##VIDEO ID:-_JHjebtMdI## this meeting is called to order in accordance with the open public meeting Act notice of this meeting was provided to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger and the Highland Park planet on April 24th on April 18 2024 and was posted on ball website at www.hpborrow.com and has and on the bulletin board of Bor Hall at 221 South Second a South Fifth Avenue and Highland Park has continuously posted as required by okay let me I'm sorry on a very serious note on April 18 2024 and was posted on ball website at www.hpborrow.com and on the bulletin board of B Hall at 221 South Fifth Avenue Highland Park and has remained continuously posted as required by law fire exits are to my left and right of council chambers can you us the place of algi flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all mayor Foster yes Council Council here here counc president here Council kiman here counc here attorney Shaw here administrator here this is a work session no formal action will be taken items of for discussion annual best practice checklist review tax tax assessor shared service protocol proposal I'm having a mood Community orientation Police Services cop grants plan for retain an a ARP fund shutle bus Capital request so let's start off with the best practices so um I distributed the scoring sheets from our our annual survey or they call it an inventory this is just as a reminder this is a required um survey they require every municipality to fill out as part of uh getting your local Aid every year um and and there's usually and in this case you can see up front a lot of questions that are more to survey what's going on in the state and this year not surprisingly they're very interested in affordable housing so the first couple Pages were unscored but we did with the help of our planner complete those those questions they don't affect our grade but they're trying to obviously see how prepared towns are for that there're a number of other unscored questions they were I can't s them off the top of my head but by and large it's you know Financial budgetary procedure um uh you know practices probably I would say argue it's laws that they know towns have forgotten about and they throw it in there so we all remember and ask our attorneys what we're supposed to do and then we start doing it right so it's an opportunity to kind of revisit our practices and and do better uh so I don't resent this exercise although you know it would be nice if it was shorter um there's about 69 questions and you know some take longer than others uh but just as a headline we got 39 points which exceeds the requirement in order to get our full State a allocation so that's our typical performance and we will continue to do our best to get that type of score I wasn't going to what's the highest score that you can get I actually don't know because they tell you what you have to the minimums they don't and because there's so many unscored questions I'm not totally sure I guess I'd have to go in and answer we didn't get 100% um but uh but I don't think that's that's obviously not the expectation I think they want to just get these things back up on our Radars and try to you know you know you don't know if you're not if you don't know so that's pretty much how I use it every year and you know I work with the clerk's office and the CFO and then we start to we go oh we better start doing that so we register for this and a lot of the things you can do in advance of submitting so we do take care of a lot of it in advance of submitting um but in general um you know we do well and we did how about our reporting that we have to report our annual reporting that's something on here that um the financial disclosure um requirements is something they emphasize I would say in the last few years of my memory those are those things you have to do online you know what properties you own Etc sources of income uh and that does affect our score uh not just the governing body has to fill those out but boards and commissions and everybody certain action taking boards and commissions I should say like the planning board for example um we don't get points for them not completing it but we do get demerits if our council members don't complete so just be aware so it's it's if if no other reason for this for this purpose there's no other reason I'm G call you out and say yall didn't report I call you out individually and you could get in trouble yeah I had that out yeah so um but so those are the kinds of that's a good example mayor of the kinds of practices they want to make sure we're following oh yes um uh I I hope that this is is an done with what we can improve on is there any was there anything that you scored on and said oh that's something we we could do is there Financial disclosure was there was one where we didn't have 100% so I yeah cuz that's the easy one uh so that's one we should definitely improve on for next year um and uh Jen got to tell us she does she nags I know she tells we are responsible adults and when you receive these things in your email we should act accordingly no one has to tell us that we have to do X Y and Z we took on this and we know we have some financial fiducial responsibility that we have to do and if this going to affect our scoring and get us lower and it affects it text impacts all of us it impacts the town in in the long run so we have a responsibility to fill those out I would say as soon as you get them fill them out get rid of it you don't have to worry about it and once you get set up it is easier because it saves it from year to the same thing as long as you a bottery by the state of Minnesota you're right yeah there you go um and I would say there's one that's parentally on there that where I know is there's one we file all our contracts with perk which is the agency that monitors our Union contracts however there's this other requirement that you have to calculate the value of the contracts it's very difficult uh and I have we have not done that in that we kind of knew we had a little cushion they don't penalize us for that that is something I would like to for the next round of contracts improve you ask what we would like to improve upon because that's when I know so per perk contracts um because how you assign how they want you to assign the values is very specific and you have to kind of translate your contract to their format and it's not easy um but that's something that I am committing for the next round of contracts so we do report our contracts in just But but so they have them on file but that's a extra stuff it's basically kind of like a userfriendly for them as I kind of interpret it so that they can easily see what's going on in the state and I I guarantee you many towns don't fill those out because I we happen to be talking to the school boards that's great that we got way above the scor of yeah so we we have cushion for room for growth so but uh there's a lot of rules is one of my takeaways from this exercise but that was one of the big ones from mayor and Council that's one that you guys can certain me that's was there any other or um there were not that comes to mind that were specific to your role um but that's that's one the one I just mentioned was one I no I don't like to answer no two years in a row and that's what I will tell you I'm confessing the perk one I answered no two years in a row because it was just a lot of work to to put that it's not as easy as they make it seem oh yeah just follow this thing you have to go through and gonna be doing steps for improvement so that's that's the other one so anyway I'm I'm pleased if after you have a chance to look at it if you have any other questions what what's that you know we have a whole year to do better next year no we're done it's in it had in by October 31st we did have to discuss it in a work session that's also a requirement and Jen had to certify as part of her submission that it was on the agenda for this meeting so there's you know it has a value and we do have the whole year to work on the ones we want to do better on so hopefully now they don't keep every question every year so you know they have to drop something sometimes but it is a best practice to you know keep evolving and we have gotten better over time all right thank you sure next assessor this one's going to be real short I know very short because I I had hoped to have more information this was a little bit of a in case but I wanted you to be aware we have a new tax assessor Logan of TR he is also the assessor in rawe we received a letter from the city asking from the CFO and the administrator if we'd want to consider a shared service and I say said and I checked in with the mayor and Matt and men and he said sure let's find out more it's all about what's the agreement look like we're know where they're yet but I just wanted you to know that was it obviously we want to look at the cost and see if it's going to cost us a lot more but also it might offer us some flexibility because right now he's kind of limited on Monday mornings and a shared service might mean he could Flex his time a little more easily between its two gigs so I was happy to entertain it um I was hoping to have connected with them before this meeting uh but I just things didn't happen so at least it's on your radar and we'll find more I've been talking with sna about it because we need some we actually share an attorney so uh they they also are represented by rown and so we might have to get figure that out as well if if we're gonna do an agreement so that's where we're at that one was easy it multiple municipalities right but he wasn't a Shar right it was a little bit this one they want to share which I think AIT to us I could get into a lot of the the Weeds on on how the different rain a lot of the rules have changed about having multiple towns and all that stuff um we still have a way forward if the share doesn't happen he'll just have to use his personal time when he's not there and so be it um but there there could be some upsides for us and I know we're always looking for ways toart towns so this might be one we didn't have time to figure something like that in advance of Tom's departure so we need an assessor right right right right is it a considerable cost saving it's it's it we haven't haggled the deal out but it would be probably fairly neutral to us you know I wouldn't call it a savings but I wouldn't call it Advantage avability the flexing and and having his a little more availability supported by both yeah and just to clarify the shared service would just be exclusively with the raway and so the way that would work is they would be the he would be their employee and we would the share as we were sharing part of his right he's a full-time employee of raway and we' be the S municipality that you know shares in that and we get some of his time and it might okay sounds exploring but right now he's our accessor in the time he's already in and they made this offer and we think we think it's a great deal some understand right all right cops Grant Chief I may put an extra chair for you are you GNA wear your helmet you wear my helmet noce Integrations oh that was it um so uh early last year we were made aware of this Grant from the federal government called the cops Grant which is community oriented police um it was given out to new brunic a couple years ago can you say what's some of the components of the grant what is it J when you say community policing what are some of the benefits of having this grant so it's it falls under that umbrella of community policing and the idea is to supplement municipalities with money to offset the cost of hiring new officers uh in the um you have to pick a category of what the officers will do but it it it has to come into some kind of community oriented policing type service so um saw the grant was out there and we we went for it uh we filed ours under the offices of combating B crime right because that's a problem we've had in town that's been significant um I think new Bruns got it last year I forget what there was South BR a couple years ago but it's it's not doesn't happen a lot with not a lot of towns king um so there was some extensive paperwork and things like that that had to get accomplished before we started I talked to the mayor we talked to Public Safety now go for it so all right we're going to go for it um I really didn't think our chances of getting this were very high at all I thought Federal grant a Federal grant certain amount of money they give out a certain amount and that's it um so Lieutenant s did all the paperwork did all the ground work did all the leg work talked uh with our HR and did all calculations and stuff and submitted all the paperwork loone behold we get a letter from palone uh saying we were awarded the Grant I think it's the first time since I've been here we got awarded and I've been here for 24 years so so it's a a total of $375,000 that the government's going to give us um and it is to offset the cost of hiring three officers we have five years to use the money um there is a match on the other side doesn't cover the full value of um it gets a foot in the door and then we can slowly start taking over the expenses of the cops and it gets us back to pre2 three police staffings um which is important to me for a bunch of reasons our call volume has gone up significantly over the last five years um things are getting in the whole world crazier I'm sure you know I mean I've never had to call you guys our shootings before how many have we had in the last three years in town right it's getting more and more dangerous for the cops to do the job which means the cops are in danger communities right so we need to get more bodies and this is a way to process some of that cost and to really provide an Avenue to start the process so um that's where we're at I've met with Terry a couple times Lieutenant s didn't wanted to be here tonight he could not make it tonight he couldn't change his schedule amount to get here um but he really did the the oman's work on on this one so um I'm here if you have any questions and uh to see what happens next just in terms of we talked about this a little bit it's it's it's like an initial set of Grants to to bring them on board and then as they develop eventually we share the we we take over the costs right It's never enough to cover the full value of the C salary and and Fring together right but it it gives us three years of a cushion as we hire a new officer to it comes out to about I think a third of the overall costs when we're all set and done with three officers and it's not tied to a specific officer so one we hire an officer and that officer goes someplace else or hires we can back fill with it we can back fill with somebody new right so if if I hire um Bob and Cindy and and Bob and Cindy decideed they want to go to Edison right you have to hire two more okay but we still are able to use the money dire yes I mean there's a lot of fine print I mean Terry and I look at the paperwork that's involved it is significant there's lots of you can do this you can't do this you can do this you can't do this we made contact with our grant coordinator for New Jersey uh Lieutenant s is spoken with her and Terry spoken with her to try to get more information to see where we need to we need to go with all this stuff we can can't do I talked to the chief in per who has gotten this award in the past and got some input from him on how things go um yeah we can we can replace um like that but the idea is to increase our overall number in state at so that's that's the purpose I'm assum the new officers it would need to be some kind of special training right because since it's Community oriented so all of our officers are trained with Community oriented policing so that's what they call the grant um they're not going to be Community officers they will still be a patrol officer or a detective or whatever police officer we just have to expand our community police which as you can see tonight we're well on the way to do um and our thing is basically to handle you know more of the bias type stuff that we're especially this last year the bias uh reports have come after October 7th and been significant and we've always had you know that reported more here um I think that's because we have a lot of people here who are um protected class that are eligible for the bias type stuff but I also think and and and we worked really hard to get there I think we've made a lot of our community feel comfortable coming to us with their problems or before they would a lot of towns the bias crimes don't get reported because the community doesn't feel safe going to the police uh we worked really hard to build those bridges and now we have it where our bias numbers are going up not because the crime is going up we have more people comfortable to come to talk to us and tell us this is mine um part of the the grant um uh application was we had to get letters of endorsement from the community uh we have letters from synagogues we have letters from Jewish Federation we have letters from NAACP we have letters from form Church Park we have letters from all these different Community groups and individual citizens who wrote these gloring reports of of how Highland Park police deals with the public deals with the community uh interacts with the community um and how change and how they're Prouds and how they support more officers in Highland Park because of those reasons which to me I think is the most important part of this whole even if we didn't get to Grant those letters alone tells me we're doing the right we're doing well it's great Fant yeah just one thing I wanted to report out on because I know may youd express some concerns on the budget because as the chief indicated these grants don't cover the full Freight it's a minimum of 25% but I just want to be real the cost of police officers is high the the salary steps are quick and so that means their salaries year to year go up faster than 2% 3% you know that's part of the contract um and the f benefits that we provide all employees including police officer are expensive and so we are I don't have an exact calculation but there there is over and above we will be more than matching I'll put it that way the grant requirements um the other thing but I've looked at some of the preliminary numbers for next year and one of the things I remember Chief was we have some things falling away um we had budgeted for an extra staff member this year that we didn't pursue so that's already something that's in the budget so that won't be an increase and we also had that initial um uh kind of onetime outlay for the dispatch relocation which is about $100,000 that was had to be in last year's budget will not be in this year so we had some things that will help us ease into this it's still going to end up being three highly well-paid individuals but the other thing we discussed and we just hadn't mentioned it here with the Redevelopment that we've got the new units coming on board hopefully in the next three to five years this was also one of the things that we kind of rationalized the application with beyond the bias and the need to take that really seriously was the need if the call volume's up to here now once we have more people living downtown there's going to be more issues and you know staging this over time before we get to open doors might make some sense so I just wanted to mention that as well um just one of the priorities that we have in town is making that our town remain a safe place where people feel safe and welcome in so having these three new these three positions that will be in play once we start doing more Redevelopment more people moving into town is to make sure that everyone feels safe and protected in town does it require three at a time or can you stagger you can so we have five years the the grant went to effect October 1st of this year and it expires everything's got to be done um on September 30th of 2021 okay that might help the fiscal aspect as well yes so we don't have to hire three time we've also talked about an academy hire which so we have some have some ideas but I really thought this needed but at the end of the day to hear all of this years and to know that there will be a budet impact step for potentially police officers which isn't nothing um so it's just but I don't know that I didn't rise to I just I wanted eyes open on that it's not but I I think based on all the things we just discussed I think we can make it work any questions I just have um well I have three sorry um what is the total um what what is the total Grant 375 375 it's 125 a year right okay um and can you I mean I I I appre like getting back up to Staffing levels from over 20 years ago particularly as we experienced population growth where are the where are the current I mean where would you say the current holes and or I mean where where are the gaps that we need to fill Patrol yeah so uh right now what what I've done we we historically we had a two officer minimum on um which is not a lot for count of what we 177,000 now no 15 15,000 so two two two officers you know in charge of the whole town um I did some reorganizing and I I made it so now the night shift has two five person squads so the minimum of s nights is three days is still stuck at two most days we have a detective admins here can out YouTu but weekends or holidays or times when we're not here we not able to you know they're still stuck with too so being able to plus everything up in Patrol to adequate numbers where I can have five person people in a squad a sergeant four officers Squad Give me 20 officers totally Patrol and that would let you do three person minimums which is huge for for safety I don't have to start splitting people up I at least have one pair goto serious call you know the availability for that the potential of that is much higher it also helps with things like covering crossing guard positions um you know any kind of community event I have somebody I can pull from this weekend we had trunk Retreat not trunk Retreat I'm sorry this weekend we had the DEA operation takeback and then last minute one of the temples called for help with the escort for a funeral and I had nobody left to to offer um unfortunately um you know that would kind of start alleviating some of those pressures which is just non-routine but normal stuff let alone emergency stuff that's just you know normal stuff that we do as a police department for our residents and businesses and whatever else in town um not even including like something bad happened bad car accident or you know aggravated assault or something like that so one extra body is it sound like a lot but the way we use it it's huge definitely no no no question um and then I guess I just had a question about the grant are there any other considerations that we should be aware of when it comes to the Federal Grant or there any stipulations or anything that's kind of out of the ordinary I'm going through that reading exercise now it's not like that she said there's a Grant portal and you have to click through I think our grants pretty there yes in the sense that I think there's a lot of reporting requirements I'm sure finance will have to work and provide payroll reports and all that kind of stuff just to substantiate the expenditures and all that but because it's pretty cut and dry it's covering the salaries of the and benefits of these three individuals it's it's really not that hard it's also it's not like and because a lot of and there are other expenses like uniforms and this but Di Minimus in in it's it's the benefits and the the salary that's the majority so I I'm not too worried based on what I've read so far you get five I was very relieved to hear we get five years because it's it's not like we can snap our fingers and three people start on the same day and the grant starts ticking and I think that recognizes that I do think you know the advice was don't delay too much because you be it does take a while and so while we might say oh we want to stagger some to 2026 we we may or may not want to do that maybe we you know we have to think that through because you know you're gonna have to pay one way or the other so it's really you know shifting around your first year is going to be your hardest hit you know because that's the first you know time you're bearing the burun of that so we're going to look at this year's budget because we're unfortunately this hit right when we're just starting the budget pulling together so um but based on our you know it's gonna you know that's why we're having this conversation we're going to have to own this project uh in next year's budget one way of shape of form and that's why I wanted it to really have this discussion and you know like this so we all can comment on it because it is going to be a hit and we have a window in which we want to work within but we also want to bring it to you Stephanie as cheer of Finance for you to start taking a look at that so I wanted so could we budget less for overtime with this new do you think budget but I think one of one second I think one of the benefits of having this grant if once we get all three it will help to reduce the overtime cuz we're running on a skeleton's crew right now so once we have order is set up with so you have less of overtime um that would be doled out so it would be a cost saving in itself because if we look at our overtime budget now it's quite substantial but Chief do no no no listen there's good over time there bad over time sometimes there's over time you have there's a natural disaster yeah no but if somebody calls out and you have to bring someone in that's you know we budgeted our overtime this year like we budgeted for last year but we also our dispatchers move yes we are significantly under budget in our overtime because we haven't had to put a cop on the desk that has saved us a lot of money um which is good um now I can't predict where the overtime is going to come from what shift right but having the extra officers on each Squad with that minimum change it should reduce over time but again I can't guarantee that put the extra Cup on this shift on shift C and shift a is the one with over time I I you know but when you because all the Departments submit their budget right but but the savings wouldn't necessarily take place until after you're fully staff like hypothetical savings you know think about it because right now we don't have these off so we're at this existing Staffing there's going to be a period where they're actually a drain because they Shadow and they're not on the road by themselves so not only are they not available to do the job they're also tying up a training officer while they do that but my hope would be by the time we get through the onboarding that we could incrementally see a reduction and I was I didn't want to say it in the meeting but since you did you know I'm going to request an analysis of over time because they do track what kind and all that to try to see if we can attribute some of the reduction this last year and maybe we can shave off a little if we're feeling confident it's mostly due to the dispatch but we don't want to cut ourselves too short if we have a hurricane Sandy or who knows what you know you gotta just there's the unknowns out there that we always have to be ready for but because they do track the type of overtime we should be able to make some informed budget decisions once this program's up and run but it's not like in 2025 because we got this grant we can lower our over time you know it's but we might be able to shave some off based on our experiences last year right so and and a lot of our the bigger chunks of our overtime for things like the street fair Fourth of July and we know those and we budget we know those budg those are like the big chunks it's a little somebody called out sick or an officer gets hurt and they can't come to work those are the ones that we don't know we can't really plan for we have to be ready for them no matter what so um I mean sometimes you have to budget for them anyway and then hopefully we come in under like significantly under budget the budgeted for this because you know I know so and so is going to have shoulder surgery they're going to be out for you know six weeks we have to make sure there's enough officers to work that over time um is the does this s is is it exclusively for Staffing or there is it pro there's no program this is a hiring that is what this is specifically got it def they have other programs for for training and other kinds of stuff but this one we had applied one of the reasons I didn't think we were going to get this was we had applied for the kind of equivalent uh Grant with a grant was one of our first tests of using a grant writing Service uh for the firefighter version of this grant I forget the name of it safer but I don't know some where the f is firefighter but um we didn't get it so I'm like oh these must be really hard you know because I thought we made a really good you know we have a similar tale to tell should we have S try again next year maybe yeah they gave that gr to Perth boy I was watching got too they got this one too oh they got both yes because based on their son so so this is very this this grant is meant for your Staffing and I just have one last question um uh for Public Safety Committee um is the will the plan be to develop some type of hiring schedule so we can Bud it I mean it's going to be phased right we're not I don't think the goal is to hire three at once no and we so part of the grant was we had a determined um like a Target hiring pool so uh we listed that as as as on Services Veterans as part of our targeted pool um and then I have to work with the mayor and Phil to figure out do we want to do more Academy more certified certified is a little cheaper because that's with the academy but it's a little more expensive it's a higher step um and it's fat certified is faster like most of our offices are certified the last Academy we put through was um Le Middleton because it was a growth we didn't need to replace somebody right away because you put somebody through the academy you're looking at a year and a third a year and a half from starting the hiring announcement to the person's actually accountable as staff so they can be a cop on the RO and you trust them to make own decisions so that means the academy onboarding field training ghosting and then release so you're looking at a year and a half from the day put out your hiring announcement to you do your interviews and you pick who you want and then the academy has to start and you have to do this that and the other things so there's all those those different steps to it as well so I have to work with with Phil and the mayor and figure out all right what's our strategy we want all three certified the academy two and one one and two and then from there look at budget and look at a timeline you know maybe we do one and six months later we do another and then a year later we do another may we do one and a year later we do another you know and try to figure out what's going to work the best for the burrow and have the the most impact on the Poli requirment with the least impact on our budget no because I think you know I mean obviously you know when they when when an officers higher they're at a salary that is much lower so that may make budgeting more manageable you know as we move forward and I'm and my guess is that you know we may look through um other way offset uh you know just bu expenditures generally so that's that's that's what I was uh just trying to understand the hit but uh yeah it's great thank you any additional questions I would just say it sounds like a no-brainer to me so thank you for all the work that you and Lieutenant that put into his applications it came to us through from Terry's office like hey these are out there I think you got them from one of your groups right one of those maybe the mayor even forward it to me give it we'll give it a shot and you know a long shot it works it works so it Goods when it works out portal alone the portal alone and you have to log into like three different ports to get to the Grant I mean it's unbelievable so when you ask the federal that's what's going to be the nightmare is like what which login where do I go but confident between lieutenant sodin and rehea will be able to manage the Grant in terms of its you know the reporting and then the implementation okay seeing that there's no more questions we're going to move on to planning and remaining for a reminder everyone the American Rescue plan uh was uh a plan that happened a while ago as kind of a respon of and specifically a lot of municipalities that's included God state and local fiscal recovery FS we had been saving a good chunk of ours for the Woodbridge Avenue Road Project which we had already actually earmarked 500,000 for the just the roadway improvements we're responsible for and then about a million is for the water main replacement well as those of you on public works and some the other committees know the County's program is delayed so this is a shared agreement kind of because it's their roadway but the water man's ours but we're bidding it out as a package because obviously the restoration it's dumb to do the road and then restore it rip it up and then do the water man and you know all that so they were really great about accommodating the water M addition and some other factors into our our project but for some reason they haven't gotten through the planning you know the finalizing the plans the next step on their end it has to go to NJ doot because they're using some of their local local Aid dollars for this uh for their portion uh and then it has to go out to bid we have to have these funds allocated by year end as part of the recovery acts requirements so what I would I propose and we've kind of already got the wheels in motion is one of the areas that is kind of just a no-brainer from the American Rescue plan kind of uh rules eligible projects are water and sewer projects and we have two projects that uh this will help us really advance so This 1.2 million will be shared between these two one is to do extensive as much sewer and manhole lining throughout the town as we can it's an more affordable way to tighten up pipes that are they have to be in good enough repair that the lining will work but they don't have you know be in Min condition and that will if all goes well help with in uh inflow and infiltration which as a reminder those are cracks and sewer pipes that take in either rainwater or leaking water from our our water mans and things that then we pay again to clean so it's bad so we and we do see a trend upward with that although this dry spell has probably assisted Us in curbing that for the last month uh so it's not a good thing it's not so um so that's the one one project I would I don't have exact allocations because we need to we've got the bid specs just about ready to go out the door so that we can bid these out but basically we'd want to allocate this roughly half to one and half to the other um we have guiding the sewer main Linings we have the we did the full TV inspection of the entire town and from that there's a report that middle sex water has gone through and ranked and so we have 54321 five fours being the highest priority we are going to pick the fives and fours that we think will do the most for inflow and infiltration but also the pipes are suitable for you know we had this problem I don't know if you recall on Brun Avenue we were set to do the lining we had to pause because upon further inspection the pipe was in too poor of a condition we had to repair the pipe and then we could line the remainder so um what we're trying to do is pick using our report the the the highest priority kind of most bang for our buck uh areas and we can do quite a bit aligning with $600,000 um the other half relates to the lead service line uh uh replacement kind of effort in the state kind of the last hurdle for us is just identification remaining of the remaining unknowns we're almost done thanks to the um meter replacement program with the identification of materials between the curb and the and the meter because we did all these meter Chang so while we were there we tested the service line material um so we've got good data there and as we wrap up the meter project we'll continue to clean that up but where we're at a loss if unless there's been we have data on file some of which we do um service line material is what's going on between the curb and the main and we really need a better handle on that the state wants us to it'll help us shape our program so what there is is a way you can hydro excavate the curve boxes basically at in The Verge in the dirt and you can clean it out with a special so you're not bringing a Excavating machine and breaking pipes and stuff it's a low much lower impact where we can reveal the pipe test it and that gives us a reasonable assumption about what's going on from there to the to the to the main as a reminder the homeowners own the full service line but the utility us is required to manage and implement this program so this funding should go a long way towards finishing up our inventory so it's it's a data collection uh exercise we actually used a chunk of our art money uh to develop our our lead service line replacement plan and some of these other things and this is a major Todo in our lead service line is is the unknowns so while I'm very disappointed at the progress on wridge ad I'm actually really excited about being able to make make some real Headway on these long-standing issues um so that's the proposal we've actually got rfp's uh in production Louie our our kind of point of contact with middle sex water has developed he's an engineer he's developed the specs and we're working with s's office to kind of finalize the bid package with the notice going out uh this week um because we have to move because in order to hit our meeting dates we had to kind of move ahead so um I just wanted to make sure before we hit that point that everybody's comfortable um and there will be um resolutions on the next meeting agenda just to kind of make all the cancel the old 500,000 and reallocate to these two projects it's a great it's great are we under um because it's our does this funding Sunset are we under we're under pressure to award but then we have two more years to complete the project okay so if you ever wonder why it takes forever for this Federal projects to actually take root I now have a full appreciation it's like wow because and and there's there's more rules to how you spend Federal money um so that can also just slow us down a little bit because it's just more more PES the report in for this this funding is not terrible we've been doing it we'll continue to do it um so uh I'm excited about the opportunity I am in hindsight I wish we'd had this conversation a month ago but we are where we are we're getting it done but none of these project are new it's just the timing is different and um do we have any sense from the county when the their end is GNA I keep asking I'm sorry yeah I will go back the council's asking yes because I know there's there's some interest like we're getting a whole traffic intersection upgrade and we've been talking about that as well um at at 11th so we're all eager and believe you me so switching switching this money to the ARP money doesn't mean that we're going to have to delay our end no because we have money left and I should have mention that we have a capital ordinance so I'm just reallocating what I was going to put to I'm switching so so we have a capital ordinance for water sewer that will cover the main and we have money left in one of our existing roadway Improvement um to do that so um we should be okay sounds good all right next on the agenda is the shutle boss Best For Last Jason would be happy to have this conversation very so I've been talking with Mike I've been talking with Kim we need a bus and they just cost money and there's no easy grant that I could find we tried to look at borrowing renting to kind of plug the hole while we had find more time to find the money um and it's it's starting to become a hardship for the folks that rely on it a hardship for the Department trying to keep all the balls in the air and so I I've kind of come to terms with the fact that and I'm recommending I checked with Finance we have 500,000 in our Capital Improvement fund we probably need about 150 to do a a good shuttle bus we will probably go with a 15 person or less because if we go with the same size I think our current one's 17 or 18 when you get over 17 you need a CDL with passenger certification which is really hard uh we we've sent people to class they have not been able to pass our DPW guys do not have that they have CDLs commercial all the other stuff but they don't have that if we go with a smaller one any CDL can drive it and it I think it's just it makes sense and it was funny I was talking with when I was looking at electric options I was talking with someone at sustainable Jersey because I was trying to find out what kind of electric buses are out there that people are using and I said well I need it to be 15 and I'm like why does everybody want that and I go because of the passenger so it's not just us it's I think there are a lot of um and even like I think some of the MCAT or now it's ride they're smaller because it just there's not as many uh people out there who have the training fortunately our current driver does but and we certainly want qualified drivers so don't take this as we don't care about your your driving abilities but that's so my I would like to have a capital ordinance introduced at the next meeting to basically put the money get get allocate the money for the purpose of a new community Shel yes any questions um I volunteer to go shopping at the Le very good Ela and I have our short list of Will happy to goop at if we find a grant later I asked I asked if we can do a it's it's they're limited numbers I I did ask for some research for what buses are being because I don't want to just get any Electric shuttle that you know we find like I want someone that has some experience with it I got a couple models but just the the vehicles themselves are double the price and then you have to we they will be able to charge at our existing Chargers but I think we probably need to upgrade our our chargers so I really wanted to and allocating this money doesn't mean it's a no because we might be able if we might be able to find a grant to get the electric shuttle bus and then we need to augment it with our funds so I haven't given up 100% but I've I can't look at kiman like where I don't have a way forward without that I mean I'm just she's impressed upon me how many people rely on it um I don't want to let our lack of of money be able to to do that and and I and I did explore with the county about any that they have Woodbridge Edison South planfield pascar away I called everybody just to see if what if they had anything that we could temporarily use for six months and they're in the same situation they need buses too thank you for your efference I was talking with Kim about it I'm very well aware of like the critical need for this so I would just definitely encourage everyone to uh you know support this measure I'm glad that it's I mean well would have been great if we could have worked out one of those Solutions unfortunately it's not the reality looked at rent cart R bus companies and stuff it wasn't even feasible there you've done your homework that's awesome but yeah but I think now it's time that we we've clearly exhausted all other options it's time to move forward with this and um uh as chair of recreation I accept you to join me in shopping so um but I but there is there are a couple grants out there there's one at DP that I'm looking at because where you decommission an old one there's there's but I'm I'm there's a lot to it but so wouldn't we just need to have some money so that we can it's still going to take months to whatever model we buy to to get it up and and and you know procured yeah that's the other issue can I get a electric one on contract or do then do I have to do a bid it's like the electrics are not the options just aren't as robust even as the other ones so unfortunately I did look hard hard that um I was going to ask that about our old one is that of any value we'll we'll we'll auction it and if somebody wants to have a passion project uh you know to fix it up but you know it was we were advised it wasn't worth it was going to be I believe close to $10,000 some FL mobile so that when we kind of made the decision because it was like and and frankly was I going to feel really confident sending a bunch of teens to where ever whated last time it died on a te trip I felt terrible about it and they really thought on their feet and everything was fine but um they ubered everyone they they they had an adult for every Uber to get home I mean that's literally what happened so uh yeah so I'm there so I hope you guys will be there I think we all that thing was very transportation is key absolutely meeting the senior needs is very important the more electric the better I agree yeah how old I have to check but it's got to be definitely usable get auction and some people buy them for parts and things you'll never know somebody will buy but I wouldn't it's not going to be a nest egg to purchase the you know it's not like a Down The Next Food Truck Yeah there you go all right uh now it's time for public comments um total 21 minutes 3 minutes per speaker maximum comments from number of the public attended in person will be heard first with there's none uh followed by those on Zoom anyone on Zoom I see three folks on Zoom now it' be time to raise your hand I see no hands mayor seeing there's none no further may I have a motion to close public participation so move roll call I need Second Jason sorry I can hear you councilman George yes counc H yes counc president yes yes yes Mo motion to adjourn so move so move second all in favor okay let's go win the series good night all I