was super important I tomorrow morning we understand we don't want a warehouse there but you're going to take it away from other areas where there's Economic Opportunity question to uh councilman Patel are fulfillment centers being taken away in the raran center no okay so this goes back before forget Jackson Silver Lake and all this this originally came about for me during a planning board meeting when designer greetings was here and we spent 45 minutes up here on this dis debating about the terminology of fulfillment center and e-commerce so it to say that other items led to this like is just not true in regards to taking away economic utility I mean you can still have distributions centers in all the LI facilities you're talking specifically fulfillment centers which is very specific in terms of how they operate right taking down big packages into individual going to the end user that's a a big um definition aspect to it is that it goes from the facility to the end user in the sense of like how we view with uh Amazon um do I think that is going to hurt like say a m worker who rents out a space to build cabinets I don't I think that that classifies under Distribution Center so as an example again from planning board last year there was a warehouse approved on Stelton Road that was um to my understanding going to be more for construction purposes that I don't think that this would take away their economic utility because of banning or removing as a permitted use fulfillment centers in the LI Zone um you know to me it it just goes into if we see later on that the LI Zone on Kilmer or the LI Zone in talage um are being more negatively impacted then we should probably change those change those zones so Council councilman Patel and I also wanted to point out that the Fulfillment center specifically is an issue is because it creates a lot of traffic um and the reason we want to be mindful of those is because if they are near any residence area and which we hear all the time hey warehouses are creating a bad environment in my neighborhood because the trucks are going where they shouldn't be going uh you know even though we have signs and stuff and this is a concern that the residents have and rightfully so and rrd zone for fulfillment center I believe is pretty safe because it's self-contained and there's plenty of exits without actually going in through to any of the residential side at least with minor if there is some I'm sure there might be one or two roads but very minor is self-contained so I believe there is a concern and there is a need to Define these different uses especially it makes it easier for businesses going forward to know hey this will be something they'll be okay with and the residents would be okay knowing that hey there will be no fulfillment on there'll be no trucks going in and out every single hour of the day that would be something I think residents would like so I think this is a good good ordinance that we should pass okay council president and I and I the part I'm confused here is um when we talk fulfillment I I was under this impression that when it reaches fulfillment usually it's the last mile for instance there's one around Center that came into this uh body or through the planning board then into this body to basically say we don't want this to be about trucks we're going to it's going to be about Vans correct do we remember that we had identifying the Vans to be part of the Fulfillment okay so I just want to make so and again I just want to make sure everybody's educated here because the confusion I have and again I prefer to to to move to table is just so we can have you know other discussions in committee I'm fine with you know not having Warehouse in some areas that but residential clearly cver Lake we know is an issue clearly you know uh Jackson Avenue is an issue we don't want that to become a you know a larger opportunity than it is but what doesn't make sense to me is that I guess the first question I want to ask is what is the gain to restrict these zones I know I'm hearing it's it's okay if you're pre-existing today okay but are you saying the public gain is for the Future No More in these areas can I hear that from you council president yeah if it's a current if it's current currently a conforming use it doesn't upon the change of the ordinance it would still be a conforming use so so would in on T on um Kilmer would you tomorrow be allowed to have a fulfillment center on Kilmer well on technicality we'd have to wait two weeks if this gets motion I meaning I'm sorry the technicalities uh that know what it meant for the future of this uh or you're bringing to you you want to restrict Kilmer from having a fulfillment the center yes and you want to F to restrict R and Center well it has no traffic at all rri two R Center what's that two RAR in Center mean that they could can only be in raran Center okay so let's called limit them to raran Center okay well okay so now I'm understanding a little does everybody understand that on the council am I the only one that just understood that I'm fine with I'm fine with feeling like uh I didn't get it but that's the part I didn't see in here no RAR in Center the intention I mean it's an industrial complex so if there is going to be anywhere where there would be more accessibility to type of Commerce to me that makes sense to have that as part and additionally that was the ISS one of the issues originally because the initial uh the initial ordinance was completely prohibiting fulfillment center but in reality if you're going to have have that type of use the r center for the reasons that have been already elaborated on makes sense and uh and for Kilmer there'll we no more fulfillment you don't want anything on Kilmer at the at the moment like if this were to pass then no it any new construction there would have fulfillment center be prohibited now if anyone has been following the master plan one of the recommendations on Kilmer is for it to be uh rezoned to Transit oriented District right so if you're going to make that area more residential anyway probably wouldn't want fulfillment centers is there going forward anyway so I you know I guess part of the problem I'm having here is where there is you know historical areas you know Helmer has been the lifeline of many transfers of warehouses whether it was uh you know served you know for the war like how do we just take that away from that area because of the complaint we've had on Sil Lake I just I get and I'm feeling better or some some areas are not restricted but still Kilmer how do we take it away from Kilmer that's been an industrial area for a lifetime a lifetime my confusion comes from you're saying that we're restricting warehousing from being in Kilmer but that's not the case then can you walk me through what you're doing the Kilmer the Kilmer area so we are restricting fulfillment center from Kilmer yes they can still have warehouses and again that might change after the master plan gets passed and we have a to Zone then that might not be possible after that but again you know that is something for the future but as of right now we're just clarifying that fulfillment center because of the issues with the traffic that they cause for the residents like warehousing is still you know there's still some increase in traffic but it's not to the level that fulfillment center create and so do again I I the other question I have is clarification fulfillment center is Less trucks more Vans correct no no fulfillment center is essentially think of it as their their trucks delivering in in and out all the time coming back picking up more stuff going out to deliver more stuff coming back picking up more stuff delivering out more stuff getting big trucks and essentially breaking down big deliveries into small individual Last Mile deliveries so the trucks are going in and out all the time throughout the whole day there is no stop warehousing might be you know a truck will come in they'll put some stuff in storage for 12 hours or 20 a month or so and then they'll so essentially the difference in traffic the amount of traffic created that's the difference between fulfillment center and maybe the old 1990s warehouses that we were used to I guess the other part you know I'm confused with the definitions that we call fulfillment and what we call warehouse and what we call distribution and I and I just would again I'm asking the table just for fair reasons we have the master plan we're doing things I'm supporting the purpose of what you're trying accomplish but still as you change the language you change the definition and value of properties and that's what you're doing today yeah there there there there is a um you know we all know there's a demand for warehouse today and and that can change tomorrow what we what we see today could be a phase of of seven years of what's going on then it changes to something else I just don't know without having an expert you know professionals involved in this change and without knowing what they actual you know purposes in in and of a distribution Place verse a warehouse verse fulfillment you know I'm just hearing what the the public is telling us council president it's fair to say I mean I mean what you define as fulfillment uh you just said and councilman Patel I I am supporting where where we're trying to go with this but I don't see here or have any expert testimony in this of the reasons and and the definitions of each area specifically and we're saying this causes more traffic I haven't heard anybody come to me and say Vans are causing traffic yet I haven't heard one person at day as all these Vans are leaving town you know Kilmer I just haven't heard that yet if if I recall correctly we've gotten a lot of complaints about the Amazon trucks by ducl which is right off of comr so I disagree with that assessment and council president yes Council I see what councilman Coyle is trying to say that yes it does decrease what is essentially the most popular business right now which is warehousing but you have to ask yourself is that something you want forever in town because once it comes in and once if it is most highly it will be successful it'll be there for a long time that means in seven years when this pH changes to Data Centers we won't have that land available for data centers that will not cause any traffic that will not cause any of the issues that fulfillment centers will bring so truly the question is do we want to commit ourselves to just saying yes you know we will we are okay with fulfillment centers on Kilmer a and we're okay with the traffic that it will bring for the next 30 Years I don't think I'm ready to commit commit to that and that is why I think it is important that we pass this and you know in seven years if we find out that hey we're struggling to meet our taxes we can always open it up and if it's still in demand it'll still come back thank you thank you any other questions council president my my last uh swing at the plate this is I understand the interest of what you're trying to accomplish here I still think it needs more time and I'm just asking to poly table it the the two reasons why is this is a very long dive of of a change it's a big change to Commerce it's a large tame to the to Industrial values our property and today we're we have limited information no expert testimony on traffic my understanding was and I and again I'm not saying people have not complained about Vans but I've heard people complain about trucks and truck traffic that's what I've heard at this day is trucks and truck traffic so if if you're telling me that you know there are residents that prefer truck over Vans I'm challenged by that and I just want to walk through that because what you're telling the public is what I believe this is saying no vans in your neighborhood because that'll be more more more vehicles moving I I think Vans are better than trucks so I'm I'm just confused here and I don't think you're prepared to vote on this to today with the questions I'm asking I'm just asking politely to have more time to look at it uh this is a big change in Commerce it it's it's by by definition taking away the full economic utility of a property for other reasons of that purpose I mean we have businesses every day that turn to something else we have we have a large amount of banin centers that become daddy daycares and then and then their prayer centers in the middle of a Daddy Daycare okay and and I haven't seen a person come to hear about the complaint of three uses in one location and it's happening all over Oak Road but and and to say that's not causing traffic so I'm just challenged because the complaints I remember at this day is the complaints I've heard from residents is truck traffic and in fulfillment centers is vans so I'd rather have the definition by professional I'd rather hear from others to testify or give us some expert testimony to be included in this packet and I don't support this council president you clearly are pushing this be before the master plan I think your your idea is mean well but you don't have all the answers council president it's not fair yes councilman P I think we are on this topic past 25 plus minutes and we have residents as well waiting so again as usual as a parliamentary process if the council colleague doesn't want to you know support I think it's a time to call the role call and if he wants to table and see if it passes through thank you con we're still in the the word session so I think the opportunity would be uh later on during the introduction if there's no motion to introduce then I guess I would die at that point I'm okay with that option either you know it's up to councilman qu I'll I I won't continue any questions Council ptil I understand than thank you council president thank you any other questions comments or concerns see none 12 from the Department of planning engineering a resolution refunding in-house engineering inspection fees B resolution authorizing change order number two for the Toth Health Health and Senior Center renovation [Music] $99,250 maintenance Bond F resolution releasing of cash maintenance Bond as well any questions comments or concerns Council pres yes councilman ptil coming go I I'll come back to B afterwards for d for construction manager a question through council president to Administration have we hired the construction manager for the to Center the senior center the scene I think I think what the councilman is asking was a uh construction manager hired for the to Center or any of the other projects I would presume any other projects no uh and that's what this processes for understood is there any specific reason that we need the construction manager um there's a huge overside in terms of the project so having someone to look over uh multi million doll project it would be helpful to do so okay so we contracted the work someone and now we are hiring someone to oversee that I understand the meaning of construction manager but if we have not done that for other major projects like the to Center which we're spending five plus million dollar other than saying yes it's a large project it's a complex project we need oversight oversight is we already gave the contract they are supposed to do the work those were for engineering which you're referring to this would be during the process of construction okay I think you know I'm not getting the answer but thank you let me go back to question number uh line number B it's $5.4 million it's a $99,000 additional fund that you're asking what the square footage of this building by the way are we referring to the sports building no toad Center toad Center you're looking for the square footage I'll get back to you on that okay cuz this project is really going probably above and beyond uh the if I look at this number and knowing what I know from the public information this is probably exceeding 400 500 per square fet or maybe much more than that so is this change order in line with the expectation or the change orders for abatement understood you know I did read some asbos and all that stuff and we need to clear that up but it's typically a responsibility of the vendor when they are bidding they know what they are getting into and there should be some sort of a contingency backed into their bids so okay once I get the the number on the square footage I'll come back to the questions during the next council meeting thank you counc pres uh thank you um and just I can't confirm this right now but one of the uh metrics that are on the backup document it says 4,000 square ft for 9 by9 floor tile so I can kind of presume that that might be an approximate based on the the flooring square footage but obviously would have to check against the floor plan sounds thank you president yes Council Vice is my understanding correct that that 99 ,000 in change has to do with asbest removal and Disposal yes to my understanding okay correct thank you council president yes uh councilman Brer um yes i' I'd like to say um first of all I'd like to get the square footages on the tot building and for the sports building so if we can get both of those um but second to me a construction manager is um is something that the town the Board of Ed anybody that does construction should be using this and I and I'm going to go back to that change order we just did for the dirt right I believe a construction manager would have came in here and they would have explained to us that um there were two choices right we could spend the additional half million dollars and keep the project on schedule or we could have allowed it to dry out and we could have achieved the same compaction that was there which was the original design and that would have been up to this body and the Administration to determine whether we needed to spend an additional $500,000 to get a field done in November as opposed to maybe December because I don't think people are going to be playing on it that month anyway but the construction manager when we talk about the sports center um I haven't had a chance to look at the drawings I um council president said you sent me a full set of drawings and specifications on it at one time I think a while a while ago but I can resend it right but I I I haven't looked at it um but but in there I was told that we had things like geothermal right um most people don't have geothermal in their homes because when you can get a regular unit for 10 grand or you can do geothermal for like 40 Grand you know I mean we all love the environment and all right but when it comes out of our pocketbook we don't go for the geothermal when I looked at that building which I consider like a pole bar building I I can't substantiate the cost for something over $10 million for something of that size for a pole barn um but I looked at some kind of funky structure on the outside looks like an architectural feature probably a steel structure that could be powdercoated I don't know I didn't look at the specifications but a construction manager would have sat down with the administration and would have informed the administration that that architectural feature is going to cost you 1.5 million and then at that point the administration might say you know what we want to spend $1.5 million for an architectural feature and this body might agree to it but we didn't hire the construction manager at that time so what we got was what an architect Drew and and I I have no problem with Architects but you what the public and what this body and what this Administration needs to understand is that an architect is like an artist maybe why it starts with a um so they're looking to give you a wow factor um I've worked with with many Architects that built the wow and that wow cost you money um like the Apple Store if anybody here has been in New York City been to the Apple Store it's wow it's made of glass glass staircase glass structure everything's glass um I don't know that this Administration and this body is looking for the wow factor but I think we're paying for it and if you we would have hired these constru managers at the beginning I I think we would have had cost reductions overall because what we've been doing and and this will go back to where my Council colleague brought something up was we paid the engineer let's say 10% to design the project and then we pay the engineer 10% to oversee the project well if he designed it he's not going to tell you if he made a mistake where a construction manager will go to the engineer and say we have a we have a problem here it's a mistake the engineer will relook at this and he'll come up with a way to mitigate those costs so it's it's advantageous to to the township as a whole um I don't know about hiring outside vendor you could probably hire an employee and and if you don't have enough work you could share them with the Board of Ed or something but I I mean overall I think it's a I think this has been lacking so I am strongly in favor of a construction management firm thank you council president thank you councilman any other questions comments or concerns seeing none 13 from the Department of Public Works a resolution to release Street open escos B resolution resolution amending r504 rejecting all bids for garbage Refuge truck chassis C resolution accepting bid and awarding contract for land landscape trailers 142 $271 D resolution authorizing contract purchase order for one new and unused utility truck with options $139,500 7,90 F resolution authorizing contract purchase order for two new and unused rearload garbage trucks with options purchase order for one new and unused mechanical service truck with options 332,000 218 H resolution awarding contract purchase order for uh for the purchase of three lawnmowers $164,700 I resolution authorizing the purchase of two new and unused um one arms side load garbage charart with options $ 98,5 41 and J resolution authorized in revision to the purchase of two new and unused bucket truck bodies with options $ 43,96471 get an Excel sheet with all the vehicles that the town owns what the life expectancy and because I want to play around with the data I have a PDF but which I can't filter and stuff so I was hoping that you can provide an Excel sheet of that sure all right thank you thank you any other questions Council uh yes councilman ptil yeah happy to see you know many attemps from the public work finally we are rebuilding this department much needed investment in this department uh the department is doing a wonderful job and we need to empower them with the tools and equipments what they need and I agree with my Council colleague that we need to have the inventory control I think we have discussed this many times what we are buying how many years life so we can plan out ahead of a time not come back with probably give me $5 million to uh probably redo things but this is a good step in the process and I'm happy uh that finally we're coming around with much needed uh investment in the DPW thank you council president thank you councilman P any other questions comments or concerns see none 14 from the Department of recreation a resolution awarding payment to various nonprofit organizations for lead Recreation services funding Sports 228 , 432 and B resolution setting Hut vendor space rental fees for the winter wonderland and Marketplace event any questions comments or concerns council president councilman Patel I had a question on a uh is there a formula we use as to how that's calculated or is it arbit from my understanding this is what the township has contributed um throughout the years um okay the this just this is what we've done so this what we're going to do yes yes I do want to just make a correction on the second resolution for winter wonderland it to my understanding was changed to one day so I don't know if that's a clerical thing in terms of the resolution that maybe needed to be addressed uh can just I just first noted about the the uh the day item um that pertained to one day councilman Brer yes uh two items on a um we have a formula um the formula was made prior to this Administration um I worked on it with the rec department and and this is part of my it's going to be my question anyway and um Kender Roberts actually somebody from his firm put together the formula it was based upon how many children how many fields because some some sports don't have any Fields so they don't have anything to take care of and then we set a maximum and a minimum for each each Recreation um and my question was going to be are we applying that formula that formula was was supposed to be reviewed like every two years and the numbers to change depending on whether certain sports seem to be growing and certain ones were going down down and and what prompted it was we had something called um the angel softball which virtually did not exist yet they were receiving the same funding as Midtown softball so so that's why we put this formula together um and I know Kender Roberts had it and um the the rec department might not have the formula uh Kender Roberts said but I know the rec department did receive the numbers that were given so I just wanted to make sure that we're redoing that or applying the formula just so I can have my marching orders in terms of what's presented are you looking to I just wanted to verify that it was by the formula yes um because the Edison Angels is not on here and it was not on last year as well that that's a good thing okay so so these are probably the original numbers but I believe now this is two years so the wreck department has they get a list from from all the wreck leagues that tell how many students they have or children they have um so we can just I guess update it for the following year um be good thing um then for the resolution for the we we for winter wonderland um I'm going to make a a request to the administration um I I really enjoyed the devali thing that that we had here um but it got people talking okay and and I guess um this is in this country right things have changed um when when I was younger we would go to Hanukkah celebrations we would go to Christmas celebrations and then sometime 20 years ago or something we weren't allowed to call it Christmas or Hanukkah anymore so my request is since we are so diverse a community and since we are so inclusive where we have like the Eid and we have the Chinese New Year and we have the devali If instead of calling it winter wonderland if we can call it the Christmas Hanukkah spectacular and if if it's just a m matter of changing words but they they change the words many years ago and I'm looking to see if we can bring that back I will bring that suggestion to the administration thank you council person thank you uh any other questions just before I move on any other questions that would be counc pres counc president hold on I already recognized Council counc yeah council president it's a wonderful idea you know my Council colleague did call me and he said you know if he propose would I support and I think it does make sense uh to call the event within appropriate title so everyone knows why they need to go there or what we are celebrating currently even if you ask me winter wonderland I would might say there is some event in the township but if you say that it's a Christmas lighting or hanuka event I will definitely go there knowing that is an important so again thank you for that thought process coming back to the resolution itself the rental fee for the heart I believe we did that uh last month this is we revising right this is for this event specifically can't we do it as a part of the Recreation itself if it is a Township hosted event there is no fee or that's a Township controls that when when it is for a profit there is a set fee so we don't have to come back with every single event and this happens to be the township event correct this is a Township event and that's why it's listed before you with those fees specifically but that's my question is is how we control that fee structure for the township event is the the event itself that how that event is managed how the sponsorships are collected Etc so shouldn't very fee based on the event is H is a h the reason I'm saying is it's kind of we are probably saying hey it is the township event I'm going to set this fee if it is a private event I'm going to set the other fee shouldn't be like that should be fair to both the sides um I believe this is the same fee that we collected last year that hasn't changed so there's a consistent I think to your point in terms of what we've allocated and or charged outside vendors okay let me ask other way around can we have just set the fee once and it applies so it doesn't come back again for I would ask our legal counsel for procedur put the fee in we could just put the fee in an ordinance there you go thank you sir counil president yes did we set different fees for duali right was it higher I believe believe they were different than these but I'll have to confirm because there may have been a revision so I don't want to uh speak to ex what the exact fee was but I remember there may have been a revision to the fees as well okay because all right I'll think on it thank you any other questions on item 14 um Council vice president yes I just I guess to relay the question to the council president there's been some confusion in the past that some these celebrations are paid by the township but we've received sponsorship for that um through you to the council president could I be provided a list of for 2022 and 2023 of um of income received by sponsorship for the uh participating event uh for Dali and for the winter wonderland thank you okay um anything else from 14 all right give this back to council president we're on 15 apologies 15 from the chief of fire a approval of volunteer firefighter B resolution accepting bid and Waring uh contract for emergency vehicle repairs not to exceed 300 ,000 C resolution accepting bid and warning contract for fire department equipment and tool tools two vendors total not to exceed 128,000 any questions comments or concerns council president yes councilman brusher I'm I asked these questions uh to our business administrator and she did give me an answer you know um my question pertained to B vehicle repairs and I'm going to lump that together with the one that you didn't even call yet which is the next one so I just deal with it as a whole but we're looking for companies to do vehicle repair and I know that we have people that do vehicle repair within the departments in fact I think the police department has a separate vehicle repair from the DPW that has vehicle repair yet you know we're looking to spend with outside vendors um $400,000 um and and I just don't see where the need would come in and you know maybe a little bit with the fire engine because if he had a fire pump maybe I get that because maybe we're not certified to make sure that the fire pump you know they could actually work on it I see the chief is nodding so I guess I answered my own question with that one okay would it be okay to ask him to come up to maybe elaborate okay thank you chief yeah so the DPW the mechanics do a great job of the preventative maintenance but when you go into any kind of hydraulics ladders pumps and stuff like that you need a certain um certification as per the NFPA the National Fire Protection associate so that's why we go out to bid too and I don't know that we hit the 300,000 that's not to exceed so like right now if a pump goes down or whatever uh our mechanics will go through it they do what they have to do and then they call absolute absolute has to give us a quote Within 24 hours and we turn it around they have two up to two weeks to fix it and if it's a dire emergency we go through purchasing and get an emergency purchase order so it's more for the technical parts to be certified for fighting fires and Aerials Chief can I ask you a question could could you get us um a list of what that would take to be certified by that standard but it's a fire standard right yeah it's the uh um EVT technician it's called right which would probably be a good idea like somebody can go to school take courses absolutely because I'd like to see what it is if it you know if it's don't get me wrong if it's an 8ye process uh 40 hours you know a week for 6 months uh that's another story I'll get it to the business administrator to give to all right and then Sonia yes if you can just get that to us I'd appreciate it thank you that would be a council president thank you any other questions comments or concerns pertaining to uh items under chief of fire see none 16 from the chief of police a resolution awarding contracts purchase order for the Furnishing of automate Automotive Maintenance and repairs for the township of edicine not to receive 75,000 and B fiscal year 23 Mo mobilization 2023 drive sober or get pulled over year end holiday Crackdown Grant application any questions comments or concerns council president councilman brusher it was the same question as before of which I got an answer because that was as per like there was a certain l license or certificate that's needed what would be the same type of thing for the $75,000 for a I I assume this would be for a Ford vehicle to our uh deputy chief there we are good evening everybody uh so in reference to these vehicles obviously most of them are Fords as you indicated uh but these are larger projects this could be a motor uh this could be a water pump this could be a blendor motor these are larger projects that in all honesty would tie up our singular Bay for hours on end uh so we Outsource these larger projects to a companies such as Maloof well okay and I guess this go this could go back to the other questions where we were looking for a list of all vehicles and the age of our vehicles and and chief I just want to say I I I drive around town right and then I drive into this lot in the middle of the day and I see a lot of vehicles um and they don't look like they're old Vehicles these vehicles look like they would be under like if the motor blew up it to me it looks like it would be covered under a warrantee most of our vehicles most of our vehicles have um well obviously you're Bumper to Bumper your normal threeyear 36,000 however a police car traditionally doesn't make to three years before it hits to 36,000 just because of mileage wear and tear uh a lot of do have extended warranties um however that doesn't mean that there aren't major dealer repairs that have to occur on a regular basis and um that's what this covers all right um yeah if I could just get that list of all the vehicles when we get that for everything thank you yes if we can thank you uh any other questions comments or concerns seeing none from the member of the planning board so the next next planning board meeting is going to be here at Monday November 20th thank you thank you uh 18 unfinished business um we have an update if our Council vice president could yes so on the ordinance 2194 about the uh public Advocate I'm going to be moving to table this until the December 13th meeting council president do you need second and roll call or you can we would do the the actual motion to table during the regular session so when that comes up I'll open it up Mak sense thank you sir thank you um 19 discussion items started from the right last time start from the left councilman P thank you it's going to be long but I'll start the council president question to Administration sh Road Paving list 2023 I heard that we already started the road paving is that correct not for 2023 that's that was remaining from uh 22 20 222 okay so do we have plan for 2023 or we're we're trying to finalize that list and I'll get that to you and I I believe I told the council president we were trying to finalize that thank you because we are pretty much towards the end of November I don't know if weather is going to cooperate but let's see my second one is the speed limit signs on o Road it's nicely paved Road people are literally flying 55 75 and I did send an email in fact last council meeting I spoke about that and I don't know uh is there a way that we can get some sort of a hotline with County to get things done quickly I have communicated with them and they were um still in progress with the project so that is their intent to put back the SS okay my next one is that's much bigger concern now ambo Avenue plain field and there are many many many roads they were pretty much open they're patched they are I would say relatively brand new roads and I don't think the contractor I don't know if it's a Township or it's a PG or any water company they did not follow our ordinance to restore the Ro I don't know if you're taking any money in escrow and it's already released or what's happening there so in terms of planfield it's a county project and that's Elizabeth toown gas if you're referring to that project but still it even though it is a county project we still should not sign off from the township standpoint of view CU there it's a violation of our ordinance any road whether it's a county state or anything within the Edison Township must be be restored this is an ordinance must be restored to the original condition which I don't see that so if you can please open that thread and copy me so I can talk to our commissioner on that but as far as the planfield road and I don't know this is ongoing project here uh can I get a quick update on that what's exactly happening there this is again is a bus time the festival time especially this road is in North End we have the school traffic believe me you during the election time you know people were concerned that they are not able to reach to the polling station I don't know why would we plan the work during the active time so um during that time and prior to that time I know there were concerns with regard to the work and at one point it was in the evening so that didn't necessarily work for the residents in that location understood so um then they reverted back to Days um the issue with the traffic we did Rectify made sure that there was additional signage and that that there was entry between on the matachin side and then on the Edison side so they got remedied right away what they um should be done soon with the project um so I will follow up with them in terms of like what what are we talking about in terms of weeks or or days potentially yes but is that the the Township Road that is the county it's Elizabeth Town Gas okay so that again they just patched the road and I'm not happy happy with that situation but if you can please follow up with that as well and hopefully the gas company did put money in the escrow with the road opening they'll have to come to us for the Road opening permit correct on a county road I just have to confirm that yeah next one is this one I sent at least one email uh I spoke about this last council meeting 715 719 72 three Duram road I don't know who the developer is he cut the trees they are lying there they muscato there this is a nightmare I don't know why we cannot enforce any developer to be a good neighbor and I shared the picture so if you can please quickly act on it unfortunately I'm not the Facebook live guy but it looks like you know I will end up doing that now because this is not getting any attaction this is on Durham yes okay that was looked that and and our inspectors went out there yeah but there's no action I still see the same thing there um I believe there was a followup email so I'll I'll recirculate it no I did receive that the health inspector went there but there's no action I'm looking for an action that needs to be cleaned up so going health inspector there yes you know we do identify yes there is a problem but doesn't help me because residents are looking for the solution not just say yes I know it I need a resolution there so if you can please is get that cleared if not you know I would request my DPW crew to you know take care of that the next one is also deals with County Trion Inman Avenue 11 198 in man it's a traffic the you the uh the traffic Bureau also confirm that the tree is not it's it's basically it's a it's eyesight issue on in man Avenue going towards MLK correct and this is also a false in County but my question is now Raha is Edison in man is County it the tree falls in both right way so the tree is is on the county I did confirm with that the county is fine with us going in the process however though we need the utility company to come out and clean up some of that um brush that's in the wiring so once that's done then we can go in there and take care of the rest okay so do we know did we call the utility compan we we have our DPW um folks have done that okay thank you next one is anjana Anja Mar this is on 225 Wood Avenue Highland Park this is within not even 1,500 ft this wi shop was approved the letter was sent to this Council I think this is my fourth time I'm bringing this up and we said that we'll send a letter to their zoning planning or the mayor to understand how this pot shop was approved within a residential neighborhood so I think you know we need to do you know if our attorney can take this as a follow because you know you might have better relationship with the Highland Park I will send a separate email I send an email but I'll send another email on this one the another traffic situation Amboy Maplewood Avenue again that email was sent with the Google picture circling the area that's very dangerous that intersection again I know there is there's acknowledgement but there is no action so if you can have someone go there look at that road is there a way to put some sort of a striping the stop sign some solution I can give the solution but I'm not the right person to give the traffic solution so hopefully we can speed up that work as well another one is meeting there is a request with the residents meeting request with the residents on grow and calart I think Chief I sent email to you Sonia and Chief and the mayor uh they requested this meeting on Saturday November 18th at noon time need a confirmation yes or no so that residents would know what whether they need to be there and the last one ficial Road thank you DPW crew uh resident did call me back and said yes work is getting done in the town so again thank you thank you for doing that wonderful job thank you council president thank you councilman P councilman Patel question for the attorney can we do anything about the Highland Park approving no we really we don't have control over what they approve or they don't approve in their town so um all right question to Sonia uh in one of the questionnaires for the 2023 good practices uh by in resolution r618 uh at there were a couple of good suggestions that we should follow uh the cyber security multiactor authentication uh as well as uh having an updated policy on getting hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles uh and those two we got zeros on so is that something we can look at uh we can certainly look into that on the cyber security side we are um implementing uh new server systems and piggybacking actually off the county to try to get that cyber stuff in place okay and when is the the cloud the uh Office 365 so that's in the works um they're doing the backend stuff so then they will start to come to desktops manually to to do the change over timeline on it um I will get back to you on that okay and question on the Amboy app solar crosswalk signs I know we talked about it and it was supposed to be around this time that we could get it was the time not in yet uh any timeline on that okay thank you any other comments good thank you Council vice president Harris yes apologies in advance because when I'm about to read is long but it needs to be heard and it is what I'm going to call testimony from a woman named Joel smart who gave me permission to read this she was a 5year volunteer over at the shelter and so bear with me now now that the manager and the MSPCA and she puts parenthetically which was contracted to also manage the shelter she has a question mark after that have formally dissolved the volunteer program and eliminated long-term fostering more than more on that later I suppose there's nothing to lose in reporting the things I learned about or witnessed as a volunteer in the last few months part one the new manager had zero experience in animal rescue or animal health care even in a volunteer capacity when I met her I was informed she would be taking over office duties and other administrative work and would not be directly involved with the animals despite this within a few weeks she was not only allowing visitors to interact with unvaccinated animals including stray dogs from outof contract municipalities that had no rabies VX history but was adopting them out one such dog was later returned to the shelter because the new owners discovered it had parvo after multiple other dogs test positive for p parvo the manager decides to convert an INT an intake room into a quarantine and has a shelter build wooden partitions to house them this is despite several employees advising the manager that this was a very bad idea as wood would be impossible to clean properly and also this intake room is critical for separating new and unvaccinated animals from the main room animals due to the cages in the paral room no longer being available to hold on unprocessed animals dozens of unvaccinated kittens now have to be housed in the main room where they're exposed to visitors and other cats kittens will suddenly appear in these cages with no ID cards or notes indicating which kittens they are of course they're not microchipped yet and even the kittens that do have ID cards do not have visible indicators of vaccine neuter status leading to massive confusion for both workers and adopters the manager continued to allow select visitors physical access to these unvaccinated kittens kittens were sometimes being reserved for Municipal Employees cops administrators Etc despite the shelter's official rules stating animals are not reserved it is my understanding that sometimes these would be adopted for free the critical vet report led to the premature termination of the S Brook contract resulting in the shelter having no regular vet from July to at least midt this meant no Wellness checks for the animals limited to limited or no continuity of Care for Animals on treatment regimens overseen by sarbrook and significant issues renewing prescriptions for the shelter stock of antibiotics Revolution Etc however there was still access to the emergency vet hospital and the vet organization that Does neutering and vaccinations as a consequence of the above there were several weeks where cats that needed antibiotics were not being treated or would be treated for a few days and then the supply would run out so the course would not be completed very bad for anti antibiotic resistance because animals cannot get fixed or vaccinated while antibiotics when or when sick they were a month plus delays in getting these procedures for dozens of kittens suffering from upper respiratory and eye infections this L prolong their risk of Contracting lethal infections obviously when kittens are not fixed and vaccinated they cannot be adopted resulting in severe overcrowding much worse than what the vet noted in his exam when I brought up some of my concerns the manager being apparently unfamiliar with uh with uh operations or Veterinary protocols incorrectly claimed all kittens had already been vaccinated against the uh panleucopenia uh which is feline leuk leukemia I think um in one occasion some sick K sick kittens potentially exhibiting panluke symptoms were sent to the hospital but when the manager learned the hospital was only monitoring them and providing fluid she decided the vets were just trying to milk the shelter for money and had them return to the shelter main room despite still being symptomatic the combination of unvaccinated kittens being housed in the same rooms as unprocessed Strays and tnrs kittens being moved into the room prematurely poorly enforced hygiene protocols when handling animals with suspected disease and delays in vaccinating coal in a devastating panleucopenia outbreak in October many kittens died despite a large number of cages being available becoming available due to the kitten deaths the manager has decided cats she deems unadoptable or too sick needed to be euthanized over the protests of the employees who actually care for them dayto day ravioli a young cat who I Who I had been working on for months whose only detraction was being very scared of people but who had recently started allowing me to pet him euthanized without notice did I mention shelter employees have basically zero Saiyan euthanasia decisions or pretty much every other area of animal care if the manager disagrees with or dislikes them part two here's some additional context to the vet report reposted for convenience the presence of guinea pigs housed in cages on the floor in the cat isolation Ward is inappropriate and unacceptable this cage was taking up a lot of the floor space directly in front of cages with sick cats it was a tripping Hazard and obstructed access to cat cages in addition to everything else when I asked about it I was told multiple employees had tried to get the pigs set up in a Lobby room where small animals had been housed in the past but the manager didn't like the sounds they made so they had to be moved uh protocols which have been in place and changed need to be done with good reason and the understanding understanding of the staff staff who do not believe in how things are being done lose faith in leadership without question the moral the morale of the staff is currently very bad as they do not believe the animal's best interests are being served and are already overwhelmed by The increased workload I volunteered at the shelter from about 2018 to last week this is a couple weeks ago I've never seen such Universal misery at any other time even under acute circumstances and here it is every single day I am kept up every night worrying about the welfare of the animals and I would only interact with them once a week as a voluntary activity I can't imagine the state of constant anxiety the employees must experience both in regards to the distressing treatment of the animals and their job security these people are petrified of being fired for insubordination for example disagreeing with the manager or talking negatively about the shelter or Edison government especially after seeing several terrific long-term volunteers barred from the shelter this summer simply for publicizing some of the more minor issues I run into employees sobbing when I ask what's wrong they say they can't tell me people should not be agonizing over whether disagreeing with their boss over one thing will deplete their social capital and thus adversely impact their ability to advocate for an animal later on late June I hear concerns from staff that M that Mitzy a sweet oneeyed obese tuxedo cat is being considered for euthanasia due to her mild acute and ongoing medical issues and perceived un adoptability I asked staff to contact me if this becomes a more urgent risk early July I get a very worried phone call from staff saying Tina is about to schedule her for euthanasia before I agree to intervene I request AET C Mitsy first and give their opinion on whether her health is so poor that euthanasia was reasonable the next day I get a call that the vet considers Mitsy healthy and would likely even refuse to carry carry out euthanasia on her I then agree to start medically fostering Mitsy which involves finishing a course of antibiotics she's on for a urri applying appetite stimulant cream to her ears to combat nausea from the meds and wiping her ear her rear area with uh chlorexidine wipes twice a day to treat a yeast infection since she is too fat to reach her rear to clean herself I end up doing this too weight loss is also a goal at the time the shelter is still under contract with Sarah Brook not long after I start start fostering Mitsy Tina tells me that Sarah Brook Vet is requesting a followup up I indicate when I'm available and Tina says she will call me in the next day or so with the appointment time this doesn't happen I later learned the vet has been fired over the rest of July and August I repeatedly asked Tino when a vet will be available and to please get me an appointment as soon as she can to make sure mity is improving to renew the prescription for the wipes it's especially important that weight loss is monitored and cats since they are prone to developing deadly fatty liver if they lose too much uh too quickly at some point in late Augustina says they got a new vet Island and appointments will be forthcoming I continue to ask about this when I visit including sending an email September 15th I get no response in late October an employee mentions that the different new vet is now coming twice a week and perhaps I'd be able to bring Mitsy in during those times the employee offers to ask Tina about this option following Monday on Monday I receive a call I I receive an angry email from Tina questioning why I'm trying to schedule vet appointments through kennel attendance and what I even need the appointment for anyway I respond by explaining the context and reminding Tina of the follow-up appointment that was requested back in July Tina does not respond on Thursday I resend my I resend my first email to Tina and CC the general em as email and the health director since I'm concerned my emails might be getting filtered out I had also not received replies to several earlier emails the subsequent responses included demands that I either adopt M seat or return her to the shelter while she will where she will be euthanized at the shelter's discretion as well as an announcement that volunteering has now been terminated and long-term fostering is just not a thing the shelter does I then emailed the mspc the MS mcspca on whose authority I assume the volunteering directive was made pleading with them to Recon consider ending these programs this ultimately leads to a threat to send officers to my home to retrieve Mitsy if I didn't agree to adop to return her by Monday as well as confirmation that she was extremely likely to be euthanized as are any other cats that aren't adopted in some ambiguous time frame or are mildly unadoptable to recap I had entered into what I thought was a medium-length medical foster situation trying to get a cat's weight down enough that she could clean herself and get adopted this goal hadn't been achieved yet in part because I had not received any vet supervis vision and so had been reluctant to accelerate weight loss in any way Beyond limiting her calorie intake to less than 250k calories of wet food I'm then suddenly given the ultimatum of either returning Mitsy immediately at imminent risk of euthanasia or adopting her even though I had repeatedly stated from the start that this was not my plan mity doesn't get along with my three other cats and by adting her I'm inheriting the cost of the vet visits Edison should have scheduled and paid for in the last four months obviously I adopted Mitsy and have requested an appointment with her original sah Brook Vet she's a wonderful cat and has made a lot of progress she now goes up and down the stairs and can jump onto some chairs I just wish the circumstances have been different note that also that during the entirety of the Foster the only shelter resources I had used were two bags of litter two small bags of dry food and a few dozen cans of wet food I had paid for much of the food a container of non-rx antifungal ant antimicrobial wipes and many paper towels myself I don't know what to say to this this is this is disgraceful this is a five-year volunteer who only wanted what was for the best interest of the best welfare for these animals and I'm appalled I'm disgusted and this is one of the reasons of course why we are forming this subcommittee because we want to hold this shelter accountable and do what we can to help these poor animals now I know we received late last week it's a confidential memo that had some good news in it about what's being done um I'm curious as to why this memo needed to be confidential you're requesting why the memo was confidential in terms of the report the updated medical report yes um if there was further discussion obviously with regard to that uh prior to any public input obviously I want that I want your ability to discuss that before went out so that's the same that I would have done with any report so if there was a report that came through through any vendor having the council to review and then if you felt so so much to have that out there then that's at your will at what point can that and what point can we make this public night well the the answer is is right now it's a deliberative document so I I don't know it's at some point in time where council is going to be asked to make some decision based upon it I and I to be perfectly honest I haven't reviewed the document so maybe I should review it first and then I can give you an answer that question I haven't seen it yet I I council president if I may before our counselor reviews anything more related to the animal shelter I would like for him to review tomorrow the document that I presented to him tonight and I'd like him to get back to me on that sure because otherwise otherwise I have serious issues with somebody reviewing further documentation I I I I probably will still review it anyway but so Sonia if you could just make sure it gets sent to me I don't think I've seen it yet I I just right it's going to be a whole another conversation like we just had my Council colleague did at the next meeting but it's going to be more inclined to redactions and things of that nature um I'm sorry council president uh Council Vice president I I I really have nothing more to say on this but this is extremely disturbing and um the fact that there have been so many animals that have died have been euthanized I know that um we had spoken I think uh it was councilman Patel and uh council president pointer and I had spoken to Ross litra and um it was a very encour that was a very encouraging Zoom that we had and there was talk that over at the Monmouth uh SPCA that there is a panel that does the that goes over uh euthanizations and um it's not just any any arbitrary decision it's not any one person's decision it's a panel and I would certainly hope to see this enacted here um I I do I do feel positive about the vet that is going to be taking over that's taking over here she seems to be very well qualified and very highly regarded but um what has taken place up until now is absolutely a travesty and I've got and I know the residents are extremely concerned and want this to be want this to be made a high priority and I could not agree more council president I mentioned earlier um Mr L Citra is here tonight um so you don't know if any of other C council members have any things they want to bring up with regard to the animal shelter but he's ready for questions or clarifications uh with regard to your I I I think it would be appropriate that he clarified that letter that you just read I think that's fine Mr litra could you council president I I don't disagree councilman what would you like to say for the report I agree with my Council colleague when it comes to any inspection Health inspections every food establishment every establishment has to have a public report and this would be no different the report should be made available to the public whatever report it may be for sanitary or discipline as long as it doesn't inv HR I understand HR would not be included but the well-being of that facility is a health issue it should all be public record it's no different than every establishment that gets a license in our department of health has a public report should made public thank you thank you um I will allow any questions or if you're open to Mr litra um elaborating yes I I would love to hear from you Mr litra certainly thank you mayor coun oh the mayor is not here the council being here so for those of you who do not know me my name is Russell CER I am the executive director of the mammoth County SPCA um and we have been asked here for people here in the audience who do not know um to assist the Edison shelter and trying to reformulate your procedures and how things were done here to shelter um we have been here for several weeks um going over a lot of issues that are happening here at the shelter and without a doubt 100% your shelter is in absolutely need of reformulation and reorganization from every level now volunteers are an integral part of running any animal welfare organization the mammoth County SPCA we have nearly 100 full-time employees and over 400 volunteers at the shelter but the biggest thing about volunteers okay is to have control fostering is a great program volunteering is a great program but the most important thing to for running any animal shelter is to number one be concerned for the welfare of the animals number one and the betterment of the shelter number two now I can tell you since my retirement from the prosecutor's office of 30 years of law enforcement and then I took over the prose I mean took over the shelter in 2015 many of the same issues that you are facing here at our shelter at your shelter we face at our shelter now the old adage there's three sides to every story his hers and somewhere in the middle lies the truth okay so in this particular situation we had a medical Foster now fostering is a very important part of a program right now at the mammoth County sbci have over 71 cats in Foster and over 18 canines in Foster but the most important thing with running a foster program is that you the shelter are in complete control of what's going on during during the fostering not the volunteer or the employees controlling the fostering program that is your animal you're responsible for it and you're responsible for the well-being and care for that animal there's something that's called quality of life for an animal in this particular situation we had a cat that was in medical Foster since July it was reviewed by the medical staff Dr fedon Who was our Medical director for many years at the SPCA and it was determined that the cat should either be brought back in for subsequent medical evaluation which could include euthanasia or for the Foster to adopt the animal now this is a very common occurrence people will take animals into foster and they want to have them in Foster in perpetuity while it's on the dime of the shelter to pay for the medical and care for the animal and that's some particular Point someone's got to make a decision either adopt the animal or bring it back to the shelter for betterment right this animal was not living a quality of life the way it was and it's not fair to the taxpayers and the shelter and Edison to continue with perpetuity paying for the health of this animal moving forward that's not your job as an animal shelter that's a rescue you're not a rescue that's not your purpose not your intent okay so in this particular case I G the Foster an option either return the cat to the shelter or adopt it adopt the cat one or the other and she chose to adopt it we have the same situation that goes on at our shelter on a daily basis right we have animals of Foster and they become emotionally and mentally attached to the animal and it's also remember this it's not fair for the animal to remain in shelter and a foster for so long because that animal doesn't know that it's in Foster it thinks it's in a home where it's living and the longer it lives there then all of a sudden it's brought back to the shelter fostering is for a shortterm basis only not longterm that's decision of the shelter leadership and the veterinarian in charge of the shelter so in this particular case that's what the decision was made it is not for the input of the staff or the input of the volunteers is for your leadership team at the shelter and for the decision of the medical director to make those decisions to bring these animals to keep them Foster and so forth and so on that's how you're going to run a successful shelter every year we have over 5,000 animals that come through the mammoth County SPCA we have a 98% save rate you don't get any better than that in the state of New Jersey or anywhere in the country it's nearly a no kill shelter I don't like using that term because we do euthanize at the bth county SBC but only for either behavioral euthanasia or for medical obvious so it has to happen it's a sad part of the business moving forward but you need to get a control administratively and with the staff and with the volunteers now to your question sir the volunteer program has not been eliminated it's been suspended until it could be reformulated okay so let me ask you a question when did you eliminate it or when was it halted or when whatever word or term you'd like to use what date did that happen so just to be clear gentlemen yeah I'm sorry Council vice president had the floor absolutely Bo he asked me a question he made a statement to me so I answered um unless he can keep track and just speak to council vice president then he can come to me either way it works for me I'm good yeah I'm I'm here I have no problem answering the questions all right council president Council Vice you would like to make a comment I would prefer not to have back and forth to keep with the general decorum of going back because Council vice president has the floor so prefer to hold off on that unless you want to make just a general comment sure so the the I was asked to come up here to Edison out of Mammoth County to help advise you on how to run a shelter okay I'm not running your shelter I'm advising you what to do based on the success of the mammoth County SP SPCA right it was my suggestion to your leadership that you should suspend your volunteer program until you get your house in order it was also my recom recommendation to suspend shared service contracts for your intake into the shelter which is wul overwhelming last year you had nearly 1,800 animals intake into your shelter with eight employees I had 5,000 animals with 100 employees that's nearly four times the amount of intake per employee if you're going to do this do it right you need to rebuild your shelter and reformulate what's going on inside the shelter right don't listen to volunteers don't listen to people who are coming up and trying to tell you how to run a shelter question and ask the people who know how to run a shelter by proof in the pudding that's what we do I I have to take issue with don't listen to the volunteers Joel had been there for five years had seen a lot and so I am going to listen to Joel smart I'm going to listen to her and I I want to say that right after our Zoom call I actually emailed Ed you Mr litra and I had said I'm I'm encouraged about this I would love to find it you had invited us to come down and see the the M County shelter so I I had put that out there please let us know what our good dates what are good times of day I never heard back from I never heard back from you we did have a shelter visit I'm sorry maybe you missed those emails or maybe you weren't on them I'm not so sure I emailed you I I emailed you separately after that Zoom call and I heard nothing from you I'm sorry councilwoman Harris I did not receive that email I'll double check in my things but I did not okay but at the end of the day um volunteers will tell you trust me I know this from experience okay I run the most successful shelter in the state of New Jersey I have over 400 volunteers so I know how to deal with them all right they will give you advice all day long right and it's not again it's not listening to volunteers it's whether validating what they're saying is truthful or not there's many sides to running a shelter and I deal with this also with volunteers at the shelter right they also will want to tell you what to do and how to do it that's not their job their job excuse me their job is to make certain that they're helping the shelter right there is no way to quantify and justify what your volunteers are doing now they don't sign in they don't sign out how do you justify or even cultivate or whatever the amount of hours that they're doing for the justification that they're giving to the shelter sir yes this woman was not trying to run things or tell people what to do this woman was trying to find the best damn way she could to take care of this cat she was getting she was getting basically crickets when she would send out emails she wanted to she wanted to make sure that this this cat did get a checkup and was getting no response she was promised that when the new vet came in there would be there would be a response and they would work that out and then nothing and so and so then to be threat and by the way you keep mentioning in perpetuity there's a long a long Gap in between a few months and perpetuity Joel wasn't asking for per for perpetuity Joelle was wanting to to take care of this cat as long as it took in order to make this this cat adoptable and then to really top things off the offensiveness of of her being threatened that if you don't turn this cat over by Monday animal control is coming to your house that's awful that's terrible it's disrespectful Miss Harris it's not disrespectful it's the way a shelter should be ran okay so at the end of the day right the the volunteer was given Amper opportunity to bring the shelter back with push back right you can't if you're going to run the shelter successfully you can't allow that to happen I was very polite with her on the emails back and forth right told her listen if you want this cat should adopt it that is not the Shel unless I understand correctly you're not a rescue you're an animal shelter a municipal animal shelter right that's not what a municipal animal shelter is unless that's somewhere in your guidelines which there aren't any on how the shelter should conduct business right the shelter is shortterm that's what rescues are for trust me I deal with this on a daily basis when we have cats that are in long-term Medical Care they go out to a rescue or they're adopted by someone who wants to do it not to constantly stay in a shelter environment to be paid for by the taxpayers of the town for that cat to be or that dog or whatever animal to be treated till it's medically perfect for adoption that's not what the purpose of the shelter is for now if that's what the mayor and councel want the shelter to be for by all means you have control of the purse strings that's what you can do but if you're asking for my advice and why I'm up here from Mammoth County giving you advice on how to run a shelter right nothing disrespectful about telling a volunteer that if they don't return the shelter property when they're told to that they're going to send out of control to pick up your property did she indicate that she was not willing to bring the cat back to the shelter if that was the was push back was indicating that she was not listening to to what the shelter was asking her to do asking okay please return the cat back to the shelter or adopt a cat isn't that the shelters right isn't that their decision or is that the volunteer decision it is definitely the shelter's right although absolutely although I might ask um at what point was there a limit put on how long someone could be fostering was there because that seemed rather arbitrary as well fostering is always arbitrary and it never knows what the situation is every animal's different every circumstance is different every health of animal you could have fostering for law enforcement until the case is adjudicated in court it could be in Foster for years I had five dogs that I took from Orange that were in Foster for five years until the case was adjudicated and guess what every one of those Fosters adopted those animals because they fell in love with them fostering is short term and in control the shelter but sir can you understand I can understand it very much so wait you haven't heard my question sure can you understand why this woman who was not given at that point any deadline any any maximum and then suddenly is told that she has to either return the cat or or adopt or adopt her um can you understand how unnerving that would be because that came from out of nowhere well that's why fostering is supposed to be short term and foster parents are supposed to know that they are at the bequest of the shelter to bring the animal back when they need to they're a tool to utilize to help to shelter Care for Animals outside their shelter they're an extension of the shelter they're supposed to be there for the betterment of the animal not for them that's exactly what she was there for exactly and the veterinarian and the administration had decided the animal needed to come back to the shelter and the question should have been very simply okay I'll bring the I'll bring the animal back it's not a master for questioning you can't have the Tail Wag the Dog it's very very wrong trust me it will happen all over if you try to do that I know it from experience that's why I'm here to help you I will agree with you about the shared services agreement that I I don't think that that's sustainable I don't think that that is sustainable for much longer because of what's going what with what's going on and we might have to look into some changes with that so that I do agree with um but this this was very very disturbing and I don't think that Joelle had had it in for anybody her obviously for volunteering for five years this was because of a love of animals and wanting and wanting to ensure their well-being and when the volunteer program is reformulated and you hire a full-time volunteer coordinator to deal with just your volunteers which you should have right then she'll be able to volunteer back again when the program has been reinstated you think that ship is probably sailed unfortunately you know or so sometimes councilman Harris people are they there for them or they for the animals and that's what I tell my volunteers I'm not sure what you're questioning about are they there for that are are so the shelter the problem at times with volunteers and as great as they are and we rely a lot of them there are some that are there for themselves personally maybe not always for the best circumstance for the animal it's the shelter that needs to run the program not the volunteers it's the administration and if you don't understand that then you're never going to have a successful shelter I don't think Joel was looking for the volunteers or for herself to run the program I think she was wanting to be heard and she was wanting to be responded to and she was not getting that right she was heard she was responded to and the answer to her questions and the answer to was to return a cat to the shelter simple as that doesn't get any simpler than that it's not up for discussion for a volunteer it's not it's not up for a discussion for an employee it's not for discussion it's what the medical director and administration determines that's it that's how it works do you think that the qualifications of the manager given that she did not have her license given that she has not worked with animals before she was in health care but it was in nursing homes and things like that is this was this really the right choice for this position with a a shelter that is so overcrowded and and under such pressure counc Harris I'm not going to answer a question like that I came from the prosecutor's office of violent crime task force and I took over at animal shelter never running an animal shelter ever and I now run the most successful animal shelter in the state of New Jersey so I guess I'll put it out there as a rhetorical question then right I yield to anyone else who has any questions council president um I'm done thank you all right yeah uh councilman Coy just first council president just to you are we going through committees I'm sorry are we going through Council we on the agenda or this a separate item disc discussion items so so it's I don't want I want council member Harris to finish I didn't want to interrup yeah she Council vice president indicated that she finished her statement I have a few things to discuss and I'll just be as brief thank you um coun first thank you for getting involved that I do not know your qualifications I'm pulling up what I can on Zoom uh could and uh I'm not happy with the letter that was read however again I I at the moment we're talking about uh one one one volunteer I need more but uh there's enough there to to question you can't argue that come from a person they they're making statements not good but can you walk me through uh where where we were when you got here I didn't ask any questions over the last couple weeks we're were during an election cycle I wasn't picking this to uh be an item to kick as a political football but I do want to get to the bottom today and and get closer to what the solutions are so could you first in your 92nd pitch can you tell me where you were when you got there and what's your 92nd pitch so where you think we need to go next okay so your shelter is um awfully underst staffed you have two large of an intake for the building that you have the building is in desperate need of repair your staff needs to understand protocols in a chain of command your volunteer program needs to be reformulated with rules and regulations all of your Sops your general directives if you have them all need to be reformulated and a review of all your Municipal contracts also need to be reformulated now I the shocking part I heard is that we have 1,00 animals and we have only 18 employees first eight eight or 18 eight eight okay then that really changes the number so if I'm reading this correctly we have it eight people to 180 animals per person okay so I'd say that's half the problem there yeah without just we're talking last month we talked about patients to nurses abut uh hotels talk about staff to to customers uh we're talking about staff to animals and you have 50 per employee for 50 per you have one person per 50 it's correct okay so it's three times um can you walk me through the conditions of the shelter I I'm hearing this sounds in order of an issue staff chain of command volunteers reformulate new Sops directives um what part of the conditions we're at now and what will change I mean um I'm assuming you know I'm not there every day but to clean and maintain an animal shelter with 18 animals has got to be a working job of cleaning preparing process over process right so everything everything in a shelter is connected to each other right so the very very first thing to do which I've already recommended to your Administration which they did was to bring out a qualified medical director even though the one you have is only part-time because she's not available full-time but probably one of the best medical directors in the state of New Jersey when it comes to animal Sheltering animal uh welfare and how to run a shelter in that regards that's Dr Nicole fedon Dr fedon came in and made her number one observations of things and protocols that need to be done number two is to have a structured program in place with an architect or an engineer on to reformulate the flow of your shelter and how to rebuild the shelter including your HVAC systems air quality for for your staff and for the animals and for disease come through um number three is you need to hire more people your staff is so overworked it's it's it's the compassion fatigue that they have is overwhelming and anytime you have that type of compassion fatigue in a staff especially in Animal Welfare which is very passionate part of work okay you're going to have breakdown you're going to have breakdown of morale you got to have breakdown of the chain of command and you're got to have a breakdown of policy which ultimately leads to the destruction of the shelter which at the end of the day the animals suffer so the next question is where do we go from here okay first thing is you did you hired a medical director okay next thing you need to hire an architect and an engineer to come in and give the council and a town a comprehensive plan on how to reformulate the inside the shelter and how to make it a better environment and number three know what your capacity of care is once that happens and limit your capacity of care to the shelter can I just as a point of order here um so for a point of order yes we formed the committee um I have probably an hour and a half's worth of questions for you the public is here to for their own concerns okay and it's wonderful all the things you're saying I love it I wish you would have contacted me when they brought you on board instead of just council president and vice president would have been great but are are we going to go through what the committee is formulated to do is is that what we're going to do tonight cuz I'm prepared to spend another hour and a half after you if that's what we're going my request would be to have that as part of the committee discussions I did not want to be rude and interrupt the Council of vice president before and offer the opportunity obviously um stough for me to forecast where conversations may go you know once they've started so my request would be if we could keep it for the uh animal shelter committee to discuss uh I would request that um but as I've done with previous practice uh discussion items I won't inter yes you have it would be a request Sor I don't I I I don't want to be laborative of a subject that's in committee uh if the council respects the same across the floor um if I I have just two more minutes oh absolutely uh I'm fine with that but I think I'm I'm trusting the Council committee and I'm willing to get on that as well um a poos to square footage you know I'm FR of understanding we become The Dumping Ground of places all over town and we are we are have contracts for services which are probably underpaid and we're we're they're getting a deal of the century you're losing money big time okay so post to square footage today at 1800 animals where should where are we where are we today and where should we be tomorrow well I don't know what the square footage of your building is M um but it's a small building and again once you have an architect come in and an engineer people who are the experts in this bill in that type of work and lay out and see what your footprint is and lay out then we can know what the capacity care is once we know what the kennels and isolation rooms and all those other things that come into play again this comes in with the recommendations of your medical director that's already how big is your building for 5,000 20 20,000 Square ft okay I would guess that ours is proba probably 5,000 ft if that okay listen I think I've got enough and um I'm happy with where you're at thank you I have some Faith you're going to go in a good direction I'm not saying I don't have more questions later I'm not saying I'm going to be polite later and I'm certainly going to visit and I'll wait for my committee to invite me thank you for your time of course and council president uh when he's finished or what have discussions when he leaves to regular discussions okay so you would like to yield the remainder to I'm not talking about the animal shelter for the animals okay so just yes five minutes we'll give the rich right I'm gonna make this one kind of quick thank you Rich um councilman Brer yes we we I I hear what you're saying I don't think you hear what we're saying okay and I think that needs so I'm going to give you a couple pointers right you you go back to where you are and when we meet in this committee I expect to see you and I expect you to have these kind of answers for us okay but very simply put um and we'll talk about this in more great length when we have this meeting but we had an animal shelter there weren't real big problems with an animal shelter and then we changed we got a new director and then everything seemed to fall apart okay so there's a timeline to all of this and I think you need to familiarize yourself with it and and even with the issue with the cat right I I really don't want to talk about this cat any longer it's a lot about one cat that we've talked about but but there's certain things that we haven't talked about like when the Cat first got there how long it had how long was that adoptive person told they could have it because I don't think you have those answers and that's what as this committee we're looking for and as my colleague said what we're looking for is to just be have compassion right so if you came in it looks to me me like you came in like a bull in a china shop um that China Shop's destroyed already right but but it looks like now like you're destroying whatever glass we might have left that's still valuable in there so where I'm going is we'd like to have that meeting to go through all of these I'm very specific with timelines if you show me I believe you and it could be correct if I ever find that the information you give me is incorrect I will ask for your resignation so so don't don't just tell me something to appease me right everybody here will know one thing don't appease me tell me the truth I'm a big boy and I can live with it and that's the idea of this committee talking about all this stuff right I I don't want to say it's like yada yada Yad yada but it is basically because we have not gotten to the root of these problems you start said sir you stood there and you said that it shouldn't be run by the employees or the volunteers the only other person we had there was someone that didn't have a license so in my mind you're telling me that the person that didn't have the license at the time was the one that should have made all those recommendations and this is part of the discussion that we're going to have privately in this committee um to First establish how the problem happened and then establish a game plan moving forward like when you talk about an architect if you're going to tell me to hire any architect I'm going to tell you you're wrong and your out of your mind you have to get an architect that has designed animal shelters because any architect is not qualified for this but in closing what I'm saying is all these things are the things that we should discuss there here where these residents are sitting here and they've been here for six seven 8 n like 3 hours and 16 minutes to talk about a pothole that they have or or or some trees that are blocking their View and almost caus them an accident I I don't really want to get into that with the rest of the animal shelter so I'd just like to leave that where it is until we have this meeting and if you could send me your contact because I never had your contact yeah I would but just like to make a few comments before I I really um that's the end of of my comments I don't know that I'm looking to hear any more comments from you this evening but we would like to hear from you in the committee and we'd like to move along with the meeting that would be my recommendation council president thank you that's I that's teasure I understand the why or otherwise I'm going to question for an hour and a half council president is your prerogative please ra sit gentlemen I would request that the remainder of the comments questions and everything happened with the committee okay Mr litra I appreciate your time and willingness to be here and big word is willingness remember that word remember that thank you um I'm g go back to councilman Coy to finish discussion items on his end and then council member I just uh I didn't get a chance to do any committee reports I'm just going to do what we have here for what we did we had a chance to and I've being repetitive and I'll get numbers later um and any council member is welcome to comment as well but we had a chance to discuss uh with DPW and the director a few important items that we felt of course people care about most which is the snow that could be coming may be coming and how overwhelming it could be and should be uh we didn't have much sow snow last year so we could anticipate more than we would expect and I'm confident we uh comparative to years prior we have more truck power more personnel and certainly a great operation in place uh and plenty of salt I think I hearing about 300 tons of salt on standby um and I'll get a account for next meeting on all the trucks it could be my email but I did arrive late and I don't have that count but I am confident and I do want to mention to the public we are aware and available and this again does not happen uh in the month of November this item is discussed throughout the entire year preparation for snow so I'm proud to say that we are in good shape and I am being repetitive this was just discussed last meeting as well but it's important but are we prepared for a twoot snowstorm is probably the big question later on but uh that's something we're trying to get to and uh I would imagine 2 and a half fet is a whole another conversation for the township medison but uh we definitely are prepared for snow um moving forward on that qu moving forward I'm glad we had a conversation about the animal shelter um happy with that I did when it comes to the recreation uh items that were on there for division of of um funding I just want to you know clarify some of the funding has been the same for a while so I'm waiting for that formula i' I'd like to see that formula through the ba to C the bay what the formula is and how we come together with who gets what throughout the year you know and I just want to discuss here openly buddy W gets $565 as and boy Bas will gets $ 49,8 46 Edison Jets gets $1,565 Edison United Soccer associating gets $52,000 Edison youth basketball gets $177,000 uh little Eagle wrestling team gets the same 4,000 that since I've been on the council never increased Edison Midtown softball 21,000 North Edison Baseball gets 485267 20 and the Falcons Cricket Club which is a growing sport gets 9,000 so I just want to see where we get this formula from and how we do this and why there's no increases over over the years as Sports increase or decrease per application I don't expect that answer now but I would definitely want it to discuss it later and also is there an update on the water break councilman PTI where are we with the Victoria Park and the the break Council if you don't mind I can answer can I ask him because he I don't want to be redundant to if you would like to provide an update well first is there any additional Insight from all of that work was done and completed a couple of weeks ago yep it was done by the res okay so the emergency has been taken care of it was done by the resident okay okay congratulations okay I'd be curious what that cost was versus the argument in time that was done by the private residents okay it seems okay maybe it was a shorter fix than the argument was worth but I did I'm happy to hear that was done certainly before the winter sets in um and I would hope that it wouldn't take this long to get there and whatever we have to do to put in place to make sure it's done in a timely manner we anticipate and certainly work with the you know the issue at hand which is where it becomes an edate Hazard because when it comes to that point and whether the homeown association doesn't take care of it I think it's our directive to do so somewhere we have to act before someone gets hurt so I'm glad it's done uh I have no other questions council president thank you thank you councilman toyle councilman Brer all right uh I had a council Council colleague that questioned that said that I never brought up ly Park um that was me as opposed to going through the videos to show how I brought up palansky Park five six seven times um I'm making a request of the business administrator to reach out to Matt Watkins um I believe we still pay Matt Watkins and he's a vendor that works for us Matt Watkins has access to old business administrator I know that he can contact her and what I'm looking for is to find out from the old business administrator where the document would be that showed that the money for palansky park for the basket book for the kids What bond it was put into because this body did receive a breakdown for that in the prior Administration so I'm I'm looking for for that Bond then I'd like to see if we have applied to the county because my uh commissioner Rios um over a year ago told me that the county was going to help fund it so I don't know what portion maybe they fund a quarter or 50% but but they were excited to hear about it yet I have no update as when we're going to build the basketball court at palansky Park um I'd like to get a status update we had flooding issues around Calbert and Stevenville um my Council colleague and uh my my former councilman um counsilman Bob deal I know Bob deal was working on the calary thing shoot must have been U about eight years on the dis um so I'd like to see if we can get updates on that flooding where we are in the design and the implementation of of solving the problem I'd also like to get a update on the parking lot for the North North Edison Baseball I know we did some Paving for South Edison Baseball but North Edison Baseball their parking lot we were supposed to do so if I can get a date as to when we're going to do that a question to our attorney real quick when opras come in and and this is a big question that comes up and is a complaint of residents um they put an Oprah in how long does it take for us to turn over an Oprah document well sorry for the lawyer answer it depends well I I guess the problem is you know if somebody Oprah um Can iol the permits for whatever uh that those are usually Things That Go relatively quickly I'm assuming that that's that's a computer search a lot of times however the one the OPA request that take us longer is the ones that are essentially research projects research projects okay I'd like to I'd like to see what kind of things you're you're being asked for and and let me tell you where I'm going um residents have told me that they've they've put an Oprah request in and they've waited like a month or a month and a half um because it had to go through legal and if where I go with this is I would like to see any Oprah request that takes more than two weeks right for your firm to get back to them with and it goes to let me tell you where I'm going with it it goes to service because if the Oprah requests are are too much um for you guys to take care of that we can't get it back to the people in a timely fashion that we have to keep on asking for extensions right and and I don't care who the people are um then we need to find another firm to do this work is where I'm going so can I get a list of anything over two weeks from the date they submitted it from your firm uh but I'll but I'll answer the question now there the delay is never my firm the the delay is in getting the documents that we need because I have in addition to the fact that I have a lawyer who does your most of your Oprah reviews that spent five years at the government records Council she's really qualified at doing this and others that do it in a lot of municipalities the delay is virtually never the Law Department unless I I'll give you an example sometimes and I'm not sure what the process is if somebody asks for you know a year a body worn camera footage and the footage is hours and hours long and we have to redact it it takes however long it takes for an attorney to sit and go through and do it and redact it and do all of those things so there are sometimes what happens is that there's a volume but I can tell you this my office doesn't take two weeks to turn things around they we just don't let me let me tell you where I'm going I'm looking to follow this right sure and and understand I mean you have to know that I'm fair right so if the if the issue isn't with your firm but the issue is with the administration and getting you the documents or whatever that might be um wherever the fault lies is wherever it's going to lie but right now everybody sometimes it's a requestor you know that right um sometimes a request are ask for you know tell me every time that there was you know a blue sticky note on something in the last 30 years and then we have to go back and say well you know it's we can't we can't find it well okay so tell me only 15 years where we still can't find it we go back and forth with and don't always get so so the answer is is that sometimes there's an interactive process that is between us and Cheryl is shaking her head and I know she knows that we go through this all the time so you know that's some of it and and some of it is the the nature of and I I just and I don't I don't mean to I'm not trying to fill a buster here it's the nature of that if it's not a if it's not something that's kept in a computer database that we can search and we can find you literally have people going through boxes trying to find I I'm I'm very well well aware of of what's available yeah right and and the reason why I say this is there's one that that went through that I think they waited about a month and well it's something you could have got off off our hard drives um so I I'm just looking just to take a look at it right and and trust me I happen to be I'm I'm not real intelligent right I mean I didn't go to law school or anything but but I can I can discern you know that when somebody's asking for uh 100 body cameras I I I get it I know what it takes um I have seen when the township has released body cam footage that should have been redacted right so so I understand the importance of it so I'm I'm asking for just for a list of it just so I can follow it and and see where it is and if there's an item that looks like it's an issue to me I I'll bring that to you and and you know you can explain to me what the issue is with is with it and and I'd love I and I honestly because we're we're everybody in every town is searching for an answer to these and I'd love to talk to you about it and for instance if you have a specific example we can we don't have to do it here we can talk about it offline say to me Lou why this open request was filed on September 1st why did it take until September 30th and I can pretty much map out for you what happened um and and and I won't tell you that there's not a circumstance where there are Oprah requests that multiple Oprah requests from the same person on similar subjects that one doesn't get lost in the shuffle it happens I I and i' I'd like to tell you it didn't um if you think that you know you can bring Mardo in English here they have 500 lawyers and they'll make that not happen probably not but I'm happy to talk to you about those things I I really am because because we search for good suggestions on how to handle this too but it's not the delay the delay is not my I have 25 lawyers they all I'm just I'm just asking if you could just send me a list for anything that's like two weeks or older and can I don't even track it that way Cheryl can you do that I don't know if we can I don't do it okay I I I don't track it in that manner I don't know you can okay so we can talk about it okay yeah all right um now oh now this is a good one here um we talked about cyber security um I know this is a great concern cyber security um and I heard a council colleague of mine speak about having a problem working PDF to excel now just so happens um a very good friend of mine was the programmer that was able to make PDFs into Excel and Word um too bad I didn't listen to them I would have made a lot of money on that stock but every council member should have that available to them um on their computers to be able to do that you know that's a pretty simple process I mean me at my age I'm actually able to do that um but we should all be able to have that I'm also requesting to have an iPhone um because what I'm going to do is I'm going to send a video to council president to our attorney and to the ba tomorrow um and I'm going to take a video of me on my phone downloading data which I never had with the prior Administration but if I played it here everybody would laugh and everybody have to run out to the bathroom and then I have a Township I well it's not an iPad it's um Surface Pro Surface Pro um and and that doesn't really work either I mean it does a lot of spinning anybody here remember 1995 it does that over and over and and I can't say that it's it and and I don't want to blame them for the two-year process because part of that is my own fault right I brought it to them they fixed it it didn't work um I get frustrated so it takes me a month or so to come back I bring it to them they set it up it doesn't work and we've been doing this for two years and and I've given up on it um I just don't think we have the ability where the prior Administration I never had a problem so something changed right and it could be the cyber security um it could be Microsoft I don't really know but I know one thing this is not my problem to figure out this is the administration's problem to allow me to have access um and and I should have it so whatever they need to do I shouldn't have to come here to the township any longer to bring stuff or drop it off they should have somebody believe this or not like I'm gonna tell you this I'd say about 15 years ago cuz I kind of retired I guess about five or 10 years ago um my computer guy never came to my office he he was wherever he was someplace in cyber world and he would go on my computer and he would fix everything and I'm looking for at least that service which is um 15 or 20 year service that this has been out there to to fix this so that I can get access um if any of my Council colleagues would like me to forward the videos to you also um for a good chuckle um I'll be glad to do that but I'll be sending that tomorrow I'll make the little video but I've just had total frustration I I've explained it to Sonia she asked me if I could just bring it to to the it I explain my frustration like I just now did um but I'll be doing that tomorrow um that would be all council president thank you uh councilman brusher uh for myself just to address two of those uh items um conver ing the PDFs to Excel or Word documents right now because we have the 2019 version the only way that's uh available to do so is through one note take a picture of whatever it is screenshot it and it'll convert it to text on the new 365 platform that's being put out uh I can attest that you can export PDF to excel to Word document to one not to um any of the others and uh in regards to access to the server one of the items that uh um Jeff uh put on my Surface Pro was net extender so that you can log in through a VPN which if you're connected to your Wi-Fi allows for quicker access to documents versus going through the LTE and just a request to the administration I know that we are digitizing a lot of documents now what I would request is that whatever program is being used to convert those documents to PDF have a they call it a it's called the OCR uh capabilities opta optical character recognition therefore at when those documents are scanned into the PDF as long as the type is legible it'll be searchable so that would help in the future uh thank you um any other discussion items for my colleagues so before we go into the regular session uh and if I did not mention this before we were moving the Clos session up because that pertained to uh one of the resolution items before we go back though because we have in our ordinance at the meetings end at 10: and given the time now I'm going yeah coun pres we we are planning to go in close session right yes so just my again as usual we have Township employees and the department heads we are gone through the work session so if you're okay we should I no objections on my end if the department heads and uh employees would like to leave unless there are any other questions that are um yeah I think we need our department of of law um what I would like to do though just to just in case the conversation goes long if we can extend the meeting for an hour and then I don't hopefully it doesn't go that long but just in case so can I get a motion to extend the meeting one hour which would be yes to motion to extend meeting one one hour all in favor yeah I I all right so the meeting President been extended till 11: just for clarification I um I'm guessing a good portion of that department stays because they're passionate that what's on the agenda uh each department here representing so many things in that department they've improved I don't think there's any I didn't have any questions are there any questions that are going to be asked further what's on the agenda from the council not that I'm coun public well anyone that would like to speak on the resolutions obviously you'll have the opportunity to uh comment and question on the resolutions if any of the department uh heads or employees want to state for that just in case I leave that at the discretion of the business administrator and the uh uh division heads so at this time I'd like to motion for us to go into Clos session motion to go into Clos session second oh oh no that would be well that would be after council president I just want to clarify do they all have to stay or not is it necessary I don't think that's necessary but they're under the business administrator's directive so I'll leave that to okay just just what I just was considering of time I had no one had any other questions for them I just that's all thank you council president thank you so uh there was a motion to go into close session second by so a motion by Council vice president Harris second by councilman patile all in favor I we are now in a close session thank good evening everyone the time is now 1026 p.m. and we are finished with close session at this time can I get a motion to reconvene motion to reconvene second motion by councilman ptil second by Council vice president Harris all in favor I I the meeting is now reconvened okay we move to approval of the minutes uh that's for the combined meetings of September 27th and October 23rd uh um October 23rd do I have a motion to approve motion to approve second okay uh is an i who made the Motions that was yeah um and that's is that an I vote okay all in favor say I I I okay uh we have now a resolution of recognition so clerk could you read that please whereas Robert swiffy is a PR proud homeowner and resident of Township of Edison residing at 68 Union Avenue for more than 20 years whereas Robert has been recognized as an individual who takes Pride not only in the maintenance of his own property but the neighborhood to which he lives and the entire Township of Edison whereas Robert has dedicated many hours to community service utilizing his own vehicle and equipment to clean up debris on roads and in our neighborhoods whereas patrolman salvator Capa has witnessed Robert's Noble Deeds throughout the years and notes his positive and humble character now there be resolved Municipal Council finds a proper desires to recognize Robert swiffy for his dedication commitment to keeping our community clean and the impact his actions have had improves the quality of life for all the residents okay okay do we have any public comment on this resolution okay seeing none do we have uh any Council comment on the resolution all right seeing none uh can we have a motion to adopt motion to adopt second okay everyone in favor I I okay that is adopted right oh this is a roll call all right sorry let's go council member Brer yes council member coil I'm sorry I was I was not recognition this is on the resolution resolution of recognition okay yes I'm I'm just I'm going abstain I don't know where we are on the agenda I apologize council member Harris yes council member Patel yes council member P yes council president pointer yes you motion passes Council pres uh council president I just want to vote Yes on that please may the record show councilman Coy uh voted affirmatively all right sorry about that 22 approval of volunteer firefighter can I get a motion to approve motion to R second motion by councilman ptil second by Council vice president Harris all in favor I any opposed motion passes council president remarks I do not have any 24 administrative agenda uh can I get a motion to accept motion to accept second motion by councilman patile second by Council councilman Patel all in favor I I any opposed motion passes 25 unfinished business ordinances for further consideration public hearing and final adoption as we had mentioned before uh there's a request to table this for uh December 13th 13th 13th okay uh any other logistic yeah I just want to note for the record that U as we discuss in close session we're going to do it without further further notice so the clerk does not have to Ren notice the public hearing obviously we noticed the public hearing tonight anybody who was here who wanted to speak is here to hear this now than you so so you're going to make a motion we need well we need a motion table motion to table till December 13th second so motion to table to December 13th by councilman patil second by Council vice president Harris uh Madam clerk roll call please council member brusher yes council member Quail yes council member Harris yes council member Batel yes council member ble yes counc membership council president pointer yes 26 uh new business proposed ordinances for public hearing um Madam clerk please read ordinance an ordinance amending chapter 37 zoning by amending the following subsections 37.3 do1 word word usage definitions 37 32.2 R i1 restricted industrial district permits use permit uses 37331 light industrial district permits uses for 37- 33.8 light industrial district prohibited uses 37 do 37- 38.1 the RR D rout and River revitalization District permitted uses and six the 37- 38.8 the rrrd Ron River realization District prohib uses thank you at this time try get a motion council president it would be a mo just for clarification purposes um there'd be a motion uh a second Council comments and then a roll call motion to adopt motion to introduce it's a motion to introduce okay I move this ordinance to be passed on the first reading published according to law for further consideration and public hearing set down on November 29th 2023 second so motion by councilman Patel second by Council vice president Harris any Council comments council president I was trying to do a motion to table but if you want to just vote on the introduction and little counterproductive but I'll leave it's your Co doesn't matter to me it's your it's your it's your it's your ordinance I'll leave my comments to the end councilman brusher yes um council president I guess I I had um some concerns about that you know whether it's it's actually a good ordinance overall um I've received you know well I've been talking to some residents also right that aren't um none of us are really expert land use attorneys but I don't I don't know that those questions have been answered now I do know that we did bring up changing this at one time um at that time we talked about having the uh planning board I guess come back with the master plan and and that was what I thought we were waiting for um was for the master plan to come and then we were going to address these or or get these recommendations from the planning board with the master plan um and then then this came up now um so it it it changed my my idea of what we were going to do you know with with moving it um I know my Council colleague wanted to pull it you know just to or table it you know for us to have those conversations and try and work out those couple things to make sure that it it is a good good ordinance um so I mean I would prefer to table it than voting no but if but if we if we if we would were to vote no and it and it it ends could we modify this and make changes and then reintroduce of course okay it doesn't have to wait like 180 days or something like that okay any other Council comments council president councilman CO as I mentioned before I don't think I think this is not fully prepared I think the intentions of what members on the council want uh May be understood by others but uh I think the majority of these complaints on this St I've heard are for trucks this is stopping Vans uh that's how I've read it we also have not given definition of what a terminal is what a fulfillment center is uh what a warehouse is by definition I'm not saying by what we think it may be but that should be in part in part of this in the description in detail and we should provide some exra reports as well for that I am not in supported this thank you thank you councilman Goyle any other comments Council Patel uh so I believe we do have a need to clarify definitions without the clarifications we risk uh getting warehouses and fulfillment centers where we don't want them and even a lot of these a lot of my Council colleagues are in support of public Advocate a public Advocate wouldn't be able to argue against certain cases because they there will be no definitions in our ordinances so if we are saying that public Advocate is good because they'll be able to advocate for the public on a lot of these cases let's give the public Advocate or even our boards the Planning and Zoning some ammo to use against developments that we don't want in the neighborhood uh but if the council decides that they want to vote this down and amend it later I personally am not okay with it because I feel like every moment that we wait we are risking some Development coming through um ideally if we want to work this yes and then like councilman Rich brusher said with the public Advocate ordinance that we can amend it later to your liking so let's vote it in we'll at least have something on the books to prevent bad development and then we can work it to the Perfection that it needs to be council president I I'd like to address that just quickly um my Council colleague brought up a very good point um and in government sometimes we need to vote for things that we're not entirely in in favor of right kind of like how you end up with the bridge to nowhere I propose to my Council colleague if he stands with me on the public Advocate I will stand with him tonight on this one I I don't wait wait you brought that up so I'm throwing an offer out there stand with me on the public Advocate and I will stand with you on this because it is the same argument that I'm using on you tonight with this not being perfect that I was used with me with the public advocate so it's like the goose is not liking the gander too much oh um so if you're up for it yes if not just tell me you're not all right I'm not goingon to stand for a quick proo here it's again the point here is that public Advocate it's especially the ordinance that was presented I truly feel is underbaked if you feel that this is truly underbaked and it doesn't serve the public purpose go ahead vote no on it that's fine with me the I personally believe this does serve a public purpose it does prevent bad businesses from coming into portions of neighborhoods that we don't want right and and this is what I'm saying it's let me finish Council question it is a timely issue because cases are coming for this particular purpose and that is my argument against it either way but I will not do quit proo if you present a good uh ordinance for public Advocate and I will take a look at it with open heart and open mind and I will I am open to revising my stand on that and I can give you that much right all I'm saying was it it was just simply put it is the exact same scenario how I feel about this is how you feel about the public Advocate and it's fine but to move government forward right it wasn't my idea to table this or or to hold off on this when we started this over a year ago what was said what was said at the meeting we can go back and listen to the tape what was said was that we were doing the master plan and when the master plan got we get from the planning board their recommendations on this and and that was said at a meeting and then mysteriously this just pops up now so you know no discussion no nothing right drops on us on a Friday we have issues because it's not perfect just like the public Advocate right but we can't get those resolved so it's the same thing that I said with the public Advocate right we'll put it forward and we'll make changes same thing here at least I'm consistent Okay so so where I'm going with this is this isn't perfect right so we'll just shoot this down then thank you thank you councilman P yeah thank you counc president I hear the both the sides uh and we have said that you know none of these ordinance are perfect unless you know we keep them revising and keep them enforcing you know there are sentiment tied tied here and and councilman Patel you said that this is going to help public ad vate to justify the case but contrary you don't want to support the public advocate so to me it it still you know doesn't satisfy you know what I'm asking through this di again I'm asking the same thing that my Council colle on the other end said I would say that let's table this for two weeks you drop the public ordinance and we all support that thank you council president thank you Council I'd like to make a comment there this was originally introduced July 24th requested to be tabled allow for comments to happen four months later no comments nothing brought up no followup on my end we talk about the master plan yes ideally would like to have the master plan have been uh finalized and adopted by the planning board earlier in context would love that to be the case but that has not occurred yet I do not know when that's going to happen to me this is not an item that is directly under the jurisdiction of the the master plan zoning rezoning of areas I can find underneath the as underneath the purview of the master plan setting guidelines as to um the direction of the township But ultimately even if it's under the master plan it is this body that enacts legislation so even on the reexamination report from 2021 2011 and in the 2003 it says recommend changing the zoning to uh not allow for um not non-conforming but uh of course the term is escaping me but even if there are items that are recommended in the master plan it's not even guarantee that they will be acted on I think that this is a good step in the right direction questions of has research been done I mean I'm sure Mr Ron can back me up in that I've probably taught his ear off on this numer for numerous times I've spoken with uh Mr mcnell at length on this issue and even the basis for these defin conditions were from Howell whose uh plan planning attorney is M Mr cerero cerero who is our current planning board's attorney so I don't think that we are overstepping the boundaries of the master plan personally I think that this is a step in the right direction I hope to have my uh Council colleagues support in that but I leave that to their discretion thank you any other final comments in regards seeing none Madam clerk roll call please council member brusher no council member Co no council member Harris yes council member Patel yes council member ptil no council president pointer yes therefore it is not introduced wance 21 96 Madam clerk please read ordinance in ordinance of the township of Edison the county of middle sex New Jersey cancelling 1, 94574 71 cents in bonds authorizing indor bonds anticipated notes proceeds not needed for the original purposes and to transfer $671,000 77 in bond or Bond anticipation notes proceeds to Capital fund balance at this time I'm trying to motion on the ordinance I move this ordinance to be passed on first reading publish according to law for further consideration and public hearing set down for November 29th 2023 second motion by councilman Patel second by Council vice president Harris any Council comments quick question councilman Brer the six and and I'm going to go back and use my Council colleague I'm not sure who said it but somebody said it um when we talked about bonding I think at our last meeting um it's kind of like a credit card right and my take on this and and tell me if I have it wrong was we had let's say $50 million in bonds um out of the $50 million in bonds we did not use 1,945 th000 in change worth of money so we're going to cancel out that balance of the bonds but in the bonds and and I'm going to just make up some numbers now um let's say that we had the tote Center for $5 million right and we bonded for $5 million but then the project only cost us $4,800 00,000 that 200,000 that's left over we already borrowed that money and that would represent this 671 327 so where I'm going with this is is this similar to me telling my wife I want to go buy a car and she goes we don't have any money but use a credit card and I take $20,000 Cash Advance on the credit C and then I go buy the car for $18,000 and I got 2,000 left and I take that money and I go to Atlantic City and spend it or are we going to take this money here and use it to pay off the credit card this 671000 like what are we doing with with those funds is that going to pay off debt no well it goes into your capital account and then you'll use it for capital projects so it it will go in it right that's that's what happens the the money that you borrowed will go into your capital cancel goes into your capital account and you'll use it as down payment or whatever it is for your you can't spend it directly against Capital Surplus right yeah you need a capital ordinance but but I'm saying so we we Bor the money we bonded the money this is extra money right on the credit card but we're not using it to pay off the credit card debt we're repurposing it for other things correct well my understanding is that there's I'm G start with the third option because I'm not sure on this but if it goes into the capital account it could just remain there right just in in general my understanding is that if it has if it's going to be used for another Capital Improvement project whatever those funds would be allocated towards would still have to come to this body you have to do Capital ordinance for for approval right so if uh you know you still wanted to go to AC with that extra 2,000 it would have to come before I just right my question is why wouldn't we just use it to pay towards our debt and then if they want to go to Atlantic City right they could come to this body and say let's go to that was going to be the the third item so the first one is it can go into the capital account nothing happens second is that it gets repurposed for another capital expenditure whatever that may be I don't want to picate on that that's the second option the third option to my understanding is that it can be at next year's budget and presumably consequent after afterwards uh be transferred terminology might be off but essentially as Revenue to the township which in theory could be used to pay off debt that we have right let me tell you where my concern is is that it goes into the budget and and it helps reduce um the debt our debt um oh we're going to use it to reduce our debt correct that's what it would go for funded it would count against would go against our debt so we're going to we're going to take that and make a payment somewhere against our debt right against our debt right we're not going to use it my concern was that that we take it it goes into some fund and then when we do our our budget next year right our taxes you know will be reduced by this amount but we reduce the taxes by borrowing money like inherently I have a problem with that so if we're just going to take this and use this money to pay off debt we can't right correct we can't use we can't use Capital Surplus to spend okay so we're going to we're going to use the pay off debt correct I'm good right and you have and by the way you you'd have to you have to do this no matter what because you have to cancel these because you don't need them no no can the cancelling I have no issue with I'm good with cancelling got any other questions or that would be a coun so you're cutting up your wife's credit card here C I'm getting the I'm to get rid of the crit analogy yeah so the analogy still works yes any other councilman P yeah Council per when we are seeing cancelling the bond for $1.95 million but when we approved the bond we already consider some projects under that head for that $ 1.9 billion $1.9 million now we are saying we are canceling means we are canceling some project here no it might be it might be no you're not canceling you just you you you bonded but you didn't need the money the projects came in under that's correct but the reason we bonded because we needed for something yeah but what I'm saying is that th those something cost less so you're bonded what I'll say is that some of the bonds are inclusive of this go back to 2003 2005 2008 I I understand the point that you're making um most of the bonds though if I recall correctly are very dated so I don't even I I I don't know if they would actually be able to follow through correct okay let let me ask the question other way around this 1.9 million Bond where it is coming from what year is this this body approved in 2022 or 2023 if you look at the if you look at the bond ordinance there is the is the bond numbers on the front so for instance that $1.9 million the first the first one is the Amboy Avenue revitalization project that was a do that was done in 2001 and you there's a there's 9,747 that just wasn't used either the project wasn't done or they didn't need the money to finish the project the next one is the emboy Avenue revitalization project 2003 um once again $339,000 that wasn't funded in other words you didn't borrow the money and you're just cancelling that that Bond uh 2005 Capital Improvements you're you're I'm just reading through the list I mean I can read them all for you if you want no but my understanding was all these the old bonds they were Consolidated and with the lower interest rate so during the consolidation this everything the older business should have been moved under one Bond so I don't know this 1.9 yes we did not spend out of that allocated bucket but that should have been part of say you know 5 million bond that was issued in 200 say1 but we did for you know literally took all those old bonds and Consolidated that two years ago with a lower interest rate no except except these These are authorizations we never did the we never issued the bonds so so you so the council will authorize $109,000 in 2001 but they never borrowed the money they never so when you Consolidated all it when what you did is you took all of your short-term financing and Consolidated into one bond issue that's not these e because these were right am I correct um so so the Amboy the Amboy one from 2001 you never borrowed that money all you have all you're doing is technically cancelling an ordinance okay correct so if there's so we can all look at the same thing so in the attachments there's a spreadsheet um that Finance prepared and there's a category for funded and unfunded so what U Mr Reon is referring to is the unfunded category here um for example the Amboy Avenue revitalization and happened it looked like it happened in two phases and then if you move down there's I mean I could just pick out like section section 20 costs those are administrative costs those things there were all accounted for so so um some of the other ones let let me ask a direct question is this 1.9 cancellation would decrease the debt by $ 1.9 million no decreases it that's decreases your debt yes correct yes okay and we're good thank you any other comments there was a motion there was a second any comments seeing none Madam clerk roll call please council member brusher uh yes council member Coy yes council member Harris yes council member Patel yes council member PTI yes Council pron pointer yes and then uh 2197 was uh pulled earlier this evening 27 public comment on the resolutions only ccil president before you go to the comment do you want to tell which resolutions are pulled or well that would be n so so you'll take the comments on that as well I understand what you're saying but that would from a procedural standpoint yeah sorry about that Mr Tower uh before starting just because we are nearing the 11 o'clock hour I'm going to ask for us to if we can get a motion to extend the meeting half hour 11:30 half hour 11:30 so can I get a motion to extend the meeting uh one half hour to [Music] 11:30 let's do midnight just midnight all right so can I get a motion to extend the meeting till midnight 12 o'clock motion to extend meeting to midnight seconded motion by Council vice president Harris second by councilman ptil all in favor I I the uh motion passes the meeting will be extended till 12 :00 p.m. thank you apologies Mr Char Don tar 52 Rita RH Edison I'd like to address R 628 and R 629 like many um I have really serious concerns about what's occurring at the animal shelter going back to July uh the report was issued and I have concerns initially about how the report was issued because much of it was redacted that's something that the committee can look into by themselves I would wonder why so much of it was redacted when it should have been public but beyond that the little souls in those cages they have no control over their food they have no control over their water they have no control over the treatment they receive and most importantly they have no control over the individuals who are there to care for them I listened carefully to the recommendations being made by the gentleman from mmth County just as a point of order this is in regards to the resolutions I understand the connectivity between it but this is for comments on the resolutions only so okay well let me ask some questions of the council the council has established a committee to deal with this problem this this situation does the council committee and the council have the authority to make recommendations to change the animal hospital to amarate the problems as a point of order again and please stop the gentleman's time this is not pertaining to the resolution okay 628 629 do those figures accomplish remediation of the issues that we find at the animal shelter today I I before any other question I don't want to take away your time and no possibly depending upon your answer I I would say no since we don't have all the information yet this is being done as an emergency it might be just spent and it doesn't help we don't know yet so the the committee doesn't have the authority to recommend expenditures to amarate those problems I would respectfully disagree I think some of particularly for 629 in regards to the outdoor kennel fencing uh that add that helps in addressing overcrowding aspect in regards to the animal shelter so I think that it does help okay let me ask just one procedural question absent the ability for the public to come to this committee and express its outrage at the treatment of those animals since I'm being gaveled down where can we go to make ourselves known where can we go to express that this is a disgusting treatment for those poor souls in those cages because I'm not being allowed to address that issue this evening where can I go to address that issue in this Township there are there are still oral petitions and remarks which is still at the end this is pertaining strictly to the resolutions okay well I'll be back thank you any any other yes uh Nick Fagan 42 Edgewood Road thank you um council president um I rise today as a a proud coach in the um North Edison Baseball Association um we just had an 8U season for fall and and it was great and I Rise to talk to you about resolution 647 for the recreation for the Youth um and I I think it's an awesome thing that the town expends a quarter Mill approximately a quarter million on Youth Sports in the town it's it's it's a fantastic thing for for um for Town and for our kids the question I have is in the actual resolution it lists all of the organizations and I saw one of the organizations um and I had some questions about it and I was hoping maybe somebody could clarify for me um it's called the North Edison Athletic Association and they're sated to get 9700 bucks 9720 I look them up and it looks like like they were Loosely related maybe to the Shamrock organization but if I go to the Shamrock's website they're defunct it or it doesn't come up anymore so can somebody tell me who the North Edison Athletic Association is or what sport that it does I I council president I I believe you're right I believe it used to be the Shamrock yeah is now changed but the last I heard which was a couple years years ago was that it it did exist in some form just not a whole league um and and that's where earlier when we were speaking with the uh business administrator about re-evaluating every two years um and that was the purpose of doing it because we had the angels that was receiving money for like seven or eight years and they were basically defunct um so I'm sure they're going to be looking into that to make you know reestablish the numbers thank you through the chair to councilman Brasher thank you for that clarification I I do appreciate that uh because I I don't know I think that might be the Shamrocks they may still maintain a field or two in town but I'm not sure about that so I I also reflected on what councilman brusher said earlier about we should probably know more about the formula and the algorithm and how this money is doled out because it is important that it's based on field maintenance and number of kids enrolling and not just Connections in town and pre what previously was done last year just because we're just rolling it um so what I would ask for you to do is I'd ask for you to table this one until we can find out is the formula being done and and you know as long as the formula has been done and it's been fair and it's been assigned in the fair way and we know that all these organizations are still live that's what I would say and I think that that should take another week to take or another meeting to take that up so I would ask for you to do that thank you Council presid thank you yes councilman P this was one of the resolution in fact you know you councilman Brer explained the formula but to the greater extent when I look at some of the leaks they're underpaid and I think we need to revisit that and I'll been support of tbling this thank you thank you anyone else for yes Mr s Walt stoal 2118 Oak Tree Road I support the safe routs to schools this is a uh a good grant program that the state runs uh but we have never I don't think we ever got one of these I know we have applied in the past um If U Mr councilman Nish Patel could get us the open space committee a copy of the application and how much it's for we we'd appreciate that on 657 the uh landfill I've been coming to these meetings for many years and the Landfill closed like around 1995 and every two or three years we're hiring Engineers to do a closure plan for the landfill it's not a closure fund for a landfill the landfill that we have it's a fund to pay Engineers you know we've done this since 1995 and the landfill hasn't been closed so hopefully now within the next two years we'll have something done here or we're just going to hire another engineer to do the same thing uh with regard to the the leagues that you just talked about um is are the leaves required to file with the town their 990 IRS income tax form their their nonprofit income tax form so that way you would prove that they have they're still still active and that they've been filing in their for their nonprofit status and that that's all I have to say on that hard to file forms they're Financial forms yeah they they send this financial forms certain organizations like the um the soccer league um is done like by professional accountants when you get to the smaller leagues it's kind of like me sitting at my kitchen table and I pull out my bank statements so they give us their bank statements with with it that um that show everything that they expend their money on um but I I don't think there's like a nonprofit form that I've seen I don't know how that works with the youth leagues and as far as um where you said about the engineer that's where we were going right I think we're looking to close the um get it closed and not just look at it anymore thank you thank you any other comments anyone else yes good evening Joel bass off 17 Beach Lane I have a question about resolution 659 uh Glendale Avenue area in need of Redevelopment it it's just mystifying um what this is all about that um you've got a property for which uh for for two years it looked like the the township had an offer to purchase the property for open space and now for uh reason that um the public can't fathom uh there's this um request to the planning board to uh research whether it should be an area in need of Redevelopment uh I don't even see how it would comply with any of the um criteria in the local Redevelopment and Housing law in section five it gives uh uh number of criteria and it doesn't look like the property uh would meet any of those criteria for redevelopment vment and of course if it was designated in an area of Redevelopment it would take it out of the zoning code uh possibly out of the master plan and the neighbors wouldn't have to receive any notice as to what the plans for the property would be so uh can we get an explanation as to why this is even on the agenda because the well first this is only a study right so this is not us making a judgment at this point in time as to whether or not it does or does not we're asking the planning board to do a study that's the first thing um and obviously the purpose of it is to give us amongst other powers the power to uh condemn the property if it's if uh in fact a voluntary real estate transaction doesn't take place so it's just a matter of us trying to uh you've said it's been hanging around for two years I think the administration and the council agrees and this is just us trying to get to move the process forward the rest of your characterization of what the Redevelopment process is is just fundamentally wrong so I'm not going to really argue with you about it but this actually gives Council more control over how the zoning process works uh as opposed to less control um and but it's the first step in the process so we'll see what the planning board has to say they're going to have to conduct a study they're going to have to make a determination if they come back and tell us that it doesn't qualify then it doesn't qualify if they tell us it does and won't move forward okay because my understanding is that um the the owner of the property had an application pend before the planning board to develop the property and I just don't understand if if there's a development application of someone invested in the property how it then becomes an area in need of I'm not saying it's right or wrong I I only have to midnight so I I can't do a you know a 12-week uh course on how Redevelopment law works but the answer is is that there's no reason in the world we can't declare it an area and a need Redevelopment it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not somebody has an application before the planning board okay well maybe members of the council can get some uh more clarifying answers about it they have okay thanks thank you any other comments on the resolutions only I'm listening to him this is this is the first exposure I had to that's first I have to I have to ask name and address just for a record if you don't feel comfortable 114 Dorothy thank you um the issue was raised about the elect planning board having to conduct a study and the and that the township Council will receive that study and then like mull it over I was wondering what are the Criterion what what are the criteria that a planning board uses to conduct a study program are those criteria based on the authorization of the elect planning board itself or does the elect Township actual Council Define the criteria to guide and a direct uh the light planning board in its study what exactly it's actually neither of those is a state law it's a state law that defines what the planning board how the P planning board conducts the study and what the criteria is that they use oh in the state law will list those it does ma'am yes it does okay thank you thank you sorry I didn't mean to jump you there any any other speakers for the resolutions yes sum alone Barber 85 Pleasant Avenue thank you um so I just have a question just I guess in terms of um playing out uh resolution 659 if after the study it is declared um an area in need of revitalization and the town doesn't own it doesn't that open the door for any kind of of Redevelopment that the property owner might want to do no not necessarily why doesn't it it well it doesn't because they there's all all the study does is and all we would do is determine it's an area in a need of Redevelopment we would still have to I should when I say we I apologize the council would still have to adopt a Redevelopment plan so that they control it completely and this authorization would give the township the ability to condemn the property so they don't have they don't have a right to just go and redevelop it we still have a right to adopt a Redevelopment Plan before elaborating on that any other questions because the response may be a little long um well I mean it takes time to do a Redevelopment plan couldn't the developer just withdraw their current application and put in another one for undesirable development there no no just a short ANW is no guaranteed they can't do that well we have to adopt a Redevelopment plan the answer is no they can't develop it until there's a Redevelopment plan there's two different items uh one is the current property owner if they have an application are they allowed to proceed regardless my understanding is that they could in regards to the Redevelopment plan if it gets to that point wait wait wait wait they have an application pending right with the planning board now currently whether it was fully withdrawn or I they they may but that has nothing to do with what we're doing here that's all I'm trying to say so I I don't I don't I answer your you asked me a question I gave you an answer I don't I can't okay go ahead John so from the Redevelopment guidelines so to say the council would request a study to be performed by the planning board so that's what this resolution in and of itself is that would go to the planning board the planning board would uh perform their study they would use I think it's a through H I think there's yeah approximately eight or nine criteria that um quantifies whether it meets the code or an area need of Redevelopment Rehabilitation is different doesn't look like any of them apply but the study will show that or not okay I'll respectfully disagree on that but it's once the study occurs it would come back to the council regardless of what the well if the findings are that the planning board doesn't think it meets any of those needs I'm guessing it doesn't move forward if it finds that it meets any of those needs it would come back to the council in the sense that we would request a Redevelopment plan be created now whether that's through our body in itself as the redeveloping entity or requesting the planning board to make that to do that plan that would be at that time but historically it's generally gone back to the planning board to devise a plan they would go through their deliberations that plan would then come back to the council for adoption we can either accept it amend it or deny it if it gets to the Redevelopment plan authorizing the Redevelopment plan then it would go to establishing a redeveloper for the uh project in Normal circumstances uh with condemnation I would have to confirm but would the redeveloper come before condemnation or it that ultimately those will be Council decisions as to whether or not the condemnation comes before the designation of a redeveloper um in some places they do that first and then they designate somebody who will then buy the property from the from the township so those two would be interchangeable but that would be the final step in regards to yeah and this is only the first step in that process so when we condemned and declared um in need of R revitalization Thomas Street remember Thomas just for clarification that wasn't through condemnation it was an area in need of revitalization yes but just a difference yes because there's no authority of eminent domain with a general area in need of Redevelopment this is is slightly different because of that because of eminent domain yeah that police power for a lack of better words speaker has one minute okay thank you council president thank you yes Council BR if I'm gonna ask you a quick question might help with with their question um with what we're doing here tonight um as a possibility right the property could be condemned right or or through like emminent domain or condemnation and then the township could take possession and then the township could develop that area that's a possibility with what we're doing today absolutely they absolutely could and and you know the next step to that is it could the uses for it you know are varied including public uses it could be public uses absolutely be public us that would be come back to this body and the council would make all of those decisions correct okay thank you thank you um we already I'm I'm sorry from Robert's rle I'm sorry no I'm I'm sorry from and I I understand I I haven't seen you here before so you may not be familiar with the uh the um rules that are in our ordinance right but you ra ma'am unfortunately I cannot allow for second time speakers on that I understand I'm not trying to be rude but I have to be fair amongst everyone here in regards to decorum rules and process even if a new Point had been raised correct yes but you come back I mean from ten technicality there's there's still oral there's still oral petitions and remarks I just want to be clear on that so one more time yeah yes hi good evening rostan 960 n over Road Edison thank you um this is in reference to uh 2195 uh the zoning ordinances that you guys voted no on so this is in regards to the resolutions the this this a resolution that you voted no on is that no am I allowed to speak on no that's just on resolutions oh I apologize would be on 613 I'll be back thank you any other uh speakers in regards to the resolutions Only See n a motion to close the public portion on the resolutions motion to close public portion uh there's a motion by Council vice president Harris second by councilman Patel all in favor I the uh public comment on the resolutions is now closed uh any resolutions to pull for a separate vote I'll start from my right councilman brusher um none at this time councilman brusher 20 620 621 oh uh yes uh six what I yes the number what were those numers 20 and 211 620 and 621 yes that's correct thank you uh councilman coil none sir thank you Council vice president Harris none sir councilman pel the 647 and 647 yeah 647 I think that's good 64 647 Council you I heard that 647 620 and 621 so we're good right so the items for separate he was agree he was agre so the resolutions for separate vote will be 620 621 647 consent agenda then will be 613 through 619 622 through 646 and 648 through 660 at this time tr get a motion on the consent agenda motion go Motion to approve the conscent agenda second motion by councilman fatil second by Council vice president Harris counc and yes madame CL roll call please council member brusher yes council member Cole yes council member Harris yes council member Patel yes council member ble yes council president pointer yes council president would this be the time to request a table maybe these three items if you want to group them together and and make that as a motion F okay I motion to table 620 621 and 647 second so motion by councilman patil second by Council vice president Harris this is to table 620 621 and 647 corre correct okay so motion second uh Madame clerk roll call please council member brusher yes council member coil yes council member Harris yes council member Patel yes council member ptil yes Council pres pointer yes at this time we'll move to sorry so B agenda so going through all these so we already went to close session at this time we'll open up for oral petitions and remarks start from the list Mr St Walt stoal 2118 Oak Tree Road thank you uh the co 19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on children's education for almost two years of lockdowns remote classes have led students to be to falling behind and falling out educational institutions are working on ways to help the coid generation catch up some have gotten coid relief funds to do so here in Edison middle sex college and middle sex county has decided that without any public hearings that their priority is to build a $33 million sports bar at a $75 million Stadium at the corner of Woodbridge Avenue at mil Road they're not adding classrooms Tutors or professors they're not adding any additional facilities in the city of New Brunswick or Perth Amboy or no new facilities in the southern part of the county where where it is closer to go to Mercer or Brookdale colleges their priority is a sports bar they're calling a student center and a stadium they're calling a multi-purpose Community venue on November 1st 20122 the county announced that it' finalize the CIO plan that was Data driven and sets forth what they had planned for eight months I've been trying to get a copy of the county CIO plan hoping to find out the details I did two open requests to the college which resulted in them telling me there was no such doc no no such information on the plan I I did a third request after I found a copy of the cover of the plan only and only then did the college send me a 43 page glossy executive summary with stock photos renderings limited text misinformation and error but it gives you an idea what they want to do I've made a copy of this for the council and also two Grant application for narratives that the C colleges sent to the count sent to the St for funding which is more information on the CIO plan than is on the County website the documents say they'll divide 32 Acres off the campus to build a 5,000 seat Stadium on Woodbridge Avenue in Mill Road across from the residential neighborhoods at Candy Court they looked at a site in the back of the campus and a site on the EPA property next door but they said this site was picked because it's more most visible and more financially viable the application says the the college is applying for funding for the stadium but the county would maintain it and would have the potential to generate revenue for the county and the college so this is all about money they will use that Stadium every hour they can to make money the sports bar which they call a student center the application says it will benefit the selected location is proximately is the proximity to the stadium it will also support food and beverage Services when the events are being held nearby the document also shows six residential buildings of unknown size and number of units yet with all these additions to the campus they say they're only adding 248 parking spaces and two entran and the two entrances and three exits to the campus Remain the document also shows connection to the County's proposed destination athletic complex at Edison Park on page 22 it says ideally the rail line which is infrequently used should should be abandoned to provide contiguous connections and opportunities to op optimize land used by the railroad doing so would eliminate rail service to hel Park increasing truck traffic on our road the destination Athletic Complex also needs approval by the National Park Service which holds a deed restriction on the park in September the county sent two documents to the park service for their review the county still needs to do an environmental assessment have a public hearing and public comment period to get The NPS approval I have copies of those documents for the council if the county decides to abgate the deed restrictions they would have to do an appraisal pay the federal government fair market value for the park the park is a 180 Acres land in Edison goes for 500,000 Acres so the cost will be 90 million if this was a pro private project it would be reviewed by the township planner and planning board and I see no problem with the council asking our Township planner to review the CIO plan and letting the council and the township know how it complies to our zoning and planning our zoning and and planning ordinances uh now I'd like to take your time to say um last month I saw the obituary for Adell seos our former Township Clark and it's sad to she that she had passed away what a nice lady she was as as Township Clerk I can still see her sit over there uh in the 1990s and reading the agenda and back then she had to read by title all the um resolutions so the meetings we're here till one minute we're here till almost midnight we were here a long time just hearing all the titles of the uh the resolution she was a fine lady and a very good clerk for this town and I know her family will miss her thank you thank you um Mr bassoff Joel bass off 17 Beach Lane thank you um I'll address the ordinance that that was tabled um 2195 on definitions for warehouses and and other facilities uh it is a step in the right direction absolutely and there are few things that can be done to improve it and since it's been tabled uh you'll have an opportunity to make those changes uh you can amend it um probably first and foremost is that um in the definition for warehouse where you added the language Warehouse shall not include fulfillment centers uh you should probably also include that it shall not include distribution centers since distribution centers is have also been defined separately then there are a couple of items that that are uh really the wording is Superfluous and it could create a loophole with unintended consequences uh so we should all be clear that if any uses for these facilities uh become prohibited under the this revised ordinance uh any existing use can continue as a pre-existing non-conforming use uh this ordinance would not stop any existing facilities from doing what they're already doing it it it doesn't change the existing regulatory regime for for existing facilities and I'm sure if I'm wrong Mr rayon will will jump in and correct me but what this would do is prohibit a non-conforming use from expanding uh but the problem is that there's language in here that says for example uh for the restricted industrial district paragraph there's a new paragraph K that says any property development use or site development standard made non-conforming by this ordinance shall be considered conforming and shall be subjected to zoning requirements applicable prior to the adoption of the 1999 code the problem is I think if if you declare in in this amendment if you declare those uses to be conforming uh conforming use could be expanded and the owner wouldn't even have to go before the zoning board to to get a variance for that uh the the owner might just be able to get a building permit no one would get any notice that there's an expansion of what's now what should be a non-conforming use and it's a huge hole in in this ordinance and it could negate everything that this ordinance would accomplish um then for the um light industrial district uh you added it says in paragraph d warehous as a permitted use uh warehousing distribution facilities excluding fulfillment centers which is good uh you might also want to exclude distribution centers from that District because of the additional traffic that it generates and also for the restricted industrial um district there you do exclude both distribution and fulfillment centers so you probably want those to be consistent so I applaud the council for attempting to introduce the these changes that are beneficial and with a little more work you can perfect it and along those lines uh this ordinance is intended to prevent unwanted activ AC ity taking place in the wrong places where it could affect residential areas that of course is what the public Advocate ordinance is intended to do so these could work in consonant with each other uh it do would give a public Advocate an additional tool to argue against uh commercial development that could be detrimental to residential areas and just as this ordinance uh needs a little tweaking to perfect it if anyone on the council has any ideas as to how a public Advocate ordinance could be improved it's just a matter of reaching out to members of the committee because everyone is is open to hearing ideas as to how it could be improved ideally we'd have something that would have a consensus of the entire Council and if everyone is on board with the concept of a public Advocate you'll notice nobody from the public has spoken against it that there is a broad consensus in the public that it would be helpful especially for people that have had to go around and raise in their neighborhoods 101,000 or so within their neighborhoods to to fight these unwanted projects uh since there's a broad consensus that we should have it let's continue to have the conversation as to how it could be perfected we're available thank you thank you not I don't think there was a direct question no um Miss Barber thank you mrar try again Donar 52 reader thank you again thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you my feelings about the animal shelter again we had that notorious letter dating back to July much of it was redacted I have serious concerns about why major portions of it was were redacted I don't think there was anything specific there that applied to any specific person that would require a Personnel issue to have those pages redacted obviously there was a reason someone did that again the little souls in those cages they have no control over their food they have no control over their water they have no control over the medical benefits they receive or the medical benefits that are denied them essentially they have no control over whether they live or die that decision is made by other people now we had a gentleman come here and I appreciate the fact that he's a volunteer and he made recommendations to you and will be making recommendations to you I have serious concern about the rather cold and dispassionate way in which he addressed some of those concerns rhetorical question how in God's name can suspending the volunteer program address the issue of overcrowding that already exists in the animal shelter that report went to Great Lengths to sell how that there were just not enough staff members there to care for those animals and yet they're making a recommendation to eliminate the volunteer program temporarily this doesn't help that situation one iota they also spoke about the chain of command like we're in the military I was in the military AR I understand the chain of command I also understand you have to have faith in your commander he expressly said that those volunteers their opinions don't count they're irrelevant they don't matter that's baloney anybody that's ever served in the military knows if you lose faith in your commander if you lose faith in the person leading your mission then that mission will fa fail it's not just a question about whether these people working in the shelter have faith it's also a question about whether we the people of Edison have faith in what's occurring there we are the fifth largest community in the state to have those conditions existing here deplorable deplorable I read that unredacted report and I was totally disgusted by what I read there so we have a committee now I'm certainly hoping this committee has some Authority I'm hoping it has the authority to make powerful recommendations to change those deplorable conditions I'm hoping this committee has the authority to expedite additional funds to do what's necessary there I'm hoping this committee has the courage to take on those who would oppose that to some they're just pets to some they're just animals he addressed them as animals to some like me they're members of your family yes this is an issue that I feel very strongly about I will continue to feel strongly about it and I will will continue to come to these meetings and address this issue when I'm permitted you have the power to make some change please do it thank you any respon questions well I I yes but I I will I'm gonna get just off topic for one second I I would just like to thank you cuz I thought that I was crazy when he said we're going to get rid of the volunteers and we're short staffed made absolutely no sense so so thank you for acknowledging that that I'm not crazy at least on that aspect um on the rest of it we we are going to get to the bottom of it this Council does have um authority to investigate um and I mean the sad part is we use the word Committee of a whole but but this is the type of thing that the committee the whole was intended to be done was for us to investigate like our own Township um the problem that we have is that we we used it for different things so it it doesn't mean as much but the committee we have now is not a committee of a whole but this committee will report back to the rest of the body and I I assume that we'll take proper action thank you thank you m Lois T 52 reader Road Edison thank you what I want to know is if this Council has the ability once the committee the subcommittee has made some recommendations to determine whether this shelter in Edison can be turned into a rescue and shelter in other words a quote unquote non-kill facility that doesn't mean that no animals are euthanized when they're ill or when they're incapacitated but because a poor animal has only three legs or is blind or has a disability that makes him hard to be adopted he doesn't on a uh death row weight list of time so I would suggest that the committee the subcommittee look into that as a possibility and also is the person who was in charge of the animal shelter when all of this took place are they still employed by the town yes the person who was in charge of your ghost no longer with the township so that wasn't the question that wasn't the question the question is is the person who was in charge during this when this July report came out still employed by the town the the shelter manager yes that person is still employed well let me suggest that you look into the employment of that person and question whether they're capable I understand I don't know I was there was a question whether they were certificated or not is that person certificated that person does hold an ACO certificate and is working on continuing that so I can't discuss additional Personnel matters no no I know you can't as a union representative I know that for a long time but um just I hope this subcommittee comes up with some real Pro real problem solving solutions to this because it is a deplorable situation and someone who loves animals and by the way that person was so cold I'm considering my donations to the asbca That Pays His Salary thank you thank you um just as a point of clarification the determining of rescue versus a shelter where would that actually fall under I I honestly I'd have to take a look at it because I need to understand clearly what it is just so we we understand that the difference between the two is radically different in terms of what the physical plant is so if I I I imagine it's something the administration and the council would have to agree on a direction and move forward in the same direction during uh the discussions with the subcommittee maybe look into that thank you um anyone yes ma'am sorry I know the actual protocol it's it's all right this is the first Township council meeting that I I've I've come to okay Gaya boo 114 Dorothy Avenue thank you very much um I have three issues that I want to raise the one that I really came here for which is Paramount to me there is um a uh zoning board meeting which is scheduled for November 21st about the electivity lane um application for expansion of the CNA a global Warehouse on I I felt like I hadn't to bring this before the elect Township Council and this was the first opportunity but to schedule something that I am aware that there is a vast amount of like public opposition concerning this and to schedule it two days before Thanksgiving it seems to be a very inappropriate act because a lot of people will will be preparing for the holidays I don't know what the procedure is to make an official request for a postponement of that very very vital very very crucial meeting to occur after the holiday season where everybody is not involved pre- Thanksgiving and pre Hanukkah pre- like Christmas do I bring this to like your attention I'm assuming that I wouldn't ask it of the like zoning board you have the ultimate authority to to like uh consider an ex an extension and to thereby Grant it that is the first and most crucial thing that I'm here for and before I go any further can I ask just just from a procedural standpoint because our responses count against your time and we absolutely address that but if you don't mind going to your other questions just to make sure that we don't cut off your time okay just don't uh forget that because written down for you that's crucial as far as the animal shelter if it weren't inappropriate for me to approach you're like di I would walk over and shake the hand of Vice President Harris there because she deserves all of the Kudos that this world can possibly offer and she deserves it not because of the kindness of her soul to be concerned about this and not only because of the intellectualism uh underpinning the questions that she had posed but also because she raises a very very important point and that is expert testimony versus non-expert testimony we heard that she was sort of put down by virtue of putting a lot of credence into the testimony that she presented of a like volunteer which is considered non Elite and not expert testimony now uh the other gentleman had raised that as a very very very important point that point is very important not only because if we consider every actual whistleblower who ever brought to the public attention any matters of like crucial interest that came from uh non appointed expert or like non- Elite it also involves the upcoming consideration of the elect public Advocate uh which I'm not here to like address I realize it will be like coming up however to be kept in mind that the like public Advocate is the route by which the like general public can achieve uh the expert testimony necessary to bring before the Superior Court in the event that an action in lie of prerogative rits is ever brought and uh on that basis just keep in mind that uh without expert actual testimony in opposition to uh a well-healed um uh applicant who has experts and testimony to end up bringing the public Advocate is the only foil who can like counter that with their own expert and like councilwoman Harris made a very very important point that she did not actually discount any testimony of a person who brought in information to her attention so uh just keep that in mind my third Point uh I wasn't aware of the uh condemnation aspect of um an agenda which has to go before the like planning board study group I was wondering what the like differences between the like condemnation of a property should that that come to that point a ver is eminent domain this is my third point because eminent domain as far as I understand it is that uh a like public entity uh condemns something for a like public purpose and if there isn't any public purpose on the agenda with an existing plan but a property is condemned and then it is sold there is a capital gain to be like real ized and under constitutional law under the like uh Fifth Amendment and the like 10th Amendment when you take any property which is like private and you condemn it you condemn it for a like public purpose and it's turned over for that now the revenue of the federal government and the state government uh does not consider the concept of a capital gain as an appropriate source of like Revenue but if a property is condemned and any plans before the like planning board which are not approved uhen uh I apologize if you get the like capital gain of something yes ma'am I I apologize I know you're F your first time here I should have explained before so I I do apologize um comment is six minute limited that's why you just heard the the beep so technically that would be the end of the comment unless you had a rebuttal I apologize I did not explain that beforehand can I finish in like 30 seconds I I I really can't because how I treat one I have to treat to everyone right so if I've EST I've already established guidelines and I I understand it's your first time here um yeah the guidelines throughout this year I've been consistent on okay and it's technically uh decorum in the First Amendment thing I can't show preferential treatment one over the other so apologize rebutt before I'll let me close the first time speaker aspect I'll explain what a rebuttal is if there's a proper rebuttal I'll allow for it um can I rebut the fact that it's an important point to raise no I don't and that that supersedes I can't I can't keep on having the back and forth can't do that huh I I politely request you to please sit down I will address the other question councilwoman Harris who knows to you um to the first question of well to our counselor condemnation versus eminent domain is there any difference between the two so actually if you don't mind I'm going to actually answer the first question no we do not have the final say as to whether a zoning board hears an application or does doesn't hear an application if you want it put off you need to go to the zoning board we have no control over whether the zoning board hears an application or not and there are state laws as to what the time limit is as to when they hear the applications we don't set those so that's the first thing the second thing is that there is people use condemnation and eminent domain interchangeably in New Jersey the law the New Jersey statutes also do condemnation and eminent domain are exactly the same thing in this context so there's no difference between the two and in the Redevelopment context the public purpose is the Redevelopment of the property so that's what the public purp so if you're wondering what the public purpose is that's what the public purpose is it's the Redevelopment of the property the the you know in the old vernacular it would be the curing of the blight but it would be the uh remediation of whatever the the the conditions are that led to the Redevelopment so that's that's the public person I think those are the questions that I yes Co um and just to elaborate on the Zoning Board hearing the first hearing was on I believe it was August of this year uh it did not finish the the hearing itself did not finish at that time I'm just looking at the minutes here it says an extension of time was certified through the end of November so it was at that point that they had set the next date at um just for reference purposes thank you any other first time speakers Mr fer council president before he comes because it's 1151 we have 9 minutes left and 6 minutes you have to give it to him so so let him go another so we got at least two so can I get a motion to extend the meeting additional 15 minutes to 12:15 is that fair motion to extend a minute uh meeting till 12:15 second motion by councilman ptil second by Council Patel all in favor I I I any opposed so technically one two three one uh so we are extended till 12:15 unless I need to do a roll call for that but sorry um good evening uh council president Nick Fagen 42 to Edgewood Road thank you um congratulations to those members that uh have been reelected um uh congratulations on your re-election uh what are we like eight minutes away from councilman Brasher's birthday can we send some times of my times singing happy birthday to you we'll we'll skip it um uh and then uh council president uh uh more serious note uh condolence on the loss of your family Pat than um uh council members uh you might want to familiarize yourself with page 146 and 147 of the master plan draft where it explicitly talks about the definitions of um fulfillment center warehouse and where it specifically recommends what the uh the um was in the the um the proposed ordinance tonight in terms of defining things where council president might have gotten over his skis is also then redefining specific zones in the same ordinance so maybe if you split those two and just Define the the the terms first like it says in the master plan and then forget about the uh zones for now and then come back with the zones um later you might you might have a different result um and then uh thank you for tbling 647 um to ensure we're not on autopilot in the town and that we're equitably um Distributing those funds I really do appreciate you doing that thank you and then my last thing was uh Mr Renown um uh Mr manello had said last meeting that you would be here so um and we were looking oh I guess he was right yeah he was right the public was hopefully looking for updates on uh the Silver Lake case as well as the Charlie Browns case um I I I assume that that's what your your closed session was for because this what Mr manella said he would give you updates he would give the council updates is there any updates you can give the public on either one um I know that Charlie Browns is in case management and the next case management hearing or meeting or whatever you guys do is not until January um and but that's not a trial correct that is just another meeting with the judge right right okay do you have any idea when the trial will be or how does that process usually work just generally as a lawyer I do not okay okay all right and no other updates on the Silver Lake property are unrelated to the con uh the the matter that we had today the the proposed ordinance um it's supposedly in legal wrangling so I've briefed the Council on wanted in close session that's I really don't much else I can say okay great thank you very much have a good day thank you any other first time yes good evening again Rosell County 960 newa Road Edison thank you uh this is uh a couple of comments on uh the proposed new ordinance 2195 um you guys voted no and uh so it's not going to pass for now but um when I first moved to this town and as I was growing up uh Ron Center was the Industrial Area of Edison Township like everything was in riton center now uh commercial industrial commercial properties are all over the township and it's getting out of control and I I understand you guys are trying to fix it so by not passing that ordinance for tonight it'll give you some uh opportunity to maybe F tune some of the details in that and that uh it really needs to be worked on and thanks for pointing that out uh um councilman quill uh did Margot Harris leave oh she just outside stepped out okay she left uh then I'll I'll start with you uh councilman Brer um I think you owe uh Ross Citra an apology uh he walked out of here wanting to like turn his back on Edison Township and I don't know if you knew it or not but so far he's doing all this work for these recommendations for you guys as a volunteer he's not getting paid he hasn't received one cent of for any of of the work that he's done and he went to there there to make all those recommendations and you're on the council or the committee for the uh for the the animal shelter uh my suggestion to you is that you go work there as a volunteer for a day and the same thing with Margot Harris Joe Coyle the rest of you every one of you sign up for a volunteer day and let me know when you're going because this past summer I teered at the animal shelter many times my wife and I we put in 4our shifts so between the two of us we put in an eight- hour day they're grossly understaffed which was his main suggestion to you guys for you guys to focus and look at they need more Staffing the ratio we talked about the nurses last month the ratio of animals to workers is atrocious in the animal shelter so first thing you need to do is get more paid employees as far as the volunteers being suspended I agree with that that uh they shouldn't be suspended but they needed to be suspended from what I witnessed over the summer the volunteer program was out of control the volunteers that were going there possibly including the young lady that that wrote the letter into to you uh which um took took a lot of your time tonight to go over the the people were not signing in my wife and I signed in signed out every time we were there people were coming and going willy-nilly there was one gentleman that was asked to leave and not to come back that was violating the rules and regulations that were given to my wife and I when we volunteered when we signed up the volunteer we filled out an application and we agreed to the rules and regulations that gentleman just violated the rules and regulations and he was asked to leave so suspending the volunteer program as silly as it may sound was a necessary evil because it was out of control they needed to get a they need to get a handle on it so just that going forward and Margo Harris you you took it upon yourself to bring somebody's letter in and it took more than six minutes for you to read that letter and you know council president pointer you not giving this woman another 30 seconds to finish when it took much longer than six minutes for her to read that letter and then you guys debated it for an hour after that I mean come on you guys need to show a little bit more respect for the people that are kind of trying to come in here and help you help us that's why the Advocate Program is out there again people want to help you help us so any one of you she has my Sonia has my contact information sign up as a volunteer I'll show up with you you tell me when you want to go I'll be there I'm retired I'm available 247 although I am a crossing guard now in Edison so I can't really go up between 800 and 9 and 3: and 4 in the afternoon I can't show up but in the meantime I'll be there so you let me know okay anyone of you is willing to volunteer to spend a day there with me okay I'll be waiting to hear from you thank you council president can your advise on the question was that yeah there was no questions just to ask you yeah see about going there and volunteering and about the vol uner thing um I appreciate the explanation I I personally um don't believe I need to go there and be a volunteer to try and fix it no and I'm going to tell you why I'm going to expl we're not going to have back and forth right I'm going to explain why when this started um we heard rumors of what was going on there from different people at that point my Council colleague went went to the no my Council colleague went went to the animal shelter to go look at it she asked me to go there and to look at it she came back to me and reported that everything looked great okay everything looked great that's the point you need to take what I told her was that myself and her are not experts in this we don't know the right protocols we don't know the right laws we don't know the right rules right but we need to find out what it is and what is happening so then we went and we worked to get the vet report which had information which showed us what was wrong okay and told us what was wrong I did not know that you could not build walls out of wood okay but what happened here was a cover up okay and the gentleman that came here right when you're short staffed it as some as another Resident talked you know if you're going to go into battle right and you're short staffed you'll give a gun to the Cook to help you taking the gun away from the cook when you're in the Foxhole okay does you no good it just makes the problem worse so so I disagree with you and I disagree with him and I believe he should have came to this body it wasn't the administration that had the problem with the animal shelter okay it was this body that had the problem he should have came to this body he didn't come to me okay he went and whether he's a volunteer or not a volunteer is irrelevant to me as far as I'm I'm concerned we should pay him okay we should pay him and as far as being understaffed I think this whole body agrees with it so so I don't think you you have any disagreement there it's the protocol of it but for us to sit here and for us to have all the residents that are here about a public Advocate or anything else to listen about this one item for well over an hour okay and and he wasn't just a very quick speaker he pontificated like I do okay so it it by allowing my Council colleagues to pontificate and him to pontificate and myself which I wanted to go into great detail of it but I didn't because we would be here another hour and a half I could have spoken about this for an hour and a half I've just spoken about it for a couple minutes I can go on and on about all the different things and could have questioned him but a lot of the public didn't want to be here till 1:30 in the morning some of my colleagues here didn't want to extend it the six minutes for you to get the chance to speak so where I'm going not going have back and forth where I go is that right my job is to oversee the spending okay and when something is wrong we are there to do it my job is not to volunteer in DPW or the business administrator's office or the finance office or or the animal shelter okay that's not what my job is here I listen I I appreciate that thank you thank you any other responses back any other firsttime speakers any rebuttal and for clarification a rebuttal three minutes on a topic that you did not initially speak on that you disagreed with the speaker on that makes hope sense uh any rebuttal if if it's a come up you can ask what the question is if excuse me not really sure um I think it's Mr R now and I my like vision went and I can't read anybody's uh when he said that it it's like a it's like customary to consider a condemnation an eminent just because like I I understand the question if it's okay take it offline because that's a continuation of the previous speaking points it would not be a proper rebuttal I I appreciate the understanding but I have to follow the guidelines that have been established so no worries thank you any other firsttime speakers any rebuttal seeing none can I get a motion to close the public portion motion to close the public portion second motion by councilman ptil second by councilman Patel all in favor I I oppos public motion is now closed canate a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion by councilman ptil second by councilman Patel all in favor I I this meeting stands adjourned moot motion to sing Happy Birthday not that oh it is