##VIDEO ID:4FAf4zzuuSY## we're good good evening welcome to the September 3rd 2024 regular meeting of the Emerson governing body this meeting is being videotaped and may be viewed on your local public access Channel either 36 or 77 the meetings are also available Live on YouTube for those of you present in case of a fire follow the fire exit signs above the doors and exit calmly Mr Mr cavali would you please lead us in the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for all I would ask you to remain standing for just a moment uh for Lucy walenta a lifelong resident with deep groups in the community that passed away a couple of weeks ago Gail Kovac feliche a very active Community member with the seniors and Ashley rosuto a former Emerson resident who sadly succumbed to metastatic breast cancer Ashley so bravely and poignantly shared her story of metastic breast cancer with the governing body and the public almost two years ago on October 18th 2022 she has since moved out of town to be closer to the family and sadly she passed away um I also want to remember the six Israeli soldiers um one of my friends um was cousins with ory denino and they had hopes to bring him home so I'd like to remember all of the hostages and really just keep what's going on there in our thoughts and just pray for peace thank you this meeting is called pursuant to the provisions of the open public meetings law and adequately noticed pursuant to njsa 10410 this meeting of September 3rd 2024 was noticed to the record and Ridgewood news on January 4th 2024 published in said newspapers posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building and has remained continuously posted as required under the statute Miss Ryan would you please call the Roll Call of the governing body sure mayor deala present Council arenia here councilwoman rice here councilwoman Maguire present council president simmerman here councilman Gordon here and councilwoman sers here thank you everybody is present very good um so we have a lot of proclamations and citations um we especially remember the victims and heroes of 911 with a proclamation which will be read at the 9111 ceremony at the firehouse which is on Wednesday at is it 6 p.m. at 6 pmm um we also raise awareness for such causes as duan's muscular distrophy Suicide Prevention prostate cancer ovarian cancer and Childhood Cancer as well as recognized Assisted Living week from September 8th to September 14th all proclamations will be posted on the burrow website and on the bulletin board at Burrow Hall there are no appointments this evening minutes for approval the burrow clerk has re has not received any requests to amend the regular meeting or closed session meting minutes of August 13 2024 may I have a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of August 13 2024 some moved second roll call please councilwoman uh arenia yes councilwoman rights yes councilwoman Maguire yes council president simmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman s yes thank you may I have a motion to approve the Clos session meeting minutes of July 23rd which are not for release to the public at this time so moved second and a roll call please councilwoman arenia yes councilwoman rice yes councilwoman Maguire yes council president Timmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman s yes yes okay correspondents all all correspondence is on file in the clerk's office finan Financial business approved cancellation of completed funded Capital Improvement authorizations may have a motion to adopt resolution number 23-24 to approve the cancellation of completed funded Capital Improvement authorizations so second roll call please councilwoman arenia councilwoman rights councilwoman Maguire yes council president simmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman sers abstain is thank you um which brings us to unfinished business um I believe we're going to have a short conversation about the Broadway path um we do have a couple of newer residents that are living up in the neighborhood um that are close to the Broadway path between acur and um the golf course that have small children and as there are no sidewalks at this time um it is difficult for them to Traverse the uh acren in order to get to the park to enjoy it with their children so we've um had some the police do some traffic studies um we've talked to the engineers and one of the best scenarios that we thought that we could come up with was to make the Broadway path a little bit more accessible um for wield um I don't know if they're consider Vehicles yeah wield I don't know what you call them yes exactly what you said said I was going to call them vehicles but I don't really think they're Vehicles transport device transport um so um I think Rob started to look into that with Perry and our engineer um is are there any suggestions that they have come up with so far they basically have said that there's a couple of I they have a couple proposals that they would like to look into but again it's not based off cost uh and see if we there's any way we can get a get look into grants on uh to do some of that stuff so there have been there's been discussion of what type of uh material that would be on the ground whether it be asphalt or stone or uh you know small Stone depending upon what where what they would like to look into uh I'm asking the governing body to allow me to look into the options to see what we could come up with and come up with costs uh to take a look at this to see what the uh the best option would be for that path all right um does anybody have any comments on this I I spoke to Rob about this already I don't know how I feel about putting asphalt up there because then it has to be maintained it may have to be lit um it have to be the snow would have to be cleared the leaves would have to be raked um right now it's in its natural state um but I do understand the needs of our young population that are moving into Emerson and then wanting to get from one place to to another without having to um walk in the street um and I do think that that path is used already and I I do think that there's kind of a um a beaten path so to speak just from the foot traffic but I think that it might need a just a little bit more in order for um carriages bicycles and whatnot to get over that um I had suggested maybe like PE gravel but I don't know how that would work um because it's still porous and we do have water issues up there um anybody have any ideas or recommendations that you want to throw out or should we just let the professionals handle this and um come back to us with some ideas and then we can um knock them around and see if it's something that's both cost efficient and also um helpful to the community yeah I think that's the best option is to have them do the exploration and present it to us consideration anyone else come here have any ideas or anything do we know the distance we have to uh Rob do you know what the distance is no I I know the exact uh distance I can get that for you I can get the numbers for you and get and send that out to you I I think it runs about four blocks from um I think it's Sycamore down to the um basketball courts tman might be walnut walnut Sycamore Oakland all of that is along the Broadway path yeah okay all right so Rob is going to look into that but that we're just going to bat around ideas we're not spending any money just yet no we'd have to talk to just get a scenarios of what the what their C anal we get Perry out there have a measure if um time allows and and uh start with that okay um that brings us to the burrow Hall hours so um we did our summer hours um and I think that they worked out great and um some of the employees would be interested in either keeping them but modifying them so that they're always getting out early on Friday um I also think that there are um some residents that were coming in after 4:30 that it did help as well so I asked Rob to do a uh survey of all our department heads and see how many residents we were able to help after the 4:30 hour during the week um and possibly come up with a different schedule not quite the same one um but a more modified schedule to the usual 8:30 to 4:30 schedule um does anybody have any discussion on that thoughts ideas I guess I'd want to see the ideas that you have and also to see how it did how many residents were benefited from that change in the hours I can tell you that uh the building department uh had said that there is uh they didn't see as much after F anything after five o'cl on the T for Tuesday and that they would recommend potentially more as an early hour for themselves because I think that the uh people who are doing business in construction would rather be there a little earlier so maybe necessar doing instead of having the late hours for uh for building we would do maybe 8:00 straight across for those but again like I said I think before we get into everything on all that I think we should just get the analysis listen to what they have to say and I can come back to you then if you allow me to do that uh how many other communities are doing the hours Beyond summer have we ever in the past we've only looked at summer but how many of the other communities are doing it year round oh no woodliff Lake always has a day on Friday throughout the the whole we did the anal and I believe Mont Vil also has shortened hours throughout the year and probably Hillsdale as well at this point I think we know for a fact actually he'll de it as well there's many in the past Valley so I think it's a trend um to give people two and a half days off on the weekend and just Crush some of that work into Monday through Thursday and a little bit of work on Friday and also I think it's to help the residents that would like to come in I'd like to know that I'd like to see that and do they have like a rolling schedule like maybe it's one employee in the department gets off on a Friday and then the next Friday another or is it that they have the whole staff leaving on a Friday I have that together and woodcliffe Lake does they they get said depends on each Town each town does it a little differently woodcliffe Lake does do a little bit where one Department uh person is in one week and then next week guess I'd like to I think we already have that you'll probably find it but in your papers or well I Michelle can you look for that CU I think we've already sent out a um if I have that's something I think I probably look for my email was that paper for just summer I thought it was for just summer summer I recall just being summer recently it was just for summer but about a year and a half ago um when we started talking about exactly J Jane prepared it before she retired the most recent one you're right was just summer but the one that Jane had prepared um had all year round anything else okay um do you have anything else to add Rob no okay so I do have a note here that the spoted lantern Grant is available again it's $20,000 correct Rob yes it is not a matching Grant it is not okay and that's for three years the 20,000 would be for three years so it's it's 20,000 over 3 years that's correct and um so in the past um we did get the grant it wasn't 20,000 though I think it's gone up in price and it was only to um our parks for our parks and on um public property but I believe this grant would allow us to put tramps on PR traps on private property and I did also um ask Michelle and Rob today to find out oh that it doesn't okay well I thought that a great benefit if it would have been if it would have been to cut down trees um but Michelle looked into it and she said that it does not because they do gather at a certain type of tree I think it's called a tree of heaven or something and we did have to cut a couple of those trees down in the burrow the DPW took care of it so I thought that would have been a good resource for us to not have any out of pocket but that's not the case but we can put the traps around and there is money to do localized spraying in areas of trees um that are infested so is looking for permission um to apply for that Grant yes because the we had it was supposed to be in November and we were had this on to discuss for the September 17th meeting but as Michelle found out uh today was that they moved it up and so we now have September 9th as our cut off date so why they moved it we don't know but that's where we're at so we would not going to cost us anything and it's not a matching Grant it's just applying for it the time that it takes our our our our writer our our grant writer in order to apply um and I yes please um you know from award through November 30th 2026 yeah so that 20,000 would be for that and it's a direct reimbursable as money is spent or time spent it's build and then we would have to maintain some things we'd have to maintain the properties of what's be where the traps are been given to and who's using it we would also have to have for reimbursable on the reimbursable side we talked to Lauren about that already um so we're not we're we're very comfortable as it would be with any other Grant to go forward we just need the permission to to apply for it okay um how does everybody feel about applying for that consensus it's like win-win it sounds like what yeah it's like a winwin yeah it sounds like a win-win I don't think that there's really any um negative to it Nicole you on board you okay with that Ashley you're okay with that Jill council president yes yes Brian councilman Ashley all right good all right if you would please apply for that yeah yes thank you um that brings us over to new business um salary ordinance updates I know that we had to clean up because there are um some positions that no longer exist and some positions that we've added um do you want to elaborate on that Rob yeah uh but basically we're doing some housekeeping with this ordinance to delete title that are no longer in use or will be used as well as adding some titles such as violations clerk in a municipal court that is a newly advertised position uh for which applications will now be solicited so we're basically cleaning up putting the new titles that that are needed and uh take the take some of the other positions that are no longer using out okay do you want to go over some of the changes I can if you look in your packets there was a title called part-time Deputy Court Clerk floater um that is uh a floater is not really a a a title that is is allowed in the Municipal Court uh according to our uh Court Administrator so we're removing the floater part and it will'll just read part-time Deputy Court Clerk as Mr Hermanson said uh there will be a part-time Municipal Court violations clerk that's added um at the same hourly range $14 to the $30 an hour as a part-time Deputy Court Clerk which um I'm told that Emerson has not had but um for quite a while now however um we left that in because uh it is a a position within the court that uh could be filled okay um in under uniform fire safety at the bottom of the page um there is part-time fire inspector yeah and part-time fire prevention assistant um I could read you don't have the colored copy so we've removed the the civilian dispatchers from the police department and we've added in the records Clerk part-time at 20 to $25 an hour um and that's just about it so just so that everybody knows what we're changing in the salary ordinance I believe it also reflects probably a 2% increase or a larger to accommodate 2% increases uh yes where necessary for um standard of living increases as it goes year to year and they are ranges not specific salaries right does anybody is high if a position is highered it's uh the actual salary or the actual actual hourly rate is contained within the resolution right in the resolution not on the ordinance um does anyone have any questions or comments about the salary ordinance no okay um so we're voting on that right thanks for bailing me out I'll bail you out anytime all right so the we're the first ordinance that we are going to um introduce this evening is the uh ordinance to amend and supplement chapter 274 vehicles and traffic anounce by name and title the following ordinances upon approval these ordinances will be further considered at a public hearing to be held on September 17 2024 at 7:30 p.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter can be addressed in the council chambers of the burrow Hall Municipal Place Emerson New Jersey and published in the record all ordinances are on the burrow website and on file in the office of the municipal clerk if you would like a hard copy please contact the clerk's office Miss Ryan would you please read the title of the ordinance 16 1692-1708 D50 schedule 14 no parking um may I have a motion to introduce ordinance number 16922 on first reading move second may I have a roll call please councilwoman arenia can I ask what it's about why no parking on Pine Drive but I I I don't know maybe I just missed it's difficult to to get in and out of Pine Drive um when there sporting events and different things going on at the high school people Park you know where the group home is on Pine Drive on the right right on the corner the intersection at Main Street when you're going to make the left turn coming from the high school okay okay so there's there's a group home on the right and so just picture Main Street right past Centennial Park okay all right where the community garden is hine's on the left right so when yeah so if you make a left turn there if there's cars on both sides of the road it's it's difficult to no parking at all for 50 ft from the from the intersection first 50 ft on both sides on both sides and this is something that's um I think that resident um had complained about and the police did a traffic study and they do um agree that it may be able to help a situation that could have a line of sight issue I'll abstain so you're going to abstain yeah okay Council R yeah councilman Maguire yes council president Timberman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman sers yes passes okay um may I have a motion to introduce ordinance number 1693 to4 on oh did you read it did you read them both or just the one okay so we need to read the titled an ordinance of uh 1693 d24 sorry I jumped gun sure this is ordinance 1693 d24 an ordinance to establish ranges for salaries wages compensation and other terms of employment of certain employees of the burrow of Emerson for the calendar year 2024 may I have a motion to introduce ordinance number 1693 d24 on first reading so second may I have a roll call please councilwoman arenia yes councilwoman rice yes councilwoman Maguire yes council president Timmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman sers yes yes thank you and I just as a reminder to the public introduce introductions of ordinances happen and then at the next meeting the adoptions happen and before any ordinances are adopted in case you have any comments about it there is always a public hearing on the ordinance so if you disagree with the 50ft parking or have a different suggestion that you want us to the police to look at you can always come and say your peace at a public meeting um which brings us to 12 adoption of ordinances there are no ordinances being adopted this evening reports um Rob do you have a report for us this evening I have three things uh Cindy Lane Pump Station we're we're right now we're ve very close to completion on that um we did have a minor issue on there the other day with a resident who hit the one of our pumps up there but it was cosmetic damage only so they're now they took care of the repair the minor cosmetic there but right now the uh pumps are in we're just waiting for the electrician to just put everything together we're hoping within the next week that they should be online and ready to go uh to move forward with the with the pumps it will be nice to never talk about the Cindy Lan pum station again I agree I agree been old has needed a lot of um attention over my tenure as a governing body member so I hear it a lot during storms and whatnot and um different issues that happen up there and now that we have a brand new system hopefully we don't have to talk about it very much I look forward to the next meeting to say that they're completed good I do too actually I'd like to say one thing goe you still can't flush anything down your toilet that's true yeah you can flush paper right you can flush some things but not the he's right so so what council and Gordon is is toilet paper is fine but all of those disposable wipes that people like to use for freshness purposes um even though they say they're flushable they are the things that wreak havoc on Pump Station on pump system um so we do ask that you refrain from um putting them in the toilet you could still use them just don't put them in the in the actual toilet you could put them in the trash also baby wipes do not go in the toilet and obviously any kind of um feminine products okay did I get your point across thank you okay all right that's the sanitation portion of the [Laughter] meeting all right any [Laughter] okay you all have wives you know what we're talking about Rob do you have anything else to report two more uh our basketball courts are halfway cured um so that the asphalt was put down they've now still have gone 15 days we have another 15 days before they can start to paint and cure but they are uh so far everything has been uh doing well uh they will be I've en in contact with him uh with the gentleman who Mr Rivera who runs the company he's going to get back in touch with me tomorrow for the actual scheduling of the time frame of what he's looking for uh of when they'll be back in town to let us know uh so then hopefully by the next meeting I can give a further update of we it should be that NE that week and or the week after uh that we would start to see them up there to uh to actually paint start painting the courts I would just I drove by there today and it looks like that orange fence is starting to droop a little maybe we get the DPW up there just tighten it up to keep people out um and your third item is the um again is our Emerson Home Improvement program is under we are act actively looking for people in the buau who is looking for repairs on the outside of their homes uh we have parts of the infr infrastructure not outside of their homes it's actually inside their homes so uh they also do roofs and they do grooves but it's also infrastructure it's it's boilers heaters do you want to go through the list so heaters they they um they would not they did not do air conditioning but they will do uh furnaces furnaces repairs and things that are are necessary on the on the uh on the on on the residence uh we are have it we have it on our website ask you to go to the website uh we are actively working with people right now through our uh our agent our affordable housing agent which is cgpn in order to do this uh to work together and we've had a few uh residents who are going through the process and are taking advantage of this so far okay we ask we ask you to reach out looking for more all right I just want to clarify it's it it is for infrastructure issues needed to run the home it is not um if your driveway is broken up and you can't afford to do a driveway unfortunately or your um bushes need clipping and you haven't had landscaper in years um it is truly for um things that are needed to survive heat hot water that kind of stuff um are you going to talk about the um the uh American Legion building and then don't have any I have no update further update right now they just basically were at the same process that we were before that they're okay I'll I'll grab that so we had a meeting with them and uh they are going through a process uh but we do want to thank them um because at our request they did uh make some um improvements to the site um they've also put up a picture of uh of a um depiction of what the American Legion Post 269 uh building will look like and we appreciate the um housing authority and Housing Development Corporation of Bergen County for doing that at our request um and also um so that our American Legion Post member have a place sooner rather than later um to meet um okay anything else that's it okay so last week we concluded another successful year of the mayor and Council presents summer concert series um which was brought to our residents through donations to the mayor's Wellness campaign each week we hosted uplifting performances of all different m music musical genres that brought close to a, people in total together as a community on Wednesday nights over the summer to socialize enjoy local artists the outdoors um and fresh air unplug them from electronics for a few hours um a goal of the mayor's Wellness campaign is to achieve healthier Lifestyles and I am proud that these concerts um did help to accomplish that uh I want to thank all the bands most of them very very local that have residents included in the band or former residents um the hazmats Beauty and the Greece the last minute band Steven Connelly the Emerson project um and the last band did not have a connection to Emerson but their name was the Buck shop band um a special Thanks goes out to the DPW especially Perry salamando and Tommy Carlos as well as Chief Mark Savino and the police auxiliary and Evac especially Janine salamando and Kristen malakis sorry they put Janine Davis um and Kristen malakis for all their assistance lastly um thank you to our sponsors for making all this possible and we look forward to next year's concerts so at the end of the last concert I introduced Janine as Janine salamando and she corrected me and said Davis and I said you'll always be salamando to me so sorry Janine um Bergen County's annual senior Festival will be held on Thursday September 12th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at vanon County Park the next Emerson senior meeting is Thursday September 12th at 12: noon um you can go to the burrow website for more information on becoming a member as well as on their programs and activities uh please join the Emerson volunteer fire department at its annual 911 memorial ceremony on Wednesday September 11th 6 p.m. at the firehouse the environmental commission is holding its annual Emerson upcycle townwide garage sale Saturday October 5th um to be included in their brochure please complete the application which is available on the burough website and at bur Hall and return it to the clerk's office with a $15 check payable to the burrow of Emerson by Monday September 20th our senior bus service continues to be available to Residents age 55 and older with special or residents with special needs on Tuesday Wednesdays and Thursdays to schedule a ride please contact Stacy um September is hunger action month and the mayor and Council invite you through the mayor's Wellness campaign um that anytime you're coming to burrow Hall through September 30th to please bring either dry good or can with you and drop it in the Box located downstairs in the foyer um the food will be delivered to Emerson Bible Church to help our local um residents in need uh the governing body's next meeting will be Tuesday September 17th um we do have a list of save the dates and all of these dates are posted on the burrow website um I would also encourage people we have a Facebook page and announcements are put there um as in a timely manner when things are up coming up as well as on the burrow website so uh people sometimes say I miss this or I miss that if you periodically check our burrow website or if you follow or like our burrow of Emerson Facebook page you will not miss any of these updates um Motor Vehicle Commission will be coming October 4th the Bergen County Clerk satellite office will be be here on October 9th uh the Health Department's flu clinic will be here October 10th Recreation is planning a fall Harvest Festival for October 20th uh the sh the fall shredding event is scheduled for Saturday November 2nd the Emerson Board of Health has a free rabies clinic which is scheduled for November 9th uh let's see um the governing body in American Legion will be honoring those who have served at our veteran day ceremony on Monday November 11th at 1100 a.m. at the senior center um and as I said all of the um extra information that you need regarding all of these events can be found on the burrow website um anybody have anything else that's coming up before the 17th that you want to give a shout out for nothing okay environmental has environmental has a gardening Workshop um at the library on September 14th if you go to their Facebook page or their Instagram page there's a um directions to register is that also on our burough website yes okay and the information's on the B website as well so that's a gardening Workshop cool um anything else okay moving along um that brings us to public comment members of the public are welcome to speak on any topic by coming to the podium and stating your name for the record in the interest of time speakers are limited to 3 minutes in consideration of all who may wish to speak please keep your comments brief and concise may have a motion to open the meeting to uh comments from the public so moved second all in favor I any opposed okay um anyone from the public wish to speak seeing No Hands may I have a motion to close the meeting to General comments from the public so moved second all in favor I any opposed okay I did forget something in my report I just he's not here but he's generally here at every single one of our meetings um my significant others birthday is today so I wanted to wish him a very happy birthday um he's probably not here because before this meeting I fed him with a lot of um really good food from St Leonards I can't we didn't have time to go out and I didn't cook but I did present some lobster rolls and maybe some other good stuff so maybe still he's still home finishing that stuff up but um happy birthday Christopher all right right um resolutions on consent agenda uh may I have a motion to approve consent agenda resolutions 24-24 through 27-24 so move second uh all in favor oh no roll call councilwoman arenia yes councilwoman rice yes councilwoman Maguire yes council president Timmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman s abstain passes 5 thank you um and that brings us to closed executive session may I have a motion to go into closed executive session to discuss matters exempt from the public pursuant to njsa 104-1 at SEC and adequately noticed by resolution number 28-24 so moved second okay we are now going into close session oh roll call councilwoman arenia yes councilwoman rice yes councilwoman McGuire yes council president simmerman yes councilman Gordon yes and Council sers yes thank you so we are now going into closed session members of the public May remain on YouTube until we return to open session at which time formal action turned out better Juds oh Jesus baby Jesus they only off you Jud when they want you out of the way now we're we're live was that all right we're good uh may I have a motion to reconvene so move all in favor I any opposed okay uh do we have any other business yes I'd like to make a motion oh you know what I we have to add that to the agenda um can I make a motion in order to add resolution number 2 218 29-24 to the agenda I'll make that motion and can I get a second all in favor I okay and the business that we have Nicole is so I would like to make a motion um to for a resolution rejecting uh the bid submitted in response to the bid specifications for the project known as the solid waste collection and transportation to an approved disposal facility recyclables collection and transportation to an approved recycling Market vegetative waste collection and transportation to an approved disposal Factory facility excuse me and authorization to re for bids I'll second and a roll call please councilwoman arenia yes councilwoman race yes councilwoman McGuire yes council president Timberman yes councilman Gordon yes and councilwoman sers yes pass 6 very good any other business hearing no more business may I have a motion to adjourn this meeting at 9:53 p.m. so move second all in favor I any opposed we are adjourned and I just want to say before we end the meeting that I want to wish all of the teachers and all of the children a very safe and healthy school year that are starting this