special Workshop session for Tuesday April 16 to commence at 6: pm. Department of Transportation and parking Park and Recreation and Public Works Department of Community Development I would like to advise all those present that meeting that notice of this meeting is provided to the public in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act and that notice was published in Jersey Journal City website copies provided in the record nor Ledger also placed on a Bolson board in the lobby of City Hall if any rejections if any should be made to the city clerk salute the plague I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all bro uh roll call Mr con here Mr zo it'll take one second Miss Fisher here Mr Jabor here Mr President Zano Mr Cano pres Mr Ramos Mr Russo present president gtino here okay all right director we are ready when you are great thank you all right can everyone see my screen yes all right good evening everyone this presentation will cover the 2024 introduced budget for the Department of parks Rec and Public Works our mission is to improve quality of life in Hoboken through the sustainable operations and maintenance of hoboken's parks City facilities Fleet Waste Systems and Recreation programs for all ages here we have the organizational chart that provides a breakdown of our employees altogether the department is made up of 71 full-time employ employees and 30 part-time employees there are a total of seven divisions under the department of parks recreation and Public Works those seven divisions are the director's office which is made up of two employees including myself public property division which is supervised by the head of facilities infrastructure sanitation Fleet and Parks supervised by the superintendent of Public Works and as you know the department evolved last year to include Recreation supervised by the head of recreation below are there responsibilities for each division in the director's office we strive to meet the quality of life needs of our constituents while maintaining and finding ways to improve operations in a fiscally responsible manner this office is also responsible for the direct supervision of all parks recreation and Public Works Personnel in collaboration with other City departments we plan to continue implementing climate action initiatives to achieve our sustainability goals this includes electrifying our city fleet vehicles upgrades to the new DPW facility and making sustainable upgrades to other public facilities the public property division oversees the operation and maintenance of nine public buildings including janitorial services building systems such as HVAC Plumbing electrical and car prry in 2023 we relocated the public work facility from Observer Highway to, 1500 Jefferson Street the parks division oversees the operation and maintenance of 26 Parks encompassing 38 acres 11 of which are are new Parklands added since 2010 and 10 acres of future Parkland plant for 800 Monroe the former Monarch site Maritime Park and harbor side park which is currently under the contract of rebuild by Design we are also anticipating the Southwest Park expansion to begin in the upcoming months the recreation division is responsible for All City funded Recreation programming for all ages reflective of hokan's diverse and dynamic Community continuing with our last three divis uh divisions infrastructure formerly known as roads is responsible for street sweeping on 34 miles of City roadways snow removal and Poole repairs of 26 miles of City roadways uh Green Storm water infrastructure maintenance for 28 RightWay vegetated areas in coordination with our utilities for street lights such as PNG flood mitigation with nhsa and the water utility violia sanitation is responsible for litter removal on 60 mies of sidewalks waste and recycling collection code enforcement for sanitation weeds trees and snow and our post storm uh cleanups lastly the Fleet Maintenance team is responsible for the maintenance of 212 vehicles and making sure all necessary equipment like plows Sal HS are well kept and in stock for the upcoming Seasons all three subdivisions in addition to Parks fall under the division of Public Works here we have the uh employees and the proposed changes uh I am proposing a total change of one full-time employee and seven part-time employees the 2024 column number numbers include current vacancies the change number column is the total number of employees we have budgeted to on board this year you will see that in the director's office we lost an employee this was due to the reorganization uh earlier this year there are no plans to backfill that position the full-time uh opening that would be a mechanic helper under Fleet and five of the seven part-timers would be under Parks Park and parks and sanitation are two divisions that require Staffing seven days of week day and night shifts there has also been an increase in sanitation part- timers but that also includes our temp labors which are our on Street foot maintenance workers uh which we have a high turnover because of their employment which is seasonal these employees can also be used for Parks therefore it offsets a decrease in the total Parks uh part-time Park employees three of the part-time employees in Recreation were previously seasonal employees that are now permanent part-time the need for the full-time in Recreation would be for a Rec leader position there are several organizations the city partners with for the day-to-day operations of programs UL ultimately the goal would be to have the rec programs managed by the rec leader this employee would be tasked by with finding coaches refs managing team expenses handling the schedule field use registration and overall sports management for the season here we have some of our accomplishments uh under the public facilities the Northwest resiliency Park which is now known as rilian City Park officially open in June 2023 we also completed the move of the public work facility this past September all program registration and permit applications uh for field usage are now centralized under Rec desk which launched in the winter of 2023 under Recreation we uh have adult pickle ball which has rown to 961 participants since the program was introduced this includes your beginner to experience s players both indoor and outdoor we also saw an increase of 138 youth participants in instructional baseball and softball for the spring 2024 season and instructional lacrosse kicked off with 25 participants in the fir in the program's first year debut the city never had a program that included K through 2 grade lacrosse it only offered clinics for third through fifth graders so now the program allows more children to explore the sport of Lacrosse at an earlier age lastly uh we were able to secure a $240,000 donation from the New Jersey Devil organization to renovate the roller rink and uh develop programs here we have some of our goals um we plan to improve and expand the current public work facility soon to be known as our Operation Center to provide a sustainable and functional environment for employees and the public we also plan to improve efficiency reduce cost and improve Equity of waste collection in partnership with the Department of climate action and Innovation this is the zero waste plan that uh we are currently working on right now also plan to identify Capital Improvement needs on All City facilities to reduce unnecessary maintenance maintenance costs there are several expenses we currently pay for as operational that could be significantly lower if we were to overhaul certain systems uh for example the HVAC at the multi- service center Police Headquarters Plumbing upgrades at City Hall but in the meantime we will continue to budget for these expenses under OE and last but not least uh expand Recreation programming so uh Recreation we will continue to just focus on the increased demand and participation and introduce uh passive recreational opportunities moving on to the numbers as you know from yesterday's uh budget introduction the 2024 total Municipal budget is about 137 million parks recreation and Public Works is proposing a budget of 13 m986 n62 approximately 14 million which is 10% of the total City's Appropriations this is an increase of 11% from the 2023 budget these graphs uh reflect a percentage breakdown of the proposed 14 million departmental budget salary and wages which includes overtime is 38% meanwhile operational expenses are is 62% as you can see from the pie chart on the left majority of the of this is in anation due to the contractual Services cost uh with the new garbage hauling contract that was adopted at the last council meeting in addition to the disposal fees uh which is estimated at 3.2 same rate as we had in 2023 other contractual Services Under sanitation include the compost and recycling pickup with the new shared Revenue model under the recycling contract that allows a city to offset some of the cost per ton of the Recycled pick up the cost for mix paper cardboard is about $60 per ton but depending on the amount picked up the city does have a built-in rebate of 85% after fees are processed in the beginning of the presentation I mentioned that we had seven divisions uh under parks recreation public works so keep in mind that the line item for public works it includes Fleet and infrastructure as well as you can see San ation and Recreation have the highest increases year-over-year and that's again just due to the contractual service Services increases in hauling and the increased demand in program participation more participants equal more expenses uh we have to cover for coaching referees equipment Etc and again this slide just provides the breakdown of the 2024 uh budgets uh between salary and wages n OE um for each line for each division um as you can see the total division cost is mainly salary and wages with the exception of Sanitation and that's again due to the contractual obligations for services any questions uh Rod can you make me co-host just so I can let people in if they need to come in uh Diana can can you I did already Jen oh thank you so much uh can you go back to this well you don't have to go back the salary page you said something about tempor um seasonal workers becoming permanent part-time sorry I pressed the wrong button here I'm like why can no why is no one reacting to what I'm saying all right so the part-time um yes so we had certain seasonal employees that we identified were working longer terms than what the seasonal uh employment was for which is six months per year so we made them an offer to uh if they were interested in remaining seasonal or if they would be interested in a part permanent part-time position some of those employees chose a seasonal option and others have decided to move on to the permanent part-time so if you work more than six months a year you would have to be permanent part-time correct got it um and then also uh the maintenance of the park does that just fall under Parks o and for expenses yes do we have we budgeted for the maintenance of the Northwest resiliency Park yes and what do we expect that to be annually um I don't have that number in front of me but I could we get that over that would awesome thank you any other council members uh just a quick question and um the part-time this when you say six months is it is it less than 40 hours during that six months or is it 40 hours but only six months plus or minus you get my question so so the temp bits more B so it's a part-time uh position but because it's seasonal the maximum amount of months that they can work is six months per year so two seasons right but my my question is you know I understand it so it's not it's never 40 hours a week or is it 40 hours a week when they're working but they just don't work more than a certain duration it's it's not the the the hours so a seasonal employee for example would be the referee uh a referee is scheduled to work for that specific hours yeah okay thank you yeah what Paul and then councilman preso and then Russo thank you president gtino thank you for the presentation director um I have a question on the wreck role uh we have one individual that is quote unquote the head of wreck right now or running wck um this second role of I think you used the name um recck leader is that correct this is the second role so here's the question we've rfpd a lot of the recreation that I've seen uh at least for my son it's kind of everything's gone out outsourced uh as we Outsource everything how is it that we are now adding somebody else for coaches and everything of that nature uh it seems a little redundant if we're if we're sending everything outside we should actually be decreasing this department correct because if if other vendors for-profit V I mean I don't know if they're for-profit or nonprofit some of them uh are doing this then costs seem to be should come down and not go up yeah so uh the goal is to not have to Outsource uh these programs right so the rec leader would be responsible for the overall management of all of the Sports so the recck leader for example take uh soccer would be responsible for developing the soccer program for the city of popok rather than us having to Outsource granted if in in the event that we are not able to find a qualified individual we'd have to assess what our options are but that is our current goal is to make sure that our programs are managed inhouse by our own staff okay so then but again the individual we have in uh looking after the wreck what does that person do then so the head of recreation is um similar to the superintendent of Public Works it's her her job is to oversee Recreation as a whole not specifically be in the weeds of the scheduling and the hiring of uh you know coaches and refs um so that's just in the weeds administrative uh position that a recck leader should be handling not the head of recreation and how much is this recck leader is there a salary range or it's just being created and it'll be presented to us or how does that how's that working yeah I can certainly uh share the the job hosting okay uh and then I have a sorry it's a couple part question here uh going on this uh I know last year we had an issue with the wreck uh soccer program where a lot of um volun coaches have been involved with the program for 30 plus years some of them uh with all these rfps uh and we have a I mean it sounds like a group of individuals that want to help with this that would save costs are we going to explore that this year uh as we bring on this recck leader where we could have the recre program run again internally by Hoboken residents is that something we're looking at to do uh to save some money there yeah so I cannot speak on uh last year since I was not in this position then uh but right now we are working on the soccer program um and I'm in communication with my team just to make sure that what was discussed last year and what the plan was then uh we are still working off that councilman I can councilman I can speak to yeah last year so I think there's a little bit of a misconception as to like the program previously was just run inhouse um we had essentially had a contract um that was never approved by the city council for an organization that titled themselves the hobok new soccer league that was based I believe in Carney that we would pay to operate the rec soccer program um they were paid by the city um and they were the ones who facilitated the referees coaches sponsorships things like that um they operated effectively no different than um an outside entity that we rfpd for we just had never done that that process properly um okay and so it's a it's a there's a kind of a mixed bag and I think what was offered and I think that that is still on the table if there are people from that organization that would like to apply to be the recck leader to run the soccer program that's definitely an option um but I I just I I want to be clear that it wasn't there was lot of people who I think did volunteer their time but at the end of the day it was a a third party organization that was running the soccer program previously okay thank you director frean um I have another two questions and then I'm and I'm done of the 70 employees uh and I think uh it's the full-time um of those full-time employees how many are actually in the streets and how many are in the office uh let me see so majority of the sanitation and Parks um are on on Street uh whether they are part-time or full-time laborers um mainly your supervisors and uh you know even our superintendent is out on on on the streets uh taking a look at everything but those are the two divisions two subdivisions that are mainly on Street uh Recreation is also involved in all of our programming uh your public property staff those are within our public facilities um so I I can provide a a breakdown in in detail if you want to see the on street but mainly parks and sanitation uh your laborers are the ones that are on Street yeah if you I would like to see that that'd be great if you could and then my last question is uh if you had to put a number on it what's your overlap with the climate action and in Department in your in day-to-day well let's say I don't know weekly or maybe day-to-day or weekly um interactions on projects uh overlaps of uh different tasks that have to be done during the day what would you say the overlap is well I think the overlap is just simply in that the department of climate action Innovation is more focused on the planning portion and uh Meanwhile my department is more focus on the execution and carrying out those plans in the day-to-day operations so if you had to put it 10% 5% I mean because it sounds like they said the planning so there have to be some similar if somebody does sets it up then you execute but there still has to be interactions between the two so if you had to put on it yeah there there is interaction it's um I can't really tell you how how much we interact I mean you know my my my focus is on the our operations that are front facing to the public um making sure that quality of life needs are met dayto day um I can't speak for director Gonzalez and the direct and the climate action Innovation process and and her day-to-day uh but we do speak on on certain plans for example the zero zero waste initiative because that's related to uh waste collection um but there's also climate initiatives behind that okay thank you council president yes councilman sorry no no worries uh let me uh I guess I'll start with Recreation since there's some overlap there um director you said that that recck leader um what was the salary that you said that was um I don't have that in in front of me right now but again I can definitely send that over along with the job description for it do do you have a roundabout I don't need the exact but do you know what that looks like I don't recall off the top of my head right now okay um we do the I'm just gonna make the statement first and it's not directly uh just to you director but we do these workshops so that we could understand what the budget looks like and and where and if we can make any significant cuts um and it also gives the the public the opportunity to hear that and and opine on that as well and far too many times have I S sat in these budget meetings where we have directors that don't have that information so I would just ask that in the future that you come with the information that you know is going to be asked of you when it comes to salaries when it comes to wages when it comes to O and expenses I mean that's what we're here for right we're here to talk about it we don't know all need just the pretty slides to tell us what your accomplishments were that's great and we want to know that but we also want to know what it's costing the city and what it's costing the taxpayer so it's it's disappointing to understand that we're here for a specific reason we don't have the information that we need so and I and I'll leave it at that for now but um let me understand so you have you as the Director you have the um Recreation the head of recreation then you're looking to do this Recreation leader and I think councilman pres Zano hit on this a little bit I don't understand the differential between your position as a director the head of recreation and then the rec leader and where that lies and and how those salaries three salaries are accomplishing the needs of potentially only one employee right so if you could let me understand that a little bit better I would I would greatly appreciate that we had a we had a a former director who had no head of recreation had no Recreation leader only had employees in the recreation department and ran the city right ran the recreation department and I see council members shaking their head and they're assuming that I'm talking about our former Recreation uh director or excuse me our former Health and Human Services director and I'm actually not uh although he did it as well the directors before him did it as as well through four other administrations so what I'm struggling with is to understand why there are three different positions for the recreation department to basically scheduled field space get coaches and referees Etc so if you could explain that director I would appreciate it yeah so I the the recreation department I can't speak of how it ran um in the past but but I can say that we have identified that past practices were not the best practices um and there was mismanagement of uh funds and operations during that time um I could tell you that also in just two years we've seen a significant uh increase in participants from 2022 where we had 2ou 2,700 participants in nine programs to now offering 23 programs and just about 9,000 participants in our wreck uh programming so it would be that's 9,000 individuals or 9,000 total 9,000 just about I is that crossover is what I'm asking is that is that one individual no participant or is that the number of slots in all the recreation programs all across all Recreation programs we have about 9,000 participants compared to the 2700 that we had back in 22 when we only had nine programs yes so so my question is we had nine programs with 2700 slots now we have 23 programs with 9,000 spots are you are you telling me that we have 9,000 individuals or are you telling me that there's just 9,000 opportunities 9,000 individuals including children teens and adults in all of our youth adult can I jump in can I just in one sec sure I think what what the councilman is saying is it's is it could there be one kid playing baseball tennis lacrosse and soccer so that person you're counting as four where he he may be be looking at them as one yeah when I when I ran the the lines it gave me per participant even if the participant was in in multiple Sports it still gave a breakdown of it so there's about 9000 participants across all program so my follow question to that is wait can I can I intercept because I still don't yeah so there are 9,000 unique children no overlap that are participating not 9,000 slots and adults wait correct yes okay so if there's n if there's 9,000 unique children playing and adults people so unique people that means because we know that many children play multiple sports that you actually have I'm going to say double 18,000 spots on all of these Recreation uh teams I will gladly double check uh the list that I ran uh for these presentations but the the overall message here is that our Recreation program has significantly grown over the past two years and in order to keep up with the demand of of our city and the in the demands of the of our residents we have to have properly staffed departments um I can't again it's the head of recreation should not be in the weeds uh doing some of these tasks and in in order to have efficient programming and to avoid having to Outsource some of this a recck leader position would be the best route to go sorry councilman no no no by by all means I mean why we're here right we want to we want to understand it to the best of our ability um so and I appreciate your position on that director I I would tend to disagree slightly I think middle management is exactly those that should be in the weeds with a lot of it but that's but that's my position on it um so as far as the fleet uh you said there's 212 vehicles and how what's the number of employees in the fleet Department uh bring that up was it seven in the there's according to the Chart there's five in 2023 fulltime and this year they're looking to add one more if I'm correcting that is that corrector so six so you said those six employees manag the entire fleet of 212 Vehicles which is the reason why we need a mechanic helper um so we have our two mechanics right now and we need a mechanic helper so uh you know it's not saying that we have 22 vehicles in our in our garage at all times but we do have a round thee clock service where we have to maintain yeah that's that's what I'm that's what I'm asking so is that do are we Outsourcing any of that work for any of the vehicles some of our vehicles such as like our our larger equipment um the kotas uh garbage trucks uh things that perhaps our mechanics um are not able to repair um are outsourced uh all of this is through State co-ops contracts um that go before you for approval um but we do try to keep our expenses inhouse uh with the staff that we currently have and that and and that includes police vehicles fire vehicles all of that right yes okay good um and then you mentioned the garbage trucks uh which brings me to uh sanitation so how many garbage trucks do we have uh right now we have three and we have the electric um garbage truck that's coming in so you have three plus one what what are the what are is the function right now of those three garbage trucks and then the one electric that's coming in what are we what are we doing with them and and what does that look like as far as the use yeah so they provide uh support in addition to Cali that picks up the the garbage um hauling so we do have our own staff that does collection whenever there's Mist garbage they are out um and so just additional support for the for the pickup how often is that I would uh have to double check on but I mean every single time that I get an email from any Mis garbage from any of you you know that we are out there within the same hour to pick that up but it's not a route is what I'm what I'm getting at right like there's no there's no standard route that they're on it's more like in a situation like you just explained where you get a phone call somebody missed the block or whatever it might have been we go and we supplement that but those trucks are not specifically On Any Given route on any off day or anything like that correct yes director don't they Fridays don't they pick up the the large um metal furniture oh I'm sorry yes yes I'm sorry the the bulk pickup is handled by us okay and then just to the sanitation contract that was passed that was a SE roughly a$ s and a half millionar over twoyear right I'm sorry what was that $7.5 million for two-year contract correct and then the Tipping fees per year how how much how much does that run us 3.2 million and that is the that's yearly 2023 correct so we're looking at at o about $14 million about $7 million a year for our sanitation for our garbage pickup yeah so the the total increase that you saw which was 14% from 2023 um we're budgeting 3.3 48 million this year for the garbage hauling compared to the 2.5 that was budgeted in 2023 plus the 3.2 for disposal fees and the8 uh $848,000 in just general OE expenses all right so so well well over 7 million about 7 7.4 million for garbage collection alone yeah there's there's more in into sanitation but yes that is the contractual services that we are obligated to provide did we explore bringing that all in house um there's been discussions since I have been in this position um but at the time we had already had our um the the bid and so it's something that we can um take a look but but what do what does the bid have to do with anything as far as making a decision if financially it's if it's better for the city of Hoboken we could have very easily rejected the bid and and brought it all in house right well as we discussed during the budget during the last council meeting it was the timing of it and just not being able to uh continue on with those discussions at the time where we had to make a decision on continuing with the garbage hauling uh contract that was on the agenda or finding Alternatives um as you know that's the reason why we only did the two-year contract so that we did have the freedom to implement changes that were provided in the zero waste plan wait I'm confused you just said you did explore bringing it in house but then you're saying you didn't have enough time to explore bringing it in house we've discussed counc for a number of years now having it and just making a comment we could very easily bring something in house doesn't actually make it easy the Staffing the overhead I didn't say it was easy that's why I'm asking the question no no no those were your words you said it's very easy to just bring it in house and the answer is it's not and the decision was ultimately made that understanding the time frame that was related to going out to bid and bringing in and extending our contract with Calli or another responsible bidder for two years has G will give us the opportunity to make those decisions in a larger time frame to see if we can invest in the infrastructure necessary to bring all garbage hauling inh housee so that wasn't explored then that's the that's the question I'm asking no we explored it enough to realize that we did not have the ability to do it in a time to just reject the bid from CI and start up our own trash collection we don't have a we don't have a um a utility to manage that there's it is not just a you wake up in the morning you flip a switch and now the city of Hoban picks up your garbage rather than having a third party contct contractor right but there's many opportunities there right there there's a hybrid system where we own the trucks where they run the trucks there's a system where they do it all there's a system where their The Tipping fees are included versus not included right there's multiple levels of of those things and what I'm trying to find out is how deep into that exploration did anyone get if at all deep at all right like I mean if that's if you didn't that's fine one thing we got we got deep enough to know that between the time it was allow us to take all the necessary steps to do it correctly and ensure that there was no interruption or disruption in service that we were better off for the residents of Hoboken to maintain a contract with a third party for a short period of time two years and we can have those conversations um both with the administration and the city council to determine what is the best step for the city of Koken this was also in the timeline that was provided at the last council meeting um when we did the presentation on the uh Cali contract and we provided a timeline of what that looked like to implement a uh waste utility and what necessary steps we needed to take to get to that point yeah again I mean I don't know I'm just a little bit confused I mean director you said you you've been looking at this over years and then you said you didn't have enough time to kind of explore it but um I guess that is where it is um I'll leave it there for now thank you councilman any other council members Council W Jabor thank you so much um I just want to make a few comments specific to the rec department part of the presentation and thank you so much director villis for your presentation tonight um you know the demographics of the city of Hoboken have really shifted and I think a lot of that shows up in your presentation in terms of your service population the number of families who have their first experience working with local government through the recreation department is very real um and that's very important because we need to put our best foot forward and I think um what isn't stated in your accomplishments slide that should be is the number of improvements that have been made with respect to ensuring that the city's house is in order that we are doing everything properly following State guidance around Contracting but also as a parent making sure that my child is participating in a recreation program that has coaches who have been background checked coaches who have been trained coaches who if there's an incident there's insurance coverage those are things that I think a lot of people assumed had always been in place and have it has taken a significant amount of work to get up to that Baseline um and that isn't necessarily something that looks great as you know a bullet point on your slide deck but I think it Bears mention here uh and I really appreciate the diversity of programs that have been provided and the fact that it isn't just about sports programs but that you continue to work with programs like mil Square Theater um and expand into other artistic areas because not every kid wants to play a sport necessarily and the increasing number of options that that you make available through the recreation department give people more reasons to want to stay in the city of Hoboken and I think that's part of our job is to make sure that Hoboken is competitive with every other municipality in the state in terms of the offerings that we provide as the recreation department is such a key touch point for our families um so you know when it comes to the Personnel issues and what you've highlighted about some of the reorganization I think those are worthy Investments um a really good example of that that maybe those dots didn't get connected it was in your accomplishment slide to highlight the partnership with the devils and the investment that they're making into our roller rink infrastructure which is amazing and I know a lot of that had to do with the relationship building that somebody in a more supervisory role was able to accomplish because that's a big picture thing that was made possible because that particular Recreation person was able to spend her time at an initiative level instead of in the weeds so I see this as a really good you know cost benefit type of situation where all the allowance of being able to have somebody in a more management level continue to pursue those kinds of Partnerships is only going to strengthen our department and provide more investments into Hoboken so thank you for those efforts thank you to the recreation department specifically um for those additional accomplishments thank you any other council members Paul I did have a question we have 212 Vehicles it can you I know you probably can't do it offand director could you send me a breakdown of that we we do do we I have one question do we own any tow trucks tow trucks or do we Outsource that we do we own some no no no out outour sorry okay all right and all the well if we own tow trucks do you know how often I would be towed well I'm not leaving my car in front of my house because it'd be a Target um in the 212 I think uh if I remember correctly Enterprise we have a big uh contract with right with leasing our vehicles yes now I know leasing was great at zero rates of Interest their low rates of Interest now that they're higher is there better chances for us to own our vehicles from a interest rate perspective I think that something that people tend to forget because I know borrowing money for cars um is quite substantial now um versus when you get a mortgage for your house but I'm just wondering if we done anything to look at that because I would be curious on the Enterprise stuff that we have do they maintain the vehicles for us being that they're on a lease or how does that work uh as far as do we incur more costs so I don't know if we've done any I'm asking the question I don't know uh have we looked at re reconfiguring or re evaluating a lease program versus a purchase program with interest rates so high as they are currently so it's not just about the interest rate it's also about the maintenance so we do have our vehicles that come Fresh Off The Lots from Enterprise that are covered under warranties uh for specific maintenance costs and um the the great part about the Enterprise program is that we're able to lead these vehicles and once they are at the end of the use of life we are able to sell them back to generate Revenue back into um the central leasing program so we're not keeping vehic Les that are getting worn out with City miles put on them we are able to then evaluate what we can um replace and get a new vehicle are we using stuff that Enterprise sends us or are we actually doing our own calculation of if if we have something I'd love to see it I know I've looked at it in the past I just don't know if there's anything that um I I could see if it's our own uh evaluation or it's what Enterprise sends us so when you say um doing our own evaluation as in what vehicles we select no meaning that uh is this what Enterprise the presentation Enterprise gives us that it's better to lease versus buy or is it our our calculations so we've done the math to see you know within cost and all the other stuff that goes with it it's our calculations which was the reason that we shifted into this Enterprise program my understanding is that the City previously did not have a leasing um program set up and we did enter into the Enterprise what year was that do you know I I don't know off the top of my head I believe we started we passed the original contract I think three years ago and two years ago is when we got our first uh shipment of cars yeah because to I mean I didn't ever think about it until Paul just mentioned it but a lot has changed in the last three years it might be worth a visit just based on rates and now with um the the goal of electrifying our Fleet we get to have rebates in these electric vehicles that we look into so it reduces the cost of of um fuel that we have to cover and instead we are investing in long-term infrastructure for our EV stations that would power our electric vehicles awesome so councilman presid do you have anything else I'm good thank you any other council members all right Haney thank you uh council president gtino so director I have a I have several questions um starting you said that the budget was 14 million uh for your department and I'd like to get a baseline between uh last year uh 23 and possibly if you could 22 um what I'm focusing in on is the actual park space our park space has increased um over the last 18 months pretty dramatically with the addition of the northwest park and uh even the Southwest temporary Park along with the acquisition and expansion of that Park um if you can just address what is the difference in cost to maintain those parks and where could we find that in particular in the budget um for those parks so I could tell you that the the 2023 budget was 1 mil for Park specifically was 1,349 61 and this year it is 1,1 186755 so the increase in in in the Parks um this is OE operations that we have previously budg uh not budgeted but previously planned and know what our expenses look like um to cover in this year's budget okay do you have anything uh for Union Dry Dock and for uh the I guess I don't know the exact name of it but you're gonna have another part come online along 15th and uh Park yeah I don't have the the rebuild by Design portion yeah I don't have this budget next budget you don't have the breakdown okay and 900 mon row street is there anything at all since it's a park that you guys are working towards getting done is there anything in your budget for that at this time no we just anticipate that that will come online in the future okay um the collapse appear on 15th Street which is also I take it to be another park over by 15th in Hudson is in a budget to address that including and by the way when I when I mention these Parks I also mention for design for any kind of work professionals Engineers any studies soil studies anything that has to get done is it being put on the backb or or is this stuff you know we see the the pictures we see the the promises but is it in your budget so the when you say soil testing um in in those parts of the initial planning process um director Freeman correct me if I'm wrong but that is funded by uh specific allocations to either Capital expenses um or other line items correct those are soft costs Rel correct those are soft costs related to that so those soft costs would be under whose Department what where could we find those because obviously they cost a significant amount of money where would that be so when when the city takes on debt to acquire a property there are often times soft costs built into that bond to handle the remediation costs or the soil testing that you referenced I soil testing was just more you know about not testing for environmental you test it for conditions of impact so you know you know if you could put something heavy or building on it one section um it's uh not not with respect to environmental it's also in the scope of the project you know if you have a planner if you have to get an outside planner to help you design it like is that also wrapped into your bond so if you know you're going to spend a million dollars in some soft cost on a certain Park like 900 where would you have that it depends they're not they're not blanket answers as this is the exactly how we do it so the last several years we've acquired a number of different properties through different me right whether it was land swap straight Acquisitions um so they're not they're not all the same so if you look at the property 800 Monroe that was part of a land swap a lot of the work that was done in that land swap was built into some of the financials that were relate that were negotiated to try to offset if one property is worth more than the other so those are built into that um the money that was received in that's in that specific scenario received um from Iron State as part of that land swap okay and then ones that aren't a part of land swap like um the union Dry Dock and the expansion of the Southwest Park you have dollar items that are allocated for the advancement of that I'm not talking about the Bild that I'm talking about the pre soft cost yeah as part of the acquisition process we build in soft costs related to that also when we do um if we're just talking about testing and Remediation that's the onus of that is on the seller of that property not the buyer so those are things that are done ahead of time before closing um when it comes to any sort of test that the city would need to enter or or to conduct prior to construction of whether it's a building or a park those are oftentimes built into the construction um the the bonds for the build out of that Park okay but again I'm not talking about environmental understand it very well I deal with it on a regular basis I'm talking about where you have to hire a planner where you have to hire engineers and other people that could help you make the best use of the site and again they they have costs affiliated with that just want to make sure that if we're showing the public certain things that are going to happen that there's money allocated for that ready and and available so that these Parks don't get delayed where you're pinched for money and no the short answer to the question though is it's often times done in an iterative process so we could take the multi-service center or Church Square Park for example we have allocated money to do the design of the multiservice center of what a Redevelopment of multiservice Center would look like those renderings are in the process of being finalized but there is not a there is not currently money allocated for the actual development of that of that um project as of April 16th 2024 got it and that that's really what I'm getting at the heart of I feel that you guys are getting pinched on a budget and you know my concern is that you know time is the only thing that's non-negotiable um these Parks they they're going to cost what they're going to cost and the longer you delay them the more they're going to cost and that's just a fact these things get more expensive over time not less expensive and if there's an opportunity I mean the hard part's done you you guys found this you know these properties and and found a way to acquire them and get them under your belt but the the real utility in it is in the public having and these Parks getting serviced and coming online and people could get to enjoy them and use them and I understand the other side of that is the balance sheet where you're being pressed and uh we're trying to balance a budget and these other demands but it it's short cided if if we don't address these things because they take money and they're going to take money next year so what's a difference why not get them online Faster by putting this in this year's budget to try to get these part these projects moves along so that they come online even if it's six months faster it's six months faster and that's a world of a difference from someone that you know has a child that's going to graduate at some point and they could use it for six more months before they're off and out of uh out of the area so that that's with respect to the parks um with respect to there was another thing that that you guys mentioned done and with road repairs and sidewalk repairs where are you year-over-year from 23 and 24 with respect to that allocated uh those allocated line items are you at par are you above or below so the sidewalk repairs falls on the responsibility of the property owner um the the road repairs um which we manage the pothole specifically uh that is um I don't have the specific breakdown from last year's expense in in Asphalt in comparison to this year also our season just started for asphal for Poole repairs but it is a number that I can include uh in future presentations director I was talking about city property for sidewalks and what I mean by that is that I I think we're patient we wait and we wait and there are certain you know uh I'll point one out particular on Sinatra between first and second sorry River Road between first and second which is a City Garage you have over 100 foot section with no curb and it's been that way for a long time I'm not blaming this Administration I'm not it's been long overdue and everybody has to do their part next Administration will have to do their part also but it's tough to swallow when we get violation after violation for sidewalks that are insufficient according to the city and then you know you really should lead by example you can't have 100 foot of curb missing and pretending that shouldn't be a line item in a budget and the same with a fence along that there's a 24-inch fence that runs along that block that's been damaged for over a decade it's it's not a secret but it just at what point if we want our property owners to treat their properties like first class and we're expected to maintain and and repair them as such and receive violations if they're not up to your standards the city should live up to the same standards and that should be in the budget and I hope that you could amend the budget if you can or this this line item to to include these things and while I'm on on the point of of fines and violations can you give us an estimate of the difference in fines of violations from 2022 2023 and 2024 sorry the the amount of the fines that we assess yes what city collected you know is it 200,000 205,000 and 210,000 or where are we with in terms of violations so the what are you projecting the well projecting I I would hope that we don't have to project how much violations we issue right we we want our city to be in compliance with our sanitation regulations um and we are often working with our residents to try to avoid issuing a a summon when needed um we do follow the structure of the fines uh which is 200 the starting is 250 and then it escalates for each violation up to the third one um so we My Hope Is that we don't have to issue violations to Residents and burden them with a fine uh my goal is through education and uh you know everything that we put out to the public that more residents um and businesses will be in compliance with our uh stand director could you tell me what the garbage F was before it was 250 or anybody on a call if you don't have it's fine anyone can answer it I will I will go and check and get that back for you may we have a rough idea I think it was like 75 I feel like it's under a 100 and it was just one fee um for the violation with not having a tiered level for uh each one so first violation is 250 now correct so if I let's say it's $100 so you had 150% increase not it's not your fault director I'm just giving just to show a snapshot whoever's out there listening 1 150% inre increase in the violation in terms of dollars but it wasn't egregious and yet we're biting other people for smaller increases in col agrees and again I'm just trying to paint the picture here that if we're going to lead we have to lead by example and what we're finding out of that we're getting a lot more violations and I'm talking to other landlords we manage a lot of properties in the city and there's a huge uptick in it so my fear is are you are we are we pushing director the balance budgets through violations and fines rather than just do what we have to do to actually fund the budget the proper way and and spread out amongst people not you know where we're trying to Target it through violations um and if we're going to do that then the city really has to leave by example on that the other point I wanted to bring up was um don't have my glasses one second the 9,000 people that you mentioned are using um Recreation that's that's great and uh we'll wait to hear back from you if it's 9,000 individuals or if there's an overlap or what it's telling me is that a huge segment of the population is interested in Recreation and councilman Jabor alluded to that and it should be safe it there should be background checks all all the things she mentioned are accurate but they're also costly so with respect to that in terms of your facilities you know we're we're talking about doing a new Rec Center that's the multiservice center which is a a great idea and you don't need one you probably need two judging on what your numbers were today uh my my point of bringing this up is that I don't think these things should be delayed any longer and if they're things that are truly the the goal of the administration of this Council and they need to be budgeted properly they can't just be pretty pictures that you put on a wall and then never to be seen again for another Administration to come show another picture at some point these things have to turn to reality now we can't talk about these centers for for decades and decades and there are counsil people on here that have had small children that been at public meetings where they talked about these things and now their children are in college and that's that's a shame um and not to produce the same result over and over I think something has to be taken a different approach has to be taken in terms of budgeting starts here and it's not a shameful thing to put something in a budget you know these items are necessary you you folks are elected and you're hearing it I'm a constituent I'm telling you if these things are important which they are we have to have them in the budget even if it means an increase in the budget um and the last point I want to bring up is with respect to the bonding the bonding has gone up signant for every Department not just yours and yours have probably the biggest ticket items that are going to come through here there's also a 1% I want to call tax but um an amount of money that we're going to uh put towards art is that reflected in a change in the bonding that you anticipate for these aggressive projects that are going to happen in your budget this year is the art piece of it reflective in the budget the difference in if you knew you were paying you know 18 months ago you guys were getting some really good bonding rates you're probably director Freeman I don't know sub 2% or you you're were getting some of the best bonding rates you've probably seen or anybody's seen in their lifetime and unfortunately that that's changed and uh the city has to deal with the same reality that we do where the bonding Market is more costly so if you go out for a $100 million Bond when you do your 1% if that if that $100 million bond is expected to you know over a 10y year period you're going to pay 122 million if all of a sudden with the new bonding rates it's 152 million does that 1% come out it's obviously from the from the from the price of the bond on on a 1 million but obviously it's going to cost you more because you're rolling it into the bond has that been reflected in this budget this year so in they the being that it's an annual budget the the future costs are not reflected especially when their the future costs are clearly unknown um the other piece I will say is that the bud the bond numbers themselves are not reflective in each individual Department budget budget they live in the in a the capital account budget that um and all the debt models were sent out to the council members earlier this week um to reflect the life of the bond each of the bonds that we have um we are are currently paying uh Debt Service to um both from the general fund and our open space trust fund got it thanks director the rest I'll follow up I guess when hopefully we he at the council meeting if the count was 9,000 or what councilman Fischer said is it closer to 15 or 18,000 um because I think that does play a big part into planning and planning or you know for these large ticket items uh and again it's not uh to pick at anyone but these things are expensive they're not easy to do they're hard to do there's a reason why your multi-service Center is probably from the 1960 s and uh unfortunately we don't have one from uh the 2020s uh but I'm glad that you're taking them into account and I'm glad that you're planning for them I would just like to see more dollars in the budget so that these things actually could come online faster uh not be delayed any longer thank you thank you thank you Haney Council woman do you want to go before you want me to finish with the public or you want to I don't care it's up to you I don't public look fine go ahead hello James hello councilwoman I I would love to hear from councilwoman fiser first I'm I'm sure she's got great questions and all that I just have one question don't me to go yeah okay is um director how much revenue and maybe you said this and I I had stepped away uh for a second how much revenue is tied to the um the ordinance that charges for you know our open space when people use our Parks Etc how much revenue is in the budget for that so the the budget does not reflect our revenue or any grants that the the department has um as you know the revenue would vary Year bye based on the uh number of applications and permits that are issued I can uh run the numbers of how much uh we generated in permits for our our field spaces in 2023 and have that for you tomorrow why isn't it in the budget we always budget for revenue streams so why isn't it in this budget because this doesn't go to the general fund these when you when we receive permit fees they go into the trust funds related to the um for fi expenses correct but do the field expenses then all go through the trust fund too they're supposed to so that's what we have shifted from previously and one of the or from previous years one of the things that we have run into is every permit fee and every registration fee for each individual sport is supposed to go into the designated trust fund for that sport what was happening previously was monies were being moved from different accounts that we didn't have an accurate reflection of what was being spent and used in soccer versus what was being spent and used in basketball because the trust funds were being used to cover each other other sports rather than what exactly what they were supposed to be covering so a perfect example is in the future when we need to RF the Little League field or RF 1600 park or name that's supposed to come from the trust fund that we have been generating funds for rather than bonding like we had to to cover those costs because that those monies did not exist correct so I I guess just a couple things just very specifically the example you just gave um I I think if we whenever we buy anything that is able to be bonded and spread over the life of it I think we should so if it's a 10 years to spend a half a million dollars for new Turf we shouldn't pay that out of one year we should spread it over 10 years that's just I don't disagree with you we would just pay we would just pay that debt service out of that bond out of that account so then I guess the I was actually more thinking about um nonprofits and private you know use of our open space and the new fee structure you know for charging for Public Safety and charging for just a variety of you know whether it's generators you know Etc so those are those fees are not going through the general count those are going into the trust so I think you're referring to events permitting events yeah so under under parks recreation and Public Works we only permit for the field space of our of outside wreck opportunities any applicant that wants to use say Northwest Park um that's what we permit for those events and that fee structure you're talking about that's under cultural I can get you the number on events Council I yeah so I here's my question if if you don't mind um director just director Freeman just to follow up um the you know we we've talked about revisiting that ordinance just making some tweaks or whatever so I'd like to understand what we are projecting for that this this year as we contemplate a final budget and also if it does go just a matching of it if for some reason there's um revenues and they go through the trust or something and but there's expenses in this budget that they're covering like I want to understand that and I would say I also want to understand now um director at AES that if if what we're charging for program fees you know kids sports or whatever is now going through the trust are there any expenses whatsoever that are in this budget that you expect to be funded out of the trust that in fact then shouldn't be in this budget so we uh budget specific amounts for each sport each program under our OE anything in addition to that that cannot be funded by the um the line item specific to that sport is funded by the specific Trust so the the trust uh funds that are deposited are also dependent on the participation of that program so if there's a decrease in participation for a specific program then there's a decrease in those funds so we we we manage that by setting money aside to make sure that these specific that all the programs can operate with the money that we the city funds for and then we have the money set aside um for that that specific trust account so real quick ju just a quick question so for example director if if there's I don't know a nonprofit that's running an event on a field right and that money that they're they're being that they're paying to the city that specifically goes into the trust fund correct into that specific specific trust fund correct so the employees from the city who may have to go to that field to set up clean up whatever it may be is cover salary and wages yeah that's not getting paid from that I don't think itue Source I don't think it can I think that if we if we if I remember correctly um these trusts are not allowed to pay they can only pay like direct costs they actually can't pay for salaries that would we would have no matter what I think Mike has an interesting question like if we had if someone for example was going to be a referee and it wasn't you know they're paying a stipend or something like that those costs should be able to pass through the trust but just your Rec director can't be passed through um the trust I think yeah and I'm and I'm not talking I'm talking very specific for the events or the field space or whatever it is that individual for example if somebody has to go to a field and we're paying them you know two hours of overtime just to clean it right after the event or after that sporting event or whatever it may be uh a referee that participated in that event or uh whatever it may be right we're paying for that out of the city budget and not out of the revenue associated with that actual event am I correct in saying that director yes so and we would be more than happy councilman to revisit the events ordinance but the direction at least this is my interpretation that we have gotten is that we're trying to keep those costs low especially for organizations like nonprofits because we originally had proposed I think a larger shift in the costs that was kind of not looked kindly upon because it was going to cost organizations more money to run events host a 5k whatever that might be if if it's the intention of the council for those costs to be met dollar for dooll we're more than happy to go down that route but the reality is we have kind of gotten push back as to what we should be charging for events no no no I think push back here I think the push back here director is not that we should be matching them dollar for dollar for me anyway the push back here is that we should be providing those Services rather than Outsourcing those services and having these nonprofits or for-profits or or things like that because if we're paying at least a portion of it we might as well pay for all of it and reap the benefit of that money not going into a trust fund but going into the actual line item of revenue for that department yeah and just to be clear the push back isn't to increase the ordinance the push back is to decrease so um it is that's that that was my understanding correct yeah and that's why I'm asking the question like how much revenues we have because I think there's there's interest in potentially reducing what we already Char what we charged people and having more of a city subsidy so if there's a huge Reliance on revenues um to offset costs like I'd like to understand like what that re projected Revenue stream is even it's even if it's going through the trust because theoretically if it's going through the trust then you you probably or should have I would think allocated some costs to go out of the budget into that into that trust so yeah Council if you just send me an email of exactly what you're asking for I will get you um I think I'm just I I'm just gonna call you tomorrow because I I'm trying to write it and I'm struggling but I will I'm around all right all right James sorry James James you should never have said said yes I know right it was Tiffany it is it always is I'm very worthy it was all worth it it was all worth it uh good evening um you know I have a bunch of comments and and questions uh for instance uh councilman Fischer were you given the the budget for 2024 that was in the council package last week like were you sat down and gone over it uh did anybody ask to to sit down and explain it to you show it to you did anyone offer to show it to me and walk me through it yeah or to all the members of the council not I'm not singling you out of course yeah yeah uh the answer is no um you know I mean historically in the past that review of the budget has gone through the finance subcommittee kind of that you know row by row I don't I'm assuming they did it um this year I have gone through it row by row just because I typically do and I understand how the budget Works um but it's not typical that they walk through row by Row the entire Council okay I mean my comment on that would be you know a trend that I say a lot is that the council's very important and we really rely on you guys to to shake uh the tree and and see what falls off now this this budget if you guys don't have this in front of you I I don't know why I go any further it's on I mean on page 476 of the last budget of of the packet from the last meeting you got one 2 three four five six seven eight like 10 pages that just talk about random revenues and what I would do is I would ask okay of all those lines of Revenue which there's at least 40 where does the trust where does the wreck Revenue go well the answer would be that it goes into the trust it doesn't go into those lines or where is the revenue for the um the building garbage fees that Haney was talking about and if you don't if you don't if you just don't ask for that report then I don't know how you could be fighting for us um to understand how to keep you know the the the revenue growing in the appropriate way and and keeping the cost down so all right um just that was a long presentation by the director and a question that I had from it was if a building gets a garbage charge um because they left the they put the garbage out too early um and it's a it's a it's a 4un building how many tickets do they get it's one ticket that is issued to the um property owner um or whoever the listed registered agent is on file okay so we won't expect four tickets the only time where we issue to a specific um unit is say for example if boxes um with addresses are put out on the curve and we can identify uh an an address that it specifically belongs to then we issue it to that specific unit but no we do not issue multiple tickets based on the number of units all right so then in that second case that you said there would still only be one ticket issued correct okay um another thing that has been uh well I I've never understood exactly is what is rebuild by Design is it a company who which vendors have anything to do with rebuild by Design could I mean I don't know if it's directly towards director of villis but I'll that's the question that would probably be better asked to uh Jennifer Gonzalez and Caleb right Caleb in your guys interpretation what is rebuild by Design is it a company is it a project I mean is it the is the name of a project and it is which won the money from underwritten by the federal government which is overseen by the state D which it passes through from the federal government to them and they have contractors or contractors are selected through a process but I don't think it's for for this director I'm not trying to no no no but that you make a but that helps a lot um I only thought of that because it's a lot of streets and Roads um a question that I I'm concerned about or the roads getting paved um in the budget that was in the last one sec Diana you only do potholes correct Paving doesn't go through you correct Paving goes through parking and transportation and and um city and and if you stay on that that director will be coming on on at this rate in three to four hours that's a long time I don't know if I could wait for that I know director um and and I won't I won't be the one that CS that okay um the the shade tree commission budget has been $50,000 forever and there's never been a piece of equipment purchase like a chipper uh is anything going to be brought in house how many trees are expected to be planted this year in the city with that or anywhere James that's going to be in the climate action Innovation presentation on on the 24th okay um and just within your department where there's uh part-time people coming on or maybe for director Freeman anywhere along the city if someone's not a full-time employee earning I mean uh making 35 hours a week with a punch card or 40 hours a week is anyone obtaining health insurance or is anyone getting the the denying of health insurance where they get the payment in lie of earning health insurance because they have it through their spouse um employees that are full-time employees are given the option to take health insurance part-time employees are not given that option they're is a voucher if a employee opts out of the program um there's a number of of employees across all City departments um who fall under both categories go thank you thank you very much everyone thank you James council president I'm just wondering I mean Jason made a joke about it but but we did have two hour schedu for three departments and we're an hour and a half into the first one are you did we have an end time no we don't an hour for department so oh okay okay then I misunderstood I thought it was 68 no my calendar I really wish that was accurate Manny yes good afternoon council president and uh again I also would like to be brief um I'm headed towards an meeting but I would like to uh comment or ask a question in regards to this department um I heard about and I asked a question I believe last year I don't know if it was the same um department but it's in regards to sanitation when we make that calculation what Revenue comes in or what Revenue because I must have missed it comes in from the recycling from the part that's I believe it's um and you could help me council president is it the the aluminum or is it the paper where do we get revenue and how is it offset in this Department's budget Dian I'll leave that to you but I believe it's the aluminum that we actually get it's cans and glass and aluminum depending on you know like at this moment in time I believe cans are the most valuable but I could be wrong yeah the the co mangled part um of recyle cardboard no not cardboard sorry director you're correct the our commingled pickup is where we see our highest uh amount thank you yeah and do you know in this in this uh budget that you presented do you know um a projected amount I believe it's going to be projected because you don't have it yet but what's the offset between what your what we had last year and and what we expect this year so what I can tell you is that the the recycling contract that we recently uh presented to council and was adopted was for a total contract amount over three years of 420,000 that is just a conservative estimate um but of course the function of of that contract will offset so we don't uh the hope is that uh rates and our our pickup stays how it's been so that we don't have to expend 420,000 in our recycling pickup do you know just all varies by volumes right do you know briefly about um what it was last year um I do have it in in my emails but I don't have that in front of me at this time that's a if you could just em when you do get it just email it to me Manny I'll let you know the number I appreciate that council president um again in In fairness and briefness um I just want to another question would be um in regards to the budget that was presented by this department today it has a an increase um as opposed to last year because now I can't remember I didn't the chart exactly it's been a while an hour or so but can you let members of the public understand why is it that you have this this um overrun in your budget is it um employes is it because of um uh maintenance for something is it the trash collecting what is making your budget go over if you can tell us in in in you don't have to be exact but if you could that would be appreciated but isn't it just Diana that you have added things that were in a different area before uh the the driving factor is mainly our contractual services in in sanitation um that's the the increase that we have as well as Recreation um which is also based on the increase in participation so we have to adapt to those needs so our our main driving factors has been sanitation and Recreation sanitation is a 14% uh year-over change increase and Recreation is the 37% % year over change increase and the sanitation that's going to be locked in like you said for couple years so we'll see this again next budget so what I presented today is for 2024 next year will'll be dependent on uh budget Appropriations okay um again council president thank you that's all I have I have more questions but I have to run I appreciate the presentation by the director and all of your attention this evening and thank you to all the other members of the for speaking thanks Charlie Catz oh did I just what happened oh there you go hi Charlie hey how's it going Council gtino hey thanks so much for letting me speak I just had one quick question of Doc of director Adas um I was wonder if there's anywhere online where there's a program by program breakdown of all the recreation budgets or detailed income statement that's available to the public director I don't know if yeah I don't know if it lives online we do have that Charlie and I can ask the clerk they was sent to all the city council members I can ask the clerk to publish the presentation online awesome that'd be great that's all I got thanks so much for everything you guys do have a great day thank you have a good night all right good news director no more questions thank you all uh for your time you you are the longest one so far so you've got that so you've got that under your president G president getino there's one maybe you just want to answer on the one of the questions and answers U maybe director you can just answer that it's about the fees yeah yeah the fees non-residents pay more than well uh asks if non-residents pay more than residents for our programs for pickle ball pickle yeah they specifically pickable the person's asking I know that there is a different fee structure for non-residents um whether that's specifically imp pickable I believe that's applicable to all of our programs yeah I I mean a long long time ago I changed the ordinance to non-residents pay the actual cost of the program whatever the cost it is I don't know if that was ever um actually done but that's a great question Dan we should look we should make sure that that is happening I confirm that thank you thank you director yeah thank you so much director um thanks director than you do we have director sharp next director Brown is up okay hi director Council president good evening let me know when uh are you all ready we're ready all right thank you council president members of city council um Chris Brown I'm the director of Community Development here with the city of Hoboken I'll be sharing my screen in just a second and we'll start the budget the budget presentation the 2024 budget presentation for Community Development all right so you're all seeing my screen correct yes great how about now still all good great yes all right all right so uh like I said thank you uh thank you again and this is for the 2024 budget for Community Development uh for the Department of Community Development has a number of responsibilities or a number of different um uh areas of uh of involvement within the city affordable housing we generally speaking administer the city's set aside units so the units that are created from the from um from the from the affordable housing chapter in our city code um we also Minister a Community Development block rant program we are a an entitlement community Through HUD we receive about a million dollars per year and uh we hire a program administer administrator to um and implement the program uh as well as have we have staff support to uh to to also administer the program as well we provide GIS support um not just in in house and City Hall but also to the Sid to special improvement district we coordinate with the Sid or staff members within Community Development coordinate with the Sid for uh various GIS related needs um spec and especially related to our mod for data and um as they're preparing their budget uh open space acquisition and development historically speaking Community Development has Community Development staff has been related has been involved in the acquisition of various Parcels within the uh the within within uh within the city um some examples here are block 10 and 800 Monroe uh we also have um Community Development staff is also liaisoning on a generally Reg basis with Green Acres as relates to our Recreation open space inventory and various diversions happening throughout the city we also contain the zoning office and land use boards uh our zoning officer and um a few other support staff members as well as our planning board zoning board secretary um who uh manages those two land use boards as well as other uh boards within the city um such as the Cannabis review board and and the uh and the uh the hospital board we also are responsible for redevelopment generally speaking for redevelopment within the city um we oversee the designation of various properties and then uh for for redevelopment or Rehabilitation and then also uh we prepare well we spearhead the initiatives for redevelopment plans and then negotiate those uh Redevelopment agreements as necessary and we've also taken on the the um the housing division in recent years which contains rent leveling and the rent rent leveling and stabilization office um and I have uh on the slide the various tasks of rent leveling and stabilization the rent control board is uh one of the boards that are are are are within that that division so our organizational chart so we are a small Department uh we do a lot but we're a small Department and it's a credit to I say this every year just through my budget presentation um you know this is the time that I get to come in here and say that I have one of the best departments every one of the best staff team in in City Hall and it's a credit to everyone that's in my department for all the things that we do um so just I just want to just take a moment just to you know just shout out my staff uh so we have various different uh various different divisions within uh Community Development we have the Community Development Office with with um three with uh a supervising planner principal planner and and and a senior clerk our zoning office we have a zoning officer a housing and Zoning inspector trainee and a um and a clerk um in years past we had an assistant zoning officer our assistant zoning officer left and we replaced her with a new title of Housing and Zoning inspector uh planning board zoning board secretary as I said before and in the housing division we have the housing division head as well as a rent regulation officer we've moved a senior housing inspector who was previously in the zoning office we've moved him to the housing division we're actually under we're in the process of of the physical move you know setting up de desk base in the multiservice center um but we think that he will function best obviously having a housing inspector in the housing division just makes makes a lot of sense right so we ALS and then we also have two clerks in the office we've budgeted for a new position in the housing division um whether that will be a whether that will be admen staff or another inspector is to be determined we'd like to see how um you know tomorrow night there will be a um on first reading a lead inspection ordinance um and that will that will uh lead to a significant amount of paperwork within the city so that may um may it may very well be the admin position that we hire to um help out with some of that uh some of that work that's going to be coming down the pike so as I mentioned with employees um we've generally remained stable over the past few years um since 2021 um we've added one since 2023 we've uh We've uh reduced staff by one and that's the result of one of our staff members being pulled into the climate ction um climate action and Innovation department so we went down from 14 to 13 uh just some numbers regarding planning board and Zoning Board um you know we've got a fairly busy uh fairly busy we got we have fairly busy land use boards um planning boards and zoning boards between meetings 2023 to 20 I'm sorry 2022 to 2023 um meetings pretty much stayed consistent um the planning board ordinance reviews you notice that there was a pretty big jump uh most of that was Redevelopment work uh most of that was Redevelopment uh plan amendments and plans that were adopted by the city so that also anytime the planning board does a ordinance review and they do a master plan consistency review that comes out of City budget so um you know that's just something just to be mindful of with uh with as it relates to our budget and and and the work and our work product uh we also have a we the Hoboken Hospital Authority um our planning board zoning board secretary chairs or works with that board and also the Cannabis review board our planning board zoning board secretary Works within that board as well uh those boards have been fairly quiet the last two years or last year um and we'll see what happens this year with uh uncoming applications rent leveling stabilization um just again numbers uh we've received a lot of opras property registrations went up SE charges not so much um meetings have remained relatively stable um the rent board takes last year took off in the summer um and also land landlord request for legal base rents went down from 22 to 23 but tenant legal rent calculations um increased our zoning office again zoning office is busy numbers reflect that um zoning applications 13 we uh in 2023 our zoning office processed 1300 zoning applications uh historic preservation applications 86 flood plane review 82 um up from 39 the year before Sidewalk Cafe licenses and parklet licenses remained relatively relatively uh stable or flat um in terms of Redevelopment uh we have two myself and two other planners within um committee development that work on Redevelopment initiatives we have two redev we adopted last year two Redevelopment plans the Washington Observer Gateway plan and also the Hoboken Housing Authority Redevelopment plan uh the Washington Observer Gateway plan that was prepared inous uh hobok the Hoboken Housing Authority plan was prepared by um a consultant team paid for using Community Development block grant funds we have when I look at this when I look at these uh these four projects um it's actually quite amazing the first time um going back in presentations our interim cost and conditional designation agreements the number of uh projects that we were working on were you know could have taken up a whole page were down to about four projects that um are have active inter term cost and conditional designation agreements and what that basically means is that they are designated as conditional developers and they pay all of the cost for negotiating a Redevelopment agreement so we're down to about four different projects uh Park and Willow is um the Rockefeller group in the North End just as a FYI uh so here are all the Redevelopment uh agreements that have that are executed they're precon that are um pre- certificate of occupancy um some are these are all in various different stages uh the only the one that is of these projects the only one that is under construction right now is 38 Jackson um 38 Jackson Street in the uh in the in the southwest area but all these other I mean I could get into just a status report with all of these they're just all at different stages um so stay tuned all right so in terms of our budget we are 1% of the total budget we are it's a total of 1 95 million uh the year-over-year change is 0% and I'll get into that in a minute as ter and just kind of um flush that out so within our department uh the housing division takes up the largest chunk of the budget followed by Community Development which is in that orange color uh the light burgundy it represents Redevelopment the dark burgundy represents Planning and Zoning so 12% and 15% following bind um and then as by by um in terms of how it breaks down with salary and wage and operating expenses our budget is about 23% salary and wage and the rest operating expenses uh so the story of our 2020 or the story of our the story of our introduced budget is um it has to be told the story of our 2023 budget uh we last year went in for uh one 1, 97,000 uh we needed to transfer an additional 52,000 to um to cover some overruns um so our total our total our total budget actually is reduced from the 2023 budget with transfers but it's a um it's an increase over the 2023 budget without transfers and I can explain this a little bit more in the next slide so generally speaking the story is that our planning and zoning boards or the Planning and Zoning Board budget and the housing budget um due to um litigation um board meetings the cost of um administering these board meetings uh we have we had a number of overruns um so our and that's reflected here you see that we budgeted for 118,000 between our planning and zoning boards which you know if you round up that's 120,000 that's 60,000 each board that generally covers our our boards it went up to 291 and that's the result of of uh of litigation it's the result of um of of you know resolutions needing to be prepared to settle litigation um and uh so we we we had to transfer in a good amount amount of money into that line in order to make in order to make it whole and you'll see that a number of different other line items were reduced such as Community Development um zoning housing we we we had to we shaved off a number of with those salary and wage lines and we also shaved off we also shaved shaved off the Redevelopment operating expense line from 350 to 227 so even with all of those reductions we still had to take in another 52,00 in end of the year budget transfers to to to uh to to make it whole and uh the 2024 budget reflects that increase um and uh you know not exactly we tried to reduce it by a by by a bit but just to be safe we Tred to bring the planning and zoning boards and the housing budgets closer to what you know just in case we have just in case we run into some of the same issues last year um that were unforeseen uh so at that 0% number is actually if you look at the year-to-year budget change from um from the 2023 budget with transfers it's a negative it's an we actually we went down for we went down negative .4% um from the 2023 budget without transfers where we started last year around this time it's an increase of 2.3% total so that's the uh that's how that essentially um shakes so that is the that is the uh the presentation of our budget for 2024 and with that I would open it up to questions Chris if plan uh oow and for planning board and Z zoning board La this year was or last year was 200 0,000 I think I saw yeah I'm going to share it again and then you had budgeted 183,000 for this year like what makes you I know you said it was littig unforeseen litigation was there 25 hours of cannabis review meetings perhaps I'm sorry there was two sorry what your your question again Council council president planning planning and zoning boards o and 2023 was 2 90 MH and then this year it's 180 just say Yes um is any you said there was a lot of litigation is any of that litigation still going on I mean is 183 enough is 183 enough I hope I hope so uh so looking at it looking at just to go down the list um the and I don't want to get into to specific but um some of that was some of that had to do with um fair share housing litigation which is still ongoing this a smaller number but that that's relevant um some of it is Rel was related to Pegasus um Pegasus litigation where the boards were remanded to approve um both projects so we had to pay for those resolutions so that was not a insignificant number um was and then also there was Cannabis related litigation some of that litigation is ongoing some of some of it has been resolved and then also there's zoning board appeals which or sorry zoning officer appeals um which in some cases has been resolved in some cases has not been resolved and you know so it I could tell you that I think that we're past the hump with everything but then tomorrow we could get another another another complaint we could get we can get another suit so um I'm thinking that when 83 might be okay just historically the planning and zoning boards I mean it's if just looking back at past budgets it never actually goes past you know 80,000 for planning boards 60,000 for uh for zoning and that's we and at the end of the year we we've had enough to um transfer out to other to other divisions in the apartments and but that just was not last year I think last year was an aberration but you just never know and then I know it's only $10,000 but like I remember begging to give historic preser ation more money in the past and never being able to so what what is the additional money for and why the change of heart yeah so we increased it so last year we were at 27 obviously 27250 and we came about $68 short of that 27250 um just to just to just to make sure that we're covered um you just I again we we would there isn't something that historic is planning on doing um well historic is the historic preservation board is um not covered by developer escrow so anytime there's a historic preservation meeting the city's covering cost of no my like there was something they wanted to do in the past and that's why I can't even remember what it was but like mapping the city and I was trying to get the money for it but it didn't happen at that time so actually we actually did Jen actually did get the money for it we got them 120,000 over the course of two years to do their study and it was It was kind of for that project and it was probably like five years ago since then that most of these costs are legal am I right Chris that's correct that's correct but if you're just saying wait if you're just saying the $10,000 is just just in case you know to be safe then you would I'm not suggesting you do this at all but in all of them you would be added additional money just to be safe yeah I mean that's that but that for historic preservation again like I said um we did add additional money for uh for the ones where we went over um and uh the other ones historically zoning zoning you'll see that we went from 2250 to 5,000 that's to cover um we hired instead of having an assistant zoning officer we have a housing and Zoning inspector trainee he has to do um some mandatory courses in order to uh essentially move out of the traine position so that's why we um budgeted for that in OE uh again it's just it's just a matter of just being prepared in case there's something uh in case there's there there would be an overage just because we came right to the edge of our budget last year that means you budgeted well thank you I appreciate that so it should be 20 7 250 thank you Chris um sorry councilman Russo thank you coun president um I didn't hear anything about our rent control board director what is that included in that 291 from last year that's included in the housing in the housing division uh so we and I'll share the screen again should just stop not keep sharing it all right so here's the housing division um and you're seeing the you're seeing the screen right I'm seeing no we're seeing your emails Chris it's a certification oops ha why did that happen how's this no there we go all right great budget yeah appropriation type all right so um housing division 69,000 we started in 2023 without transfers 2023 budget with transfers 169 800 um the 2024 budget reflects where we were last year with th without those transfers now that 169 800 makes is comprised of rent control board attorney rent control board transcriber uh we have a contract and ongoing contract with fonics to scan essentially our continue scanning our entire rent control office as much as we can because we're trying to clear out office space to um a potentially have more staff in there and it's just from a from a sustainability standpoint um if something like what happened and you know during covid happens and people all have to work from home it's just better to have all of our files uh in the cloud rather than in a physical space right so so that's essentially where this 16 this 169 800 the 2024 budget reflects the overruns that we to a te the overruns that we saw in 2023 right okay so and hopefully director Freeman or Brian aloya prepped you for this question because I asked it last night when it came to our legal department what is the overall cost for um for legal work in your department and can you give a roundabout breakdown where that kind of lies and and you kind of started that that conversation but what if you had to put the the overall number for legal work what does that look like and where where's where are the big ticket items so legal work in the Department of Community Development Comm the department overall Opera okay um I want to say 80 and that's not covered with and that doesn't have to do with escrow so a lot of the a lot of the legal bills that we get a lot of the legal expenses that we get for that we get in our department is covered through Redevelopment escro which is why a Redevelopment up OE has gone down significantly over the past few years um a few years ago we were at 500,000 every year because we were doing studies we were doing we were we're designating different properties uh when a couple years we were um we were funding the city's master plan reexamination um the last few years just with the amount of negotiating redevelopments Redevelopment agreements that our department has done and that's all covered by escrow so um so we haven't had to um put in as we we haven't had to dedicate as much to uh Redevelopment attorneys as much as out of City budget so so you're saying you you're saying Redevelopment specific is 80 or that's overall that's including boards that's including the no I think I think it I think it's I think I I want to say I I mean it's not it's not an exact number but I think that it's probably in the 80 range just because if you look at the Redevelopment line item that's 240 so that covers our affordable housing attorney that does cover two different Redevelopment attorneys um one is specific to one area of town the other is specific to um to for general questions um we also have you know we just mentioned um in the housing division last year uh last year uh our redevelop our rent control board attorney contract was about 990,000 all after after all the amendments are were compiled we also had special Council for for um the beginning of 2023 that was um that that was a five figure contract um and and that's not paid out of esro that's paid out of the budget that's paid out of the budget that's paid out of the budget historic preservation we just mentioned a lot of that goes we a lot of that is uh paid for with through an attorney so yeah I mean it's not an exact I could get you an exact number but I I let's say 75 how about that $75,000 75 no 75% oh 75% I'm I'm looking for a dollar amount oh you're looking for a dollar how much are we spent you're saying 75% of o in your overall o o is 75% of legal costs it was just a number I'm I'm yeah no I I I want to understand and and I'm trying to understand from an entire city perspective what legal was costing us [Music] um all right so so let's do this because that's a staggering number for me yeah it like I said it's just it was it's a it's a it's a it's a shot in the dark just looking at the numbers um Community like if we go by it Community Development OE there's no legal attached to that zoning OE no legal attached to it planning and zoning boards yeah there's um most of that's legal I want to say yeah I want to say most of that is legal um housing housing's a little different right housing's housing let's say definitely more than half 60% yeah Redevelopment Redevelopment isn't hasn't been as much because like I said it's been we've been covering we've been you've we've it's it's mostly escor related it's mostly things that are covered through escrow and then historic preservation so I mean if you want to just if you want me to take out a calculator now and just no you don't have to do it now but could you get it to me I'd appreciate it I could get that too sure yeah thanks D anytime all ah thank you councilman councilman preso thank you uh council president um director Brown thank you for the presentation um I have a couple quick question on the rank calculations um can you bring that slide back up if yes see I knew it was a good idea to not get rid of the slide there you go okay so hang on where did we go rank calculations so we dropped to 30 but it's only the beginning of the year correct yeah that's correct those any anything that you're seeing over here for 20124 is just year to date can you can you explain to me why in 2023 that was a a higher number yeah um I it's it's it's the result of uh I think I globally speaking rents have rents have gone up in the area such that um tenants have been getting very significant rent increases and have been um concerned that their buildings may or may not be subject to rent control and the way to start the process to determine if building is subject to rent control is to submit a legal rent calculation so and you know obviously uh I think we all are aware of um ongoing litigation with um certain properties within the city um this is this may or may not be that number may or may not be although I would I would suspect that it is related to um you know some of those uh some of those types of of of issues um that have led to litigation so I I think generally speaking it's it's just a global issue of of rents increasing um Regional regionally um and also but you know very much so within the city um they've they've gone up significantly um and and just does the cost I think what is it 30 or $50 to file for a rent calculation is that correct yeah that's corre I think I believe it's 50 okay so is this self-funding the 240 or is this an actual higher cost that goes into this so in other words go ahead no no no I I I I was actually trying to clarify your question but it sounds like you were you were going to clarify it yeah no no no I'm just curious let's say 85 to 240 you pay 30 it's not just $30 you know this is processing fees but the time that goes into that how much has those 240 calculations versus the 85 how much more uh resources and maybe financial terms do that take into uh in you know extra added cost to you so financially I mean we our rent regulation officer so per chapter chap per chapter 155 the rent regulation officer is the only one that is um statutorily uh appointed or authorized to do legal rent calculations um someone else can assist her but at the end of the day she has to sign off on them and that's just per the that's just per the ordinance why we can't have two we we probably can't have two rent regulation officers we can only have one um her time she she was very busy in 2023 um how much if you're going to ask me how many hours and how what that what that breakdown looks like per her salary um I'd have to come back to you with the number on that um but I will tell you just anecdotally there were uh a number of months where just the the workload was um it was a it was it was a pretty intimidating workload for her I mean she she was backed up through the better half of 2023 okay thank you and then I have one last one um with registrations on the supply of rental housing versus the amount of landlords that we have registered would you have an offhand percentage the property registrations you're saying the that the number of property registrations versus the number of landlords in the city I'm sorry well let's say let's say there's a supply of 10,000 Apartments how many of those are actually registered with the city I don't have that number off hand but I can get it to you yeah I wasn't trying to stump you on the question I'm just more it's more of a curiosity from that perspective because that is one I've heard that that is an issue in town uh and it's not a high number it's it's not as high as it it's it's definitely not as high as it could be and it's something that we um that we would like to uh to um to work on last year I we um we uh we we put out a different kind of mailing a different kind of letter to to uh to to to get to get landlords to to to to register the properties and um you know it's something that we you we've we've we're doing we've done spatial analysis we've we've we' we're looking at ways to you know if we're changing our technology Citywide our our database technology that might also that also might help with getting properties registered um but it's it's it's something that we are it the number is low if you're looking if if it's if it's a percentage it would if I had that percentage to get to you to give to you right now it would be a surprise it's not is that due to lack of personnel or it's just due to whatever I mean we could speculate um I think that historically um the last few years we've um you know there was a there was a time when the rent control office was you know about two or two or three people um so trying to get or for a better time of 2020 or 2021 it was one and a half um so obviously when you have situations like that it's difficult to to um to do more with less um but we are trying to do more and I'll finish up with one last question with all the uh lawsuits that are potentially Happening Here uh are you are you underst staffed to handle these type of inquiries let's say we see another of the legal rent calculations we have the several of the lawsuits that have already been brought up uh is your department adequately staffed um so I think that the the answer is if if I'm going to go to another uh so here we we so going back to the to the organizational chart we have two clerks and the we have a potential for a new hire um tomorrow night we're going to have a lead ordinance on first reading and the lead the lead ordinance is a state statute so if we don't implement the if we don't implement the lead ordinance that let's and the lead ordinance is essentially any building pre 1978 um is required to be inspected every three years um it's a two-year certificate um and and and up to and then then they have a one-year grace period essentially um if we if we don't adopt the ordinance then you know the city is liable to get fined um but all this to say there's going to be a lot of paperwork that we're going to have to undertake in order to keep up with these um to keep up with inspections to keep up with uh the database of of housing that is you know because I think there's about 1,800 units in the city that are that are um or 18 18 1800 dwellings or buildings that are that were built pre 1978 so if so to answer your question that's a long way of answering your question in in the way of if let's say we aren't able to make this new hire yeah we're under staffed um just thinking about the workload that's coming coming down the pike yeah we wouldn't be able to keep up with um with what's what what's about to come about the next few months um I think that with the new hire and I think that the best our best approach with the new hire would be on the administrative side um I think that that would help uh and then you know just we'll we'll what we'll do is we'll gauge to see where we are with the workload come the end of the year and if we need to increase staff next year then we'll then we'll then we'll do it then but we you know we'll we'll make new hire and then see where we are with with the workload um generally speaking thank you thank you very much director of course director just one other because it's from a res um the the number of rent control the rent calculations the number that you had up before is that the number submitted or the number of completed believe that's submitted submitted council president could I just uh follow up real quick yeah director uh just two things you said that that additional staff is going to be an administrative staff yes I I believe that's that's what I that's what that's where we're leaning towards I mean I mean because initially we were thinking if we're doing a new hire we would want to hire an inspector um but we think well that's where I was going that's exactly right but we have a senior housing inspector that was in the zoning office um so we figured the best use of resources is to take the senior housing inspector who by the way is who who has a certification um in Leed standard in New Jersey he he he recently completed the uh the uh the testing for that certific so he can do lead inspections which is great um so we have now a housing inspector and housing division sorry I what was that was me but you're what you're suggesting is our own inspector do the lead inspections because it's something that the landlord has to pay for it's I think it's like I think it's about $20 or it's like maybe it's 100 it's it's in the ordinance that that's on for tomorrow first reading I believe it's either $20 or $100 one of it's one of those two numbers yeah it's not the money that I'm talking about I just think it's odd for it would be an odd thing to pay someone from the city to do I like I can't see I can't see members of the public doing that we we actually I mean that's a state that's a state that we we we essentially copied the state statute um that that that governs all of this and we put that into the ordinance so that that's all coming from the state can you um director I I know it's not about the budget but can you send like a memo about this um so we have a clear understanding of what we're required to do and what the burdens be on our residents before we vote yeah sure that there is a memo on aella great I didn't see it yet sorry sure and then I just have one other question director as far as the the loss sus that are kind of a big drain on the um on the department itself are any of those lawsuits right for settlements are there anything things that we're looking at to try to get some of this stuff off our books so that we could reduce further costs as far as the legal cost I'm just I'm I'm really concerned about how much money we're spending for for legal across the city yeah yeah I mean it's in terms of litigation I mean I guess if I you know I I hesitate to talk about litigation in public um or or where we are and I don't need and I don't need if if it is or if it's not are we attempting that is really the question it's it's an acknowledged issue um it is an acknowledged issue and I I I will say that it's it's something that we need to yeah it's it's an acknowledged issue okay so let let's let's figure that out maybe a confidential memo or something like that that that would be great for us sure thank you thank you and one more from the public um the revenue from the parklets and The Streeter does that just go back into the general fund yes so it's not their question was like is it being specifically used for rats I think was I can't find it now but I believe that's was the question but no into the general fund no yeah generally speaking all of any are any application that are that are that are land use boards rent control board um any any of our boards taken um that goes to the general fund it doesn't go into our budget you know we don't whether if we if we increase fees to $10,000 in application um and now all of a sudden our our our department is now generating you know Millions upon millions of dollars in application fees that all goes into the general fund and our budget still we'll we'll still have a 1% budget compared to you know within the city any other council members thank you very much director thank you thank you we'll stop sharing now I thank you all for your time thanks director have a great night good night Chris oh wait wait wait come back Chris get them back I forgot about our public people okay oh you're still there I'm still here I forgot about members of the public so not like me uh Haney thank you council president Tino y the public they all rot in public um director thank you thank you for acknowledging your staff uh and the hard work you guys do day in day out um wanted to touch upon a couple of issues and one of them is while it's uncomfortable and I'm sure you guys have much better things to do with your lives right now um I just want to point out that the first reading of the budget failed and if if the severity and the seriousness of that is not understood I all I urge you to do is to go back in 2009 and see what what happens when it continues to fail to see what real pain is so while you're getting a lot of questions and a lot of the members of the public and the city council members are asking questions it's for a reason there's concerns on the cost of things of the overall budget and the willingness to work together together to get a budget passed so some of these questions may be tough and uncomfortable but they're necessary and I'd like to start out with the majority of your of your funds director are from property taxes would you agree the majority of City budget um I mean I guess that's a that would be a director Freeman question in terms of how the city budget is funded um but for sake of conversation sure yeah the city budget would be funded by property taxes sure okay are the property taxes regulated are property taxes regulated in in what way but they shall not pass a certain amount ever I mean it there's the uh there's an assessment and then there the tax rate that supplied for the whole that supplied for the municipality I mean that's a that's a taxation question I meant more of the the the limitation is there a limitation on the increase other than in a dollar amount is for Jason yeah I I I really think that the question that you're asking is is more for the finite the answer is yes okay so I do remember a time where there was talk of a 2% cap and I think it was Governor Christie that had but here we are we have a a 6% increase and I'm not saying it's not justifiable I'm not I'm just pointing to the fact that things happen and things cost more than people think and then that's coupled with a board of ed increase of 24% in a county that we don't know until I guess we will find out soon what that increase is or latinus or whatever it comes in at but if the majority of the money is coming from property taxes our our property s when someone sells a property is that regulated at all regulated and if someone sells a prop sell the property forever they want is that all all property be sold forever they want yeah it's a fair market fair market value sure okay can affordable housing units that are labeled you know for sale units can they be sold forever they want no no they can regulator okay through rank control would you agree that rents are regulated if they're subject to rent control they are subject to CPI or the I guess 5% cap okay so there are two examples right there that the the value of those homes where where property tax is derived is controlled either through rent control or through affordable housing controls and that the market rate condos and Brownstones and everything else could sell for whatever the market Bears so if you bought a brownstone for8 $1,000 and it's time to sell it you want to sell it for $2.5 million it's fair game and on the other side of that the city gets to tax accordingly you know through revals or whatever you guys ever you so often do to capture that increase in property value so then the next question goes into is market rate rent regulated no I mean that's I know that there's a statute or there's a something there's there's some sort of there's a there's state law or statute or case law of of um of uncontable of an uncontable rent increase um my understanding and again I'm not I'm not an attorney but my understanding is that that that level of what is uncontable hasn't necessarily been defined by the courts um but that's as well that's as far as it goes where that's as um much as uh it goes with regulating Market rent market rate rents so that's the exact point I want to focus on for Council Members directors and and director Freeman if the market rate just like the market rate units are the most expensive units and parts of the city it's not a far-fetched solution to think that the taxes correlated with them will be the highest part of the city also so if a brownstone is three million versus a property that's 400,000 that Brownstone should be paying a lot more in taxes and the same goes for the apartment buildings if an apartment building is worth 150 million or 250 million that's going to correlate to your taxes and the reason why I'm honing in on this is that while the city is very curious about this question and again I'm I'm not part of that case that's why I feel you know free to speak about it um I'm just a taxpayer observing it saying what happens if you win that case and what happens if these rents that you thought were Market need to be rolled back to something less than Market how many appeals are you ready for and how do you square this budget then if that's the largest part that you're collecting from you know councilman Russo just mentioned something very important um and and and concerning about litigation because again that's a large litigation case that I don't believe in my cut is accurately depicted in your in your budget and the legal budget I'm not not blaming you for it I'm just I'm shedding light to it so that we don't act surprised six months from now or nine months from now I'm sorry six months at the end of the year and and are screaming for you know emergency line items when when this is something that we should pay attention to now and if there is a way out of these things in an amicable way I think they should be looked at this based on the case that you're suing the city on no uh uh Council M I'm glad you chimed in because the first thing I just said is that I'm not a part of that case that this is the uh case for bazo and and uh grar and all the large manag about all the uncontrolled bu Apartments if they or the not that they thought they didn't fall under rent control and now some of them they're saying do are we getting somewhat a field of the budget here public meeting or I mean I I do I'm honing in on on that where that you're presenting a budget saying that your legal is going to be X dollars you're taking on these large management companies and you're purporting the whole budget's $140 million and that's that's relying on the rents that that are given in and that were increased and that they can increase in the future to pay for things that you're bonding for today I think it's a very relevant part you want to bond for a $100 million do Park and pretend that rents and and prices sales prices of of buildings and units have nothing and no beiring on that what you're saying is is that hey if we get less money everyone's taxes are going to go up for it and it should be something looked at and not taken light-heartedly or with some animosity these what I'm at what I'm what I'm bringing up are are relevant issues that that must be addressed Switching gears a second when we talk about your boards you know the zoning board planning board historic board you have X dollars allocated for them including for legal and the question I have to ask there is that and maybe you won't have the answer tonight but if you could bring it up in a meeting that would I'd appreciate it is how many of those board members are required to take courses and how many actually take courses at the league of municipalities and these other places where I believe the city reimburses them for it that's an important question they all are yeah they all are okay so everybody's up to par and taking courses and and I remember years back we found people in a Housing Authority that didn't take their courses and the reason why I bring that up is that I think if we spend a little money and maybe more online courses or or to try to help these board members navigate the process perhaps we could avoid some some of this litigation and for a course that may cost a few hundred dollars the other side of that is litigations that cost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands and now maybe millions of dollars that we're going to approach so if you can I'd like to see you know if it's not too late something that can help these boards by allowing them to take more online courses and and protocol and how to how to act in a public setting I think the city council does a very good job uh of it uh but they tend to have more experience so it's just a suggestion um if you could look into that I'd appreciate it because I think it would save the city dollar for dooll a lot of money down the line I appreciate your time no I appreciate that I mean Haney just uh historically as I as I mentioned um you know preceding 2023 uh if you look at the planning board zoning board line items there those numbers have always been um below the budgeted threshold and that's usually um just a it's it's a line item that usually comes in you know well under the the budget threshold um every year and that's and those line items are typically where um those types of trainings are provided so if a new board member comes in um there's uh courses that they need to take uh you know there's there's budget available for for for reimbursement so you know but I I hear your point um gener it's just again 2023 seems to I'm hoping 2023 was an aberration in terms of our operating expenses but your point is taken I hope so to iror I appreciate uh you know that you have control over certain members of staff that you work with day and day out and that some people are just out of your control they're volunteers and uh unfortunately we don't have much control there but I appreciate again you've answering the question thank you thank you Melissa Blanco well I spoke yesterday on the budget and I just wanted to um on the legal budgeting and um I hold the same concerns uh similar concerns with Haney and Michael Russo on the legal and uh we're not I I W to First just say that overall in the budgeting you'd be best taking off because because of these massive legal expenses um in this Administration trying to limit liabilities um that that would require a whole set of Competency but I'm going to move on from that and I just want to make a uh an impression on both the difference in budgeting and paid and I think it was painy and that's pointed out that we really haven't had a budget process because budget is your expected for the year and when you pass a budget when you're three qus of the way of the year it's based on paid predominantly paid not expected so I think it really needs to be pointed out uh so that there's not misimpressions especially around legal because it's not the numbers uh Chris that matter so much here but the Impressions that are left because numbers can be much much bigger to to Haney's point and to Michael's point they the legal does need to be segregated out and um and segregated out if there are multiple cases even to break them out but the fat so so the misimpression is you said okay well we had this um what you call it a unforeseen legal uh case and uh while that was unforeseen and you said I well I got a budget here um because we might have more but that's that's the DI that's the difference between paid and expected you paid that but that doesn't mean that that's expected what is expected is what you're budgeting and that expected on the legal um dress addressing legal specifically because they're uh potential very large numbers and have been historically May and maybe it didn't hit your department but the concept has to be there so in a budget that we actually do budgeting and not just pushing forward paid numbers that and here's an example uh Haney may have not covered the universe of liabilities that could be hitting your department but uh excuse me just a minute um but those liabilities that he did discuss are going to you can wrap your hands around it and analyze and figure out because I've had to do this myself on very large uh liabilities what the probability of that happening is and you look at you know you look at the the legal as good legal Minds will be able to help you with that you know well could this go into you know uh you know could this go into the tune of $10 million and what's the chance of it well is that a 10% chance and then you just multiply that by 10% but you've got to get have the uh advice behind you you can't just say well we had an unforeseen circumstances and the reality is that you know uh and this is an expression using disasters is that people consider mitigation to be mitigating your last event when the reality is you want to be looking look at your next events in your budget for your expected okay uh so that's it oh thank you I was gonna ask if you had a specific question thank you no I'm just commenting on the whole process you know because these are just all very this is a very fuzzy budgeting process that's leading us at 6% when none of it has a real Foundation okay thank you thank you very much Cheryl yes hi can you hear me Y and good evening hi council president I actually think I have questions like real questions I think um so director um yeah hi I just I'm I'm not sure 100% clear you're shifting an in a housing inspector into the department so the one position is not an inspector or is it potentially an inspector the it's to be determined my guess is that you know if I might am I thinking that it would be an admin position but um it's to be determined right now we will be we have a a housing inspector that's in the zoning office that housing that housing inspector is being is in the process of transferring to the housing division physically and on paper okay so when you say admin is it is that like clerical yes okay so the concept of the Enforcement Officers gone out of out the window we're not we're not going down that road in it it just gets brought up every year and it evaporates it sounds like it's evaporate well no I it just preface it with it's it has still to be determined I think it might be admin but it depending on the workload of the next few months it we the first thing is getting the budget adopted if the budget's adopted and and appropriates money for funding for a new hire um you know then we have a decision to make um I sure just based on the workload that's coming down the pike I think it would be best hiring an admin person since we've we filling the role of a housing inspector in the housing division um so that's that's that's that's where we're at with it but it's still to be determined okay and I didn't some of the other presentations had sort of achievements and potential goals um I didn't see them in this I'm obviously personally not obviously but I guess to you it would probably be obvious that I would be curious about the achievements and the goals in the housing division like in other words what affordable housing do we anticipate coming online and you know what what numbers of affordable units are we planning on ad to our Rost is there anything like that that you're aware of yeah I mean um when it comes to goals and accomplishments Community development's more of a long long range planning um generally speaking so in terms of filling potholes planting trees um you know how many tickets were issued how many you know this we don't necessarily um we don't necessarily uh delve in that sort of those sort of details um that's why I had those numbers up for the land use boards and our rent control office and our zoning office in terms of the numbers that that our staff is is turning over day by day um in terms of affordable units if you're asking me how many units are going to be coming online within the next couple years I mean unless there unless there are well there's yeah unless there are turnover in the existing set aside units that are that are within the city um you know there there someone could move out a unit could open up but in terms of new units being being produced well there's 38 Jackson which is under construction so that's that'll be 12 units um possibly some possibly later next year those will be um there any movement on the 56 that we and that that goes into that goes into discussing litigation and in open okay sorry I actually thought the litigation was over and it was just a matter of yes so okay so yours so far is the only department or division that seems to have litigation which then leads to the question part of the presentation focusing a lot on litigation do you think if you didn't have litigation in your department the way other departments in Hoboken don't have their litigation in them that you would be looking at hiring new staff or are you like in other words just this 80% of the o and a chunk that you feel could be inh [Music] inhibiting no no I mean no we don't we're not we're not holding back the reason why we hire new staff is to um manage incoming workload um if we have we're not going to sacrifice incoming workload to you know because there's litigation U litigation is handled by outside Council so or in-house counsel depending on the on the situation um so no okay so it doesn't make you uncomfortable that that there's this big chunk of money that because you feel that you're appropriately staffed with this just piggybacking on what councilman uh pres Zano said um okay and then I did have um let's see I think I have one more question here well okay this is not a question this is just signing off um earlier another director was commended for dealing with all the demographic shifts and just from my personal standpoint demographic shifts don't happen just by osmosis they happen based on how we legislate and where we put our energy and um while I think director personally director um Brown does a Yan's job here from my perspective yeah we there's I just see some things and the housing everything Redevelopment Housing whatever that doesn't seem to have what it needs like we just added like the rec director the rec underd director and the rec qualityy qual you know Visionary climate Visionary blah blah blah and we have all this e extran not extraneous I'm not saying it's not important but land use to me is like always the biggest thing and housing everybody lives in one or would like to be in one so um for the council's purposes you know I just hope that you give them what they need that's all I'm gonna say thank you thank you Cheryl thank you Manny yes council president yes you're are you able to hear me thank you I'm sorry I had to walk out I um yes um I have a question to the director um I'm sitting right now in a zoning board and to not to get into the details of what's happening but um two applicants have already come in and two applicants have left um in disbelief and with a bit of anger so um some of them perhaps will come back in Sue or do something towards the zoning board or whoever board my question when you are presenting your budget director this evening you say you have money allocated in the funds for all of these different boards and commissions yet if there's an extraordinary uh uh litigation like it was last year you assume that it then has to be budgeted otherwise in other place of the the the municipal budget here yeah your I'm sorry your your question is um since we had a lot of litigation what he's saying is like how if if we have an emergency this year a cost overrun yeah yeah do what he will do is either we'll have a line item transfer or we have an emergency appropriation and those go ahead no you go I'm sorry if you hear the that's okay I'm outside City Hall um the question uh the question is then if you get it from a line item from the other parts of the budget um how do you then balance those sides because you take it from somewhere where you didn't actually spend that money if there isn't money there that's when you would do an emergency appropriation so if there's a line item that we haven't spent all the money in and we can take money we do it every year take money from that to fill a line item where we are going to spend more money that's how we balance the budget at the end of the year okay at the end of the year we find it where or we do an emergency appropriation if there isn't any or if it's too much okay my next question would be thank you for the for the clarification everyone my next question i' be brief um again in the lines of what was asked earlier by one of the members of the public um the process here when you think of all of these departments and you look at who who's getting paid and who's not even in this case what I think if I saw that flies which I saw them briefly um that you're breaking even in this budget I'm not so sure but how is it that we can have more spending and still Break Even is it again that you're taking it from a line item somewhere else that was used this budget just presented this evening you follow that question no but no matter what we're required to have a balanced budget so we cannot be spending unless we're doing it if we're doing an emergency appropriation it's going into the following years or we're getting money somewhere from somewhere with somewhere else in the budget that we haven't spent the money we can't spend we can't just spend more than we've allocated follow that I appreciate it Council okay counc president I'll I'll leave the rest of the questions for a council meeting I have to go ask other questions in here thank you very much Mr director and everyone again thank you thanks Manny Mark vmar Mark hello can you all hear me yes good I just wanted to point out a couple things that I think are relevant to budgeting for the Community Development section and that is as you all know at least those on this Council who are here there's been ongoing litigation and and delay in the development of the western edge Redevelopment area which could have to just point out the magnitude of the um situation created over 100 apartments for affordable units which we're talking about other projects that involve dozens and less than a hundred this is a major could be a major increase in the amount of affordable units not to mention the ra ratables to provide the necessary funds to have the city of Hoboken not have such a large tax increase on the municipal level or the or the Board of Ed level I wonder if if the director could address what can be done to first of all to to put a magnitude of what that really represents so everybody understands where the city lost because of this what the judge who ultimately ruled that the planning board had been arbitrary capricious and unreasonable in denying our applications and then subsequently ordered the planning board to approved them and we're currently working towards that end I I'd like to know what the the city has done to budget those revenues before it improperly interfered with our applications I think we're we're talking about active litigation and I think this probably has to be done in closed session I I I I'm sorry Mr vmore I don't think this is an appropriate question if you have a question about a budget line item or something that's fine but I I am I'm actually asking what did the Department of Community development have as a revenue source for these projects before the city interfered with the the pro promation of again again you're asking a question relating to this relates to evidence in a case Mark I think I don't I don't I think the concern is we're in litigation with you right now and actually we don't even have corporation counsil on this call do we no no it's a public meeting understood I'm not asking about the litig at one point before you're asking about admissions excuse me excuse me I'm talking before there was a before there was a litigation there was a budget prepared by the department that presumably anticipated revenues from this project or these projects I'm asking what was what was that number I I know how to ask this question Chris if we have a project in the works or if we have a project that we think is going to be built do we put revenues for that project into the budget before the project is built no no so that's the answer well that doesn't make a lot of sense if you expect to have a project completed by a certain date shouldn't you anticipate the revenue from that project as well no in Municipal budgeting and Jason if you're here I'm you're not allowed to anticipate future cor council president I don't mean anticipate a Project's underway it could be you name a project in town it's going to be completed in 2024 surely there there can be anticipated revenue from that budget right Pro speak to a project that is not going to be completed in 2024 has never going to be completed in 2024 and therefore it is not being contemplated in this year's budget well actually if it hadn't been interfered with it would have been completed in 2023 and there's also costs exactly back to the topic it worse I don't think so thank you Mr Vore thank you madam James sorry I don't think I let there you go thank thank you Council um there's a lot of different parts of that presentation um but the director there's been about two years or even the last 10 years where the city's been trying to collect data on the rental apartments that individuals own and I don't understand why there can't be some data around it like you said if you knew the numbers you'd be shocked well tell us what you know I mean this is a black and white number and yeah maybe it's not completely uh under management as to the exact number but where are we because you have some people paying Annual fees and then you got other people not paying them and who's right and are you going you're it's like you're going after the people that are paying more than you're going after the people that aren't paying so where's the fairness and I I think it's the council that has to harp on this stuff because you guys passed the rules and the director has got his hands tied but the council's got to come back and talk about this week after week and if it doesn't work repeal it because everybody pays their taxes so $50 just kicking into the tax rate and enough is enough that's on the fee okay okay I don't know if the director wants to say anything more but we should really have figures here okay I'm sorry is that a is that a question question Do you have any more detail because you you answered a question from uh councilman prevan prano and you said you know if you knew the numbers you'd be you'd be quite surprised I mean or maybe it was Russo yeah I think I I think James I think well James I think you're referring to uh the number of property registrations versus the number of rental units in town I think we do have that number I just don't have it here like as I'm sitting here I just yeah we I mean you know if someone refuses to register how do you know that they're whether they are living in their own condo whether they're renting their condo out whether they've subdivided their two-bedroom into it's not if you go door too knocking and asking people who are living every single unit whether they're liut tenants or landlords and how many you know it's it's not a number that that the data is is not available you can guesstimate so my my as a as a resident I'm asking it be repealed because it's too intrusive of information and it's really you could figure out other ways to manage affordable housing and rent control without doing that it's it's really the big buildings that are that are um that are that are really going ape on raising rents and small landlords are not the culprit so you should go over buildings over eight units that that are owned by one person not not individual units of somebody rents a owns a place gets married leaves rents the place out that's that like you you're going after everybody and you really need to go after the big the big fish um so I I just comment about two other things um just to the general uh you know city council what I just hope you you find some Cuts because in the budget that's presented it's sheet 3B and you could write that down it's a very important sheet in the budget and compare 22 to 23 and after exceptions and and takeouts the budget is from um $6 million and it's and it was aund and sorry it's it's basically up $10 million from last year which is 99.7% on the municipal part according to 3B if you just take it sheet for sheet and now you've got judgments in there for $10,000 $100,000 so it doesn't make sense based on all the litigation that's going along uh so I would ask for cuts I don't understand what gives this Council the right for a 99.7% increase compared to all the other councils in the past also I'll ask you to nine to nothing repeal this odd bonding art uh resolution ordinance it's a we can't it was not it was an executive executive order it wasn't a council vote so we can feel it that's an interesting one but then do a 54 U resolution uh explaining that it's it's crazy um I'll leave it at that thank you thank you very much all right director Brown thank you and have a great night likewise you as well thank you council president members thanks director have a great night you too night director if I ask you to come don't I'm out see you guys later have a great night see you tomorrow L out are we having um director sharp two down one to go he's here uh listed as an attendee to bring an attendee let's see if we can find him he's coming in thank you evening director good evening city council how are you good um all right are we ready to go yeah okay give me one second while I share my screen okay can you all see see my screen yes okay all right uh it's almost nine o'clock we're in like a budget Workshop after dark hours so I'll try to go through as quickly as possible um so uh for members of the public uh I am Ryan sharp I am the director of transportation and parking for the city of Hoboken and I will be presenting on the 2024 introduced budget for the Department of Transportation and parking I will start with a department overview uh the department mission is to enhance quality of life for all residents visitors and workers in Hoboken through the provision of a safe Equitable sustainable and resilient transportation system and contribute to the economic Vitality of the City by effectively managing the supply and demand of hoboken's parking resources services and Facilities in terms of Department responsibilities we have eight divisions uh first we have have transportation planning uh this division is responsible for vision zero uh complete streets City bike and micr Mobility uh on call Traffic engineering contracts curbside management EV charging and more uh we have a signal and Traffic Division which is responsible for maintaining and constructing traffic control devices uh which includes traffic signals pavement markings regulatory signage and more um our mobility and Transit division operates the Hop and Senior shuttle services our Administration division uh does payroll management purchasing financial reporting uh Personnel matters and other general department functions our parking services division is is responsible for permitting licensing and customer service uh parking enforcement enforces parking regulations within the the public RightWay our on Street division is responsible for maintaining our 230 plus uh parking meters and collecting the cash and coin from them and depositing that to the bank and our off Street division manages the operations and maintenance of the city's five public parking garages and two surface slots uh here's a breakdown of our employees in 2023 we had 70 full-time employees across all divisions in 2024 we would be or we're proposing to have a A plus three uh net increase in full-time employees um that includes uh five additional parking enforcement officers um and uh uh a two person reduction in the administration division um one person uh will still be helping us but they will be splitting duties with the finance department one of our accountants um so I'm not technically counting them in our our headcount we also have the same number of uh part-time workers uh just two in 20123 and uh no change proposed for for part-time workers in 2024 here is an overview of our department or chart I'll just leave this up here for about 10 seconds and then we'll move on in terms of uh accomplishments in 2023 uh this is a list of a few of them um starting with uh last year was the seventh consecutive year without a traffic death uh in Hoboken on public streets and we also experienced a reduction in traffic injuries year-over-year uh in terms of safe routes to school we expanded 15 m per hour school zones to 67 blocks to improve Street safety around schools uh the department was awarded project of the Year from I's met section for for the Citywide 20 M mile per hour speed limit initiative uh we were rewarded a 1.4 million uh tap grant for vision zero safety improvements to Upper Willow Avenue between 11th and 16th streets we're also AED 1.1 million through the ss4a uh program jointly with Jersey City uh um for multiple planning and engineering studies we will get onethird of that 1.1 million as part of our agreement with Jersey City uh we added multi-way stop control at five intersections uh resurfaced and added Vision zero safety improvements uh around Northwest resiliency Park on 12 13th uh 12 13 12th and 13th streets Madison Street and Adam Street uh we also uh re surface and added uh Vision zero safety improvements to Fifth Street near the little Le field and um we're we're wrapping up some final components of that uh shortly actually uh we completed our 916 Garden Street Garage Alternatives assessment study that is now progressing to the RFI stage um we completed the design phase of the Midtown garage Rehabilitation project which we hope to go out to bid for uh very soon uh we installed four new EV charging stations through our vola uh program including the first two curbside DC fast charging stations in New Jersey uh and we had a record number of EV charging uh EV charging sessions on our public stations last year we AED a contract to kimley Horn to develop the city's first ever curbside management plan uh we're now rebranding that to be uh a um curbside mobility and parking action plan uh we implemented a discount metered parking price pricing program that gives residents a 50% discount on meter fees in business districts we launched a body warn camera program for parking enforcement officers which was a first of its kind uh program in New Jersey uh we expanded City bike um and we had record breaking ridership uh going all the way back to when Bike Share first launched in 2015 we actually exceeded 1 million rides in Hoboken uh since the launch of the city bike program in May of 2021 for perspective we had about 600,000 and change toal rides in five years uh as part of the the Jersey bike program we also expanded daylighting uh to 50 additional intersections to improve safety for all modes of transportation and as a whole our department had a a record-breaking year for Revenue uh some of our 2024 goals includes making uh significant progress on completing the curbside management plan uh contractually uh that uh is expected to be completed um in early 2025 but the majority of the plan will be uh completed uh in 2024 so that's why it's here uh we'll be kicking off the redesign effort for uh safety improvements to Upper Willow Avenue and also including some scope uh as well for the 14th Street Viaduct since you have um that interconnection at 14th Street in Willow Avenue you can't really redesign one without impacting the other Corridor uh we're wrapping up the Federal approval and authorization process for the Sinatra Drive redesign and are expecting to go out to bid later this year uh Court Street we are we are wrapping up that design process and hoping to go out to bid sometime in the summer uh we're looking to break ground on the design for Castle Point Terrace Rehab uh hopefully um in June and uh reconstructing 15th Street West of Willow Avenue through Municipal Aid uh Phase 2 restoration and complete streets uh that's the wiu phase 2 water main streets um that includes Madison parts of Madison Street Grand Street uh Jefferson Street um Adam Street 8th Street 7eventh Street and Sixth Street um so we just awarded a contract to engenuity to go through design um for for those streets to to restore them and add safety improvements which we do as a standard for all such projects uh 13th Street from Willow Avenue to 3 Street uh resurfacing and complete streets improvements that's Municipal Aid 2024 uh funding behind that uh completing an engineering study for multi-way stop control at 10 additional intersections it doesn't guarantee that multi-way stop control will be warranted but uh it's part of our annual review of um intersections that come in as a request from the public or through internal um prioritizations uh we are aiming to launch a mini roundabout pilot program something recommended in our vision zero action plan uh we are expecting to take delivery of two new uh electric hot buses that we hope to put into service this fall uh we're looking to launch a flex zone an automated curb management pilot program kind of in in a parallel track with our curbside management plan uh [Music] we are looking to break ground on construction of our Midtown garage Rehabilitation um award a contract to a private operator to rehabilitate the 916 Garden Street Garage um launching a new online permit system uh expanding daylighting to 30 additional intersections we're looking to add a minimum of 10 new EV charging stations through our volto program uh we're currently in discussions with the HBA to partner on a joint effort to launch a digital parking wayfinding pilot program uh we're looking to expand bike parking across the city by adding at least 50 additional uh bike parking spaces uh we will be aiming to improve compliance in terms of ebike sidewalk riding uh and last year our on call Traffic engineer developed a new truck route uh plan and this year we're looking to roll out the extensive signage that's involved uh with with that new truck route plan and lastly developing an e an EV incentive program we're looking to use kind of our unique leverage as a uh an organization that gives out permits and and controls a lot of fees in the public right of way to try to incentivize additional adoption of electric vehicles getting to the actual numbers now the uh 2024 budget introduction uh our 2024 proposed budget is 21 .3 million essentially it's a flat budget uh from uh 2023 and it's a little factoid uh about 31% of our budget would be uh a surplus transfer to the city's general fund uh in terms of how the budget is broken down by Appropriations and by revenues um on the left of the screen here this piie chart shows by appropriation uh about 56% of our budget this year is actually uh non-discretionary spending that's things like uh Group Health uh Debt Service um the transfer to the city which I mentioned is $6 A5 million doar this year uh and uh statutory expenditures like pension obligations uh in terms of Revenue um this chart on the right kind of shows our different kind of core areas of business and how uh that impacts our our budget each year uh not a whole lot of change from this year to last year uh but most of our revenue is expected to come from garage and lot income about 40% uh and meteer income at about 33% so combin you're looking at about um three4 of our Revenue coming from those two sources uh in terms of Appropriations uh our actual uh specific budget number they were introducing is is a total of 28 21, 282,000 again essentially flat uh from the 2,250,000 that we uh introduced and had adopted last year uh we have a small increase in salary and wages um this partially rolls in um some additional uh salaries that uh are effectively shared through the city that the parking utility benefits from um so uh you know imagine if you had uh you know a percentage of um you know Finance salaries and ba salaries and things like that that uh we are benefiting from and keeping us from having to hire these people uh separately um so it makes sense to kind of have some of those costs allocated with our with within our department as well so that's that plus the additional uh parking enforcement officers that I mentioned a few slides ago makes up for uh the 7% proposed increase in snw our operating expenses are mostly in line with inflation uh uh we have group group health in increases that are in line with with with uh the city um our the good news is our debt obligations are going down pretty substantially this year so that's good news um there's been some recalculations in terms of how uh our statutory expenditures are are estimated each year and so this is a more accurate uh number we think compared to 2023 um which is why you see a slight reduction there our transfer to the city is flat again 6.5 million uh just like last year and uh deferred charges relating back to uh you emergency covid funding um is being phased out and is now only 11 15,800 uh in terms of revenues we're anticipating 2 million in Surplus anticipated so we're down 200,000 from last year um our garage and lot income we are proposing a 15% reduction uh largely because of the Midtown garage Rehabilitation project we're trying to estimate uh potential Revenue loss from having that project under construction for a certain number of months this year um there will be some parking spaces that will not be accessible so we have to take that into account and be conservative with how we budget um for garage and lot income meter income we have a big increase of 25% this year that's based off of uh what we realized in Revenue collected last year about $7 millionar in meter Revenue um largely because we increased the meter rates last year um and in terms of permits uh we expect a slight increase in uh permit Revenue this year um we did better than expected with temporary no parking signs last year we have a few construction projects going on right now that um kind of in our our temporary no parking permit numbers a little bit uh there have been multiple film shoots as well um so uh that plus a CPI increase for Resident permits um of only a couple dollars uh combined um gives us the confidence to go a little bit higher at 3.5 million this year miscellaneous Revenue was down slightly but that's hard to predict year over year so uh we're trying to be conservative there and that concludes my presentation thank you very much thank you very much director council members questions Paul I mean councilman pres thank you uh council president um thank you for the presentation um I have a couple questions yeah and I don't know if I'm still baffled on this accounting I'm going to call it a trick a gimmick I've never seen anything in my entire life unless I'm unless some new stuff has come out that salaries from Administration and the council are kind of pushed into yours because then if that's the case then our salaries in the council should be divided amongst everybody in every single um every single Department which they are not so I find it very strange that some of the council is pushed into here into a revenue producing um uh part of the government um it just seems some I'm just stating the fact of how I feel I don't I this doesn't seem correct to me in any sense of the imagination I'd love to see the new accounting for this because maybe I'm too old but the accounting trick that I learned that wasn't one of them so just you want me to address that or you we can do that another time yeah we can do that aside I just want to bring that up because I just it's still one of these things stuck in my head I yeah no I just want to be clear it's not a trick and the reason you don't see it throughout the other divis departments is because the parking utility is a utility unto itself so the water utility and the parking utility technically are separate budgets um so when you look at Administration salaries or City Council salaries they are in 80% of them are in the general fund 10% would be in hpu and 10% in the water utility because those are technically separate budgets yeah I I still anyway it is what it is it's not the end of the world I just want to uh bring it up that I just don't like it um that's the personal thing and it is what it is so let me get on to the thank you director Freeman I we can talk offline I don't want to take any more time up but we spent a long time here tonight um the question I have here is that we had a record year which one I'm not really proud to see that you said we had a record year because I would love to know and we could talk offline about this that that record year was due to visitors was it due to street cleaning was it due to banging a residence pretty hard on things so I'm not really happy to see something like that I mean yes the revenue is great but if it came at the expense of our residents that I expressed some concern there if it's we had a Rec by the way if we had a record Revenue why are we only transferring 6.5 million we should be transferring seven or eight or something more than that um just making some statements here um with our debt obligation down um we still see some of the cost going up um in if on your presentation on on salaries I know you mentioned that you were looking to hire a few more people uh some of our costs will be down due to the garage construction and things of that nature um you know with salaries going up and a debt obligation going down it's not really it's not fair to say that you know our budgets I mean yes you could say our budget's flat but the debt obligation went down just by the the the um the the what's the the schedule I guess you could say of uh of how the debt service is being handled um I would like to know and again if you could break that down for me that why are our revenues uh the pop end here and record-breaking and and if it is due to street sweeping uh I I have I definitely want to express some concerns there uh because that deely directly impacts our residents it's a a regressive tax and it's not fair to everybody so if we are if that's where we're getting our record numbers that that's a massive concern for me um uh going forward so I mean I I'm I'm I'm happy you're making money yeah go ahead Ry I will I will uh address your concern very very quickly none of that revenue is ticket Revenue ticket Revenue goes to the courts we pay all the money for uh the costs associated with parking enforcement we get none of the revenue we're disconnected from that that 100% okay so all right this is a good thing it means that we are being efficient with our operation it means that we are uh maximizing the revenue that we're bringing in through the various products that we are selling um and you know essentially you know this is something that allows us to make these large uh you know Surplus transfer Surplus transfers to the city to help uh you know pay for a lot of the services that the public is asking for the council's asking for and and so and so forth um so so okay that's why I think it's thank you for correcting me yes thank you for correcting me on that um I always spoke out a turn my but my question would be is we raised okay so that goes back to the thing we said we raised the meter rate and um is one of my next questions we raised the meter rate we hit the uh highend um again why didn't why wouldn't 6.5 if we're hitting efficiencies why did only 6.5 transfer and that that would I mean if we have a record year I would expect record transfer uh and maybe you could clarify that for me I mean it comes down to a few things uh one you know as I mentioned earlier uh because of that transfer largely and a few other expenses that we don't control almost 60% of our budget this year is non-discretionary right so you know the the amount of that pie that we have that we can actually use to provide services to the public um you know continues to kind of shrink a little bit right every single year because of those costs um but the really the big player here is that we're kind of up against a moment in time where uh a lot of our assets are kind of coming due at the same time for major major maintenance um so one of the good things is that our debt service numbers are coming way down we have you know pretty low Debt Service numbers and and our debt service repayment schedule is is going to pay that off soon right so that's a good thing so we we're kind of building in some capacity to take on more Debt Service going forward and we're going to need that because of you know major projects like the Midtown garage Rehabilitation right we are estimating the engineers estimate for that is over $30 million um so you know we need to have capacity in terms of our Surplus um and kind of in terms of you know kind of what we uh you know kind of budget for as you think about the future right not just this year moving forward but we need to regenerate our Surplus and have have some buffer there so that we can pay down that Debt Service once it begins to spike over the next couple years again um so you kind of combine those two things and and I think that's why uh you know my opinion at least we need to be a little bit more conservative here uh you know I mean it' be great to give you know more money uh in the Surplus transfer but it's a significant amount um it's the most we've ever given uh you know TI tied with last year and I think that you know there are difficult conversations about kind of how to use that money and and how much is is the right amount uh so that it's not too much uh to bear that has a negative impact on the services we provide and you know our financial capacity to pay for really important state of good repair infrastructure projects okay one one last thing I'm going to make a statement you could say yes or no to this I don't know if you're going to answer it so essentially cars help fund that $6.5 million surplus so if we were to cut down on parking or things of that nature then this surplex number will be lower is that a is it yes or no uh it's an oversimplification so but again if I'm looking at this and I was corrected meter income permits garage lot income if we have less cars in the city that means we have less Revenue coming out of your department yes or no I mean it depends are the cars just driving through are they stopping to stop stop I know your question Paul sorry director yes if we have less people parking at our meters we're making less money if we have less people residents buying permits you know if those car numbers go down we're making less money but if we have more cars in the city and not all of them are residents none of them are parking at the meters we're not it's I believe it's fewer fewer carser people yeah all I'm saying is is a complex system that we have in terms of surface transportation and how they're allocated and and where they're parking you know garage versus on the street and the cost associated with traffic congestion I mean it's very complex I understand kind of you're looking for a simple answer and uh you know the There's No Agenda here to reduce the number of cars I can assure you you can it's right here in the budget council president yes director yes Council yeah it's getting late thank you thank you council president uh director a couple things uh what What's the uh what's the overall Revenue in dollars anticipated for this year's budget yeah about 21.3 million okay um if you if you don't mind going to your goals for the year yep there you go yeah there were there were a couple things in here that um that I just wanted to address like uh you know expanding the daylighting you know uh reducing um or or adding uh additional EV stations in in all of that we understand that that there's only so much real estate in the city when it comes to our on street parking um with those anticipated changes do you un do you know the number of parking that we're looking to reduce Citywide with those changes on on street parking I should specify uh well the daylighting program has no impact on on legal parking right it's just simply uh you know keeping cars from parking Within the corner clear zones right so I I would say zero there for that for EV charging stations um you know it's repurposing it's a different kind of parking but right you're talking about you know resident permit parking you know um you know each station is the equivalent for the Volta program of one space okay and they're distributed you know usually in in groups of two uh you know for reasons of you know economy and efficiency for Electrical uh infrastructure so you know our goal for that program is to have an EV charging station uh within a f minute walking radius of all Hoboken households so we're trying to distribute them in a way where you don't have a cluster uh in a disproportional impact in one street or one neighborhood or one community and everybody still has access uh to the EV charging stations um yeah and I I agree with you wholeheartedly I I mean I think and we've talked about this offline uh I think we should expand that program greatly um the reason I ask is because we kind of do this we kind of do this guesswork like year-over-year right and we've talked about this as well in the past about allocating specific spaces all across of our all across our streets right like um you know I always use the shore as the example you go down the shore you park between the two white lines you know that's the parking space you pay that meter you kind of move from there it also gives us as a municipality the ability to know exactly how many on Street Park um spaces that we have how many of those spaces may want to uh change to um parking for those with disabilities how many of those spaces may change for uh shortterm uh drop offs or loading zones right so I think it gives us a little bit more to kind of sit down at a table and allocate those things accordingly do we have any plans this year to start implementing that or is that still years away uh I'll kind of answer your question in two parts one I have good news for you the curbside management plan is right now we got a we got a demo of it today part of the scope is digitizing every inch of curb space and Hoboken beautiful so we are gonna get a map we're finally getting there we're getting there visually but this is in honestly like this is something that is is is Cutting Edge for uh public parking agencies across the country so um we're going to have a map a public facing map and an internal map that will show you all the different curb regulations colorcoded we'll know exactly for every different type of of Regulation and parking type the exact number of spaces the exact amount of linear feed that we we have allocated to that space um and we'll have a way to go in and and update that every time city council you know adops and ordinance change right so that we keep it uh from going stale um so it's one of the cool things that will come out of that plan and will help us be more informed with our policy making and I'm I'm really excited about that yeah yeah we've been talking about it for at least five years I mean that's very cool yeah it'll be very cool and it'll be a good foundation for many other things that we want to try out directly yeah and and on that point I mean we talked about this as well uh trying to do that that wave finding right that digital wave finding where there's a sensor in the curb we know exactly you know is that it might not be in the first phase of that but are we talking about kind of those types of enhancements into the future yeah so uh kimley horn is so there's a couple pilot programs that we're trying to do while they're under contract they can help us a evaluate and kind of scope out the the pilot and and be evaluate the vendors right and and and on this list on the right side of uh of the page it's really the first one the top one the flex zone automated curb management pilot right about halfway down the screen it's the uh parking wave finding pilot program with the HBA um the one that you were just talking about is the the wayfinding program right and that one is similar to what we talked about a few years ago but a little bit different where they actually use um now now kind of the best practice is an overhead mounted uh camera or and uh there's some really cool Tech out there where um instead of just relying on a mobile app which has pros and cons right you don't necessarily want to have a vision zero program and then promote people to be staring at a phone screen looking for parking um they actually have a signage that can be mounted as well on poles um overhead that gives you a realtime digital display of the number of parking spaces both on street and off off Street okay so I think it has a lot of potential it's something we want to Pilot this year and we're talking to the HBA right now about it um but there are some Technic technical considerations we have to work through on it but you know we're trying and we we to be able to at least do a pilot in some size later in the year just one more on this slide um the uh new truck route y um are we eliminating Jackson Street as a truck route Street please tell me we are because north of Patterson Avenue yes it is going to be signed to heavily discourage trucks from going beautiful north of Patterson Avenue on Jackson Street yes awesome and then one one more policy question before I get into the numbers here um you talked about a lot of stuff and a lot of awesome stuff that that we're talking about here uh on the Forefront but the one thing that I haven't heard anything about is is really increasing traffic flow through the city right one one of the biggest complaints we get as Council people is you know there's another Street closed we're doing more work on that one or I had to go around the block and I felt like I was in this endless loop like what are the plans for for making sure that we're flowing traffic through the city not only for those that may just be passing through because we do get a significant amount of that uh still but those but more specifically for the residents who are either leaving in the morning for their work or coming home after their work to make sure they're getting home in a Ely fashion yeah I mean in terms of uh you know programs to promote just better traffic flow and reduce congestion in general you know we have a grant through uh the CMAC program congestion mitigation and air quality um also the county has like a mirrored Grant effectively so we're working together right now um on that and that will optimize traffic signals in Southwest Hoboken where we have um some of our highest traffic volumes and our greatest delays right so um that's something that I didn't put on this list because it's something that probably won't launch until 2025 okay legit but it's it's in the works and it's you know in terms of just uh you know maintenance of traffic for the numerous construction projects that are going on at any given time that's something that we're constantly working you know with OEM and PD on to try to um you know find the best ways possible to reasonably uh you know alert people that uh you know there's a detour ahead somewhere we we've we've piloted mapping programs that we put out to the public um that show uh you know road closures as they come up um but they're kind of pros and cons with each of these approaches none of them are perfect and it's something that you know we're still exploring kind of the best way to go about doing that okay cool so let's get to the the numbers here and the dollar amounts so 31% of the overall um uh budget is being sent from the utility to the city right that's $6 and a half million do yes in addition there's 9% which is about another $2 million in Surplus right uh the 9% is is is Debt Service right well not right I'm sorry as Appropriations but as far as dollar amounts yeah that $2 million so so you're in essence functioning yeah with eight and a half million dollars less than what your budget right because we're n 9% out or $2 million is really Surplus and then 6 and A5 million is going to the city so your your utility is functioning you know $8.5 million less than what's actually budgeted correct well if you look at salary and wages and operating expenses right I mean that's it that's that's what we've got and that's you know less than 50% right so here's the question I have year overy year we're roughly around that 9% in Surplus right that that hasn't shifted much over let's just say the last six years uh yeah it's usually in that $2 million range but you know there's a dip for covid of course but um and we haven't had we haven't really had to dip into that Surplus correct over the last six years uh it varies the amount that you know we try to use as little as possible and continue to regenerate that Surplus you know for rainy day for all these Capital you know projects that we have what do we have total in Surplus now great question as an aggregate uh I don't have the exact number on me I can get that I can get that to you would you say it's 10 plus million no no less or less less less yes five million two million uh closer to five somewhere between two and five probably yes so about so you think about three years ago we kind of we emptied out that Surplus because I don't I don't remember I don't remember using it probably in the last five or six years so wasn't wasn't there one year we definitely did more than we typically did I can't remember no no I'm talking about specific to the parking utility oh yeah not the overall budget no no no we we again I I don't remember we may have used some more money when we were like you know going broke during you know 2020 because you know everything shut down for for um but other than that uh it's pretty it's pretty typ pretty typical that that you know we are conservative year to year we only use kind of what we need um so it has not we have not used uh you know for my recollection anything more than $3 million and it's always usually been under two two or less so that Surplus main is maintained right that that doesn't revert to the city after two years correct you're you're still holding that Surplus that that Surplus doesn't revert into the general budget no okay so could you do me a favor just offline could you get me that total number so we we could understand it and then if there was a big amount from the Surplus that we utilized over the last five or six years uh just include that as well you got it so I have a little different tack than councilman presen Zano we have six and a half million doll that we we're moving into the city um and I understand we have to we have to utilize some of it because we would be in a real world of hurting if we didn't but I think some of the things that we just talked about as far as the goals I think we might be able to move some of those things up on the timeline if in fact we utilize a little bit more money from that uh from that pool of money that we hand over to the city has there been any thought about potentially moving any of those those things up on that timeline or are you comfortable where we are and kind of moving those things at the pace that you currently have Set uh well this is a massive I have the the goal screen up right here and like e even with kind of the the limitations of what we actually have for our operating budget um you know this is a massive list of things to do um and it's going to take time to go through this uh so um a lot of this is funded through capital accounts or grants uh fortunately so we kind of have that to to buoy um the spending that we have available um just kind of the nature of our department but um look we I would always love to have you know more money and if I had more money then I could try to move things up quicker for sure but it also comes down to our our internal you know capacity to manage these programs effectively um you know we are going to have you know Midtown garage under construction this year it's gonna be a massive project rehabilitating 916 Garden Street and trying to do with private money um is is going to be uh something new that's going to be a challenge unto itself um you know a new online permit system that controls all of our lines of business basically so that's an all Hands-On deck project alone just those three right there right and that doesn't even get into all of the you know uh transportation projects uh on the left so um I I think we're pretty close to our limits in terms of our capacity our work capacity our labor capacity right now without adding more um more new hires to kind of help uh move things along uh in parallel with additional funding if we had it available if that makes sense okay I appreciate it thanks director that's all I had council president thank you councilman any other council members Haney Ryan you could take uh director sharp you could take the screen down if you want sure thank you uh council president gtino thank you um I want to first start by uh thanking uh the director um I think Ryan has done a great job with this budget and uh I'm glad to see that you know working in conjunction with the HBA uh in terms of demand meter pricing uh was able to result in in more revenue for the city um to implement more projects uh one of the things that I just heard you say director was that if you had more money you would do more things um is there any reason why that six and a half million is was last year six and a half million that you're given to General funds and it's six and a half million again are you being asked to do that forced to do that or uh I mean that's just part of the budget process uh there there are calculations made by you know our finance office to try to make sure that we put forward forward a balanced budget that meets policy objectives of the administration and so um you know6 and half million dollars is is is the number okay um we'd be remissed if we didn't take a moment to thank uh our former mayor Steve Capell who's now deceased for building these wonderful garages that are generating so much money the only issue we have is that it was so long ago that director sharp now is left with the uh issues of maintaining these garages and and bringing them up to speed with respect to the 40 million that you have in the budget uh for the hospital garage um how how much has that affected your budget has it not affected at all because it's straight bonding there's been no impact yet uh there will be a Debt Service impact at some point in a couple years but uh there's no impact for this year's budget okay and while we're on the hospital garage if director Freeman's still on um that's a that's a massive cost for you guys that 40 million or 30 million wherever it's going to end up um you know it's not a secret and uh you know here we go again with legal um that the hospital is undergoing some issues and is the contract still in place for the the I think it was $50 a spot or remember was back in 201 10 2012 or something where the city agreed for the 99 years to give the hospital parking at some set rate can you elaborate on that what that rate is and is it still in force the rate is currently I believe uh $82 and uh that rate is paired with proportional increases to uh monthly garage pricing in other garages right so every time we increase the uh rates at garage b or garage D that leads to a proportional increase for the special HC rate at Midtown garage okay and I guess this director Freeman still on it's more of a question an opportunity if there is an issue with the hospital or if they declare a bankruptcy is is there an opportunity for the city to recapture that well below Market parking rate I think we have the ability and Ryan and Corporation councel and I have spent a lot of time going through different scenar IOS as we kind of see the different minations happening with the hospital that in the event that they no longer want to be in that Arrangement or we have to cancel that Arrangement or contract then yes those would turn to um Market parking but in terms of of straight uh budgetary impact I think the fact that we have a lock in rate and a guaranteed dollar amount that's coming from the hospital we would probably see and correct me if I'm wrong um an actual reduction in that Revenue if we no longer had that agreement in place yeah uh the third floor of Midtown garage is currently reserved for the hospital uh there are over a 100 spaces that are on that floor um so you know you have to make calculations in terms of um you know if not the hospital if not at that rate uh you know would you know how many other people would would would fill those spaces right and at what rate um but as long as the hospital is in operation you know um providing parking for the hospital I think is is is a critical service and it's a contractual service so um it's something that you know we're continuing to do now and at the same time as as director Freeman said we we're we're prepared for a change in the future if it happens okay I just point making a point that that is something that you want to maybe earmark some legal money towards because there's an opportunity I I don't think you'd have a problem renting ground for space over $82 anywhere in the city of Hoboken uh it's just something to pay attention to in case that opportunity arises because the last time we saved the hospital it turned out someone uh ended up uh monetizing it and and pulling that money out a different way for that low parking um with respect to traffic flow that Council Russo touched upon there there are two issues that one of them relate to the hospital hital um is on Third Street uh and also Fourth Street if those are the emergency routes that the city's dedicated um if there could be a study or even just informal um on Third Street below Washington Street there always seems to be uh a clog over there uh in terms of you know pedestrians popping up it's it's hard to see with and the steepness of the hill so it tends to back that street up um and the reason why I pay attention to it is that it is an emergency route so if there is a way to reduce the amount of cars from one side to the other you know for for traffic flow um that would be well appreciated and the other bottleneck that we're seeing there's two of them um that I hear about also from a lot of people um on the river along River Road especially in you know spring days or warmer days the city has budgeted and and used people in the morning to help the traffic flow um would it be possible to consider some other times uh especially you know in the evenings in the spring and and in the early summer where it literally backs up from Maxwell all the way to the Little League field and uh it could create a pretty unsafe situation for emergency vehicles if they have to travel along the Waterfront uh in terms of response time so if that if you could look into that and we could try to mitigate that in some way that would be appreciated um not sure how much room you have in a budget but I do six and a half see six and a half million there which Jason I'm sure uh wouldn't want to hear but maybe one of the ways to pay for that is by expanding the demand pricing um if we're having success with it in parts of the city it is producing parking I've seen it for myself um I think it's time to consider expanding that and maybe the additional Revenue could help pay pay for these things I'm s uh suggesting one of the other ones is Observer Highway which is the county road um I think that's a part of the bottleneck and I think we've had this experiment for a while now where we tried this one lane in one lane out I think it's time to do a study or at least you know it's been over a decade where eliminating the parking even if it's for certain times of the day like the city of New Yark does you know for traffic flow in the morning and the evenings where they don't permit parking uh between you know rush hours 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 A.M and maybe like you know 4:30 to 6:30 in the evening to try to help the flow of of a Observer Highway um especially as uh there's going to be more construction with elore going on there and uh I'm sure it's it's not going to be fun so if those things if you could consider them director I'd appreciate it in terms of Revenue and and spending I appreciate that you're bringing Big T uh Big Ticket items to the floor you know the bond and address rather than sweep under the rug and uh I wanted to ask do you foresee any other large ticket items in you know three million or more ballpark that um you foresee coming within the next 12 months uh probably nothing else in the next 12 months no um not not not not that order of magnitude but uh garage B garage D and garage G are 45 years old and um we we have hired uh an engineering firm to to complete uh a a structural assessment of of those garages and they're they're in better shape than Midtown which is good but um there will be repairs required uh so um it won't be anywhere near the cost of Midtown but um at some point in the next couple years there there will be some repairs that will need to be made there as well I I appreciate director that you're not afraid to speak about them and address them um again with the demand pricing if it could be expanded and I think one of the things that may help the public along with the council to be able to defend is when you could particularly point to something like if we do more demand pricing on Washington Street between blank and blank streets you could anticipate X revenue and with that Revenue maybe that gives you the money to reskin those garages fix the bathrooms and elevators and other things that you've been trying to do for quite some time but I appreciate your uh uh efforts and not being afraid to address these issues after decades thank you thank you we have no other folks signed up to speak motion to close sorry director thank you oh thank you all than you motion Ryan everyone take care thanks everybody all in favor I I I good night everyone good night good night night