##VIDEO ID:VDQ0FXxlK7I## e e e e e e e e e e for you be okay right so we're going to uh stand and uh salute oh I would like to advise all those present that notice of this meeting has been provided to the public in accordance with the provisions of the public meetings act and that noce was published in the Jersey Journal City website copies were provided to the record The norstar Ledger also placed on a bulton board in the lobby of City Hall objections if any shall be made to the city clerk thank you Mr frina I pledge alance to flag United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation indivisible andice okay roll call Mr B yes Mr con here Doyle pres M fiser here Mr Jabor here Mr President Zano pres Mr Cano pres Mr Ramos Mr Russo pres president Jee Tino G president okay thank you Mr um Mr f um tonight we're going to sus we're going to start by suspending the I me a little housekeeping note and then we're going to suspend the agenda to hear um it's cd8 right um first because there's Council here for that and um there are also two council members who are recusing themselves they're waiting to come in so we're going to do that first and we hope that's um well that's what's going to happen um this the housekeeping um there are four items that are being pulled uh the first three ordinance ordinances for second reading B 674 67 six and 677 are all pulled and gone uh also I believe uh c p p um what is it P2 oh it's in public P5 is being carried or pulled P pulled thank you very much director um tonight we're going to do something that uh we're going to try it tonight and actually see the public is is welcome to uh opine on that but the as you may know there are three public portions in each of our meetings one public portion is for second readings for uh ordinances and those are hearings that's what we typically start with um and then there's a public portion for Resolutions of which we have about 48 res resolutions tonight and then there's a third public portion for just general topics not on the agenda that the public may want to bring up to us and we the we typically have the third public portion with regard to General topics at the beginning of the near the beginning of the meeting and we are going to move that to right before new business at the end of the meeting because uh and as as I said this is not a permanent move but because um some like me believe that when the public comes and has an opinion to uh Express about something that will be voted on tonight and will impact them uh that should have a higher priority than as far as chronologically than uh a general concept that is not going to be voted on tonight at the meeting so so for those of you who are here to speak on a specific matter that should make you happy because you won't have to wait necessarily for the whatever the duration of the general public portion but at the at the after the first readings at the end of the agenda we will have a public portion which I believe we have done years ago in the past and so um so we're going to try that out tonight um so I hope and and you're all welcome to stick around and there's it's something that that I've been a ating for for a while and we'll see how it works and people can say it's a bad idea when they come up if that's the case so as I said we're suspending the agenda to hear a resolution cd8 because our council is here and the um thank you Mr Pina um and so we have a number of speakers uh will start I'm hoping uh uh yeah okay so I'm only going to be picking out the public speakers for cd8 now and then we will when this is concluded uh we will then go back to Second readings of ordinances uh and proceed with the meeting as set forth in the agenda which is on the de um so uh that being said Vincent Ferrera you have five minutes thank you very much Mr uh council president I think we have to get hoken a Podium maybe we'll uh get some tax Bay money on that um my name is Vincent Ferrar I'm from Chas and lella Allen and capuzzo we represent the city of Union City in the underlying litigation um I want to talk about this proposed settlement tonight that the council is set to consider and vote upon this action implicates uh a city of Union City Gem and something that's been determined by our court to be a National Treasure that's been intentionally preserved and that is the Palisades The Cliffs of the Palisades and that directly impacts this settlement will directly impact your immediate neighbors of the residents of Union City as well as your own constituents in Hoboken um I was reading an article from the Jersey Journal uh that Terry West wrote I think today or yesterday and councilman fiser aptly said we are at this point because our mayor changed his mind without Council support and now taxpayers and the residents of Hoboken potentially have to pay I couldn't have said it better and as was mentioned at the beginning of this hearing two of the council members have chosen to recuse themselves from the vote on this matter and I would I would rhetorically ask I hope they recused an executive session as well because that is a central component of the litigation that is purportedly being settled tonight it's not being settled tonight the resolution is misleading it doesn't settle the litigation and once you flip through the settlement agreement that was hastily thrown together here because the plans the uh amended plans aren't even attached this is clearly uh RAM roding being Ram rotted through and the two people uh that should be recused uh have decided to recuse one of which uh was in an apartment that was uh uh principally owned by the developer in this case there are text messages that I've personally looked at that we've gotten in Discovery about this case where they've been wishing each other happy birthday Merry Christmas Happy Thanksgiving sorry for your loss uh let's go get drinks after and all other sorts of things that you really shouldn't be doing if you're a public servant we also have a letter here May 23rd 2020 letter from mayor Bala to Mayor stack the mayor of Union City and you know what he says we want to be good neighbors and you have my commitment that not only will we work with you in good faith as the process advances but I will not sign any Redevelopment agreement until you have reviewed and are comfortable with the plans I hope this information's helpful what happened to that tomone where we're over here with 2 days notice on this remarkable settlement uh that's been ramrodded through without proper uh due process as far as the underlying litigation goes Union City intends to continue its claims which seem to be U further fleshed out by the recusals tonight and those Council people and other of you sitting here on the Das are going to be deposed in this action the it's not going away and it's not saving the city of Hoboken or the taxpayers any money and I want to quickly alert the public to some of the items that are in this agreement uh paragraph 4 section 9 the community benefit payments by the developer are going to be reduced uh at the there is no cost to the redeveloper to toit permit the amended project there's no variances there's no design exceptions there's no waivers needed we circumvent the planning board by the way I sat on a planning board in a town in Bergen County you might as well don't have anybody go on a planning board don't even waste your reorganization meeting filling those seats this agreement just supersedes the planning board uh it eliminates lead certifications you're going to have uh construction 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. weekday Saturdays federal holidays additional height uh there's so many things here no full taxes for 30 years the mo the most generous pilot program you can have uh why is all this why the change of heart by the mayor why the back door deal why an increase in height if this is good negotiating for Hoboken I'd want to see what bad negotiating looks like do you get nothing out of this deal for the residents of Hoboken or Union City And so there's been no transparency here there's been no transparency at all you should all vote against this uh partial settlement it doesn't settle the litigation do what you were elected to do as public service for your constituents is this why you got into public service to do this behind closed doors the Redevelopment agreement was done during covid people weren't notified of that so I would urge you to vote this proposal this partial settlement down thank you thank you very much Mr [Applause] ferera uh next up Cheryl phallic Cheryl you have signed up for three so if you would limit your convers your uh comments to cd8 and you can come back up later for the other two thank you Council vice president um it's a very packed agenda so if things that I'm about to put on the table are not accurate ignore me and if they are accurate please give them some consideration because I'm not sure like there's just so much on this agenda um I uh I was actually sympathetic I'm I'm not a development person as I think you all know under any circumstances but I was actually quite sympathetic for a long time that this seemed to be getting held up um and then there was all this litigation and then like more recently there was a suing of the city for hundred million or something like that and I lost all my sympathy at that moment in time because I don't actually believe in bankrupting the city um but with that said the thing in this that concerned me which I could be wrong about are we actually handing over city land for 300 Market un no please no we have so little land um I know that it would be 30 affordable in there um I also think that the council the whole city is very aware of um rental properties that are not rent controlled really gouging the tenants like crazy and this is a th000 units I guess 900 of which will probably be non-rent controlled um rentals and if the financials and the pilot agreement is set and you guys have no right to vote on it it's just done it's a 30-year pilot that's it no discussion no anything then I can't come up here and say Jesus God guys can we put some protections for those poor tenants or do we want nothing but transient expats from another country living here short term who don't care about the city and clogging up everything so those are my it sounds like there's a lot more that I'm just not familiar with but we have so little land I don't think we should be handing that over and I also think that if we're going to approve these massive stupid developments because of what's happened here with the corporate landlords we should think about negotiating some cap protections for any rentals thank you very much thank you Mr F George grafstein my name is George grafstein I represent 400 Palisade LLC um I'm just here to comment on tonight's uh agenda for the cd8 um you know I've been involved in a few uh municipal agreements and I've never been involved in anything that's just one-sided um I've had I've had the uh chance to review this agreement uh earlier today and I made a few notes um the the agreement um gives approval to unknown plans unknown amount of buildings that are going to be built on this site it gives away public property to be used as part of the greenery requirement of the of the building um it's allowing more height more density less open space the developer was granted this easement again as I spoke about um the the the lead certification is um being being uh excused um the the city is receiving less funding for the uh Community benefit um and they're receiving the lowest possible pilot payment so the city is losing in every monetary way possible they're giving away property they're allowing a building that's excuse me going to exceed the Palisade by some 80 feet um and I think that anybody that votes for this as it sits right now is doing is doing a disservice to this community and uh that's all I have to say thank you thank you very much [Applause] uh Leanne Schneider honorable president um and honorable Council men and women I am a neighbor I live in Union City I live in Palisade AV and I'm here with several other neighbors who this uh project will directly impact our our view how what we see when we're looking down at hobo um I was I I've worked in municipal government in a previous life and I was shocked when reading the plan that's before you I was like oh this city council's smart there's no way that they're just going to give away land not see any building details not allow it to be lead certified these are smart individuals they're going to read into this plan and say you know what the the residents of Hoboken deserve better we have um an extreme housing crunch all around us and every single um municipality that's in Hudson County as you all know and I'm sure you deal with it in many different ways from many constituents that are outreaching to you and we have to be all working together on affordable housing this plan does not do enough it doesn't do enough for the residents and Hoboken or the residents in Hudson County so I would urge you I know that you're highly um intelligent and are invested in this community to consider what's before you and what you um are leaving as a mark on Hoboken especially in this North northwest corner is that what you really want to see another high-rise development that is that's really not giving the greatest benefit to a community thank [Applause] you thank you Miss Schneider um Arthur m n where is it MCN my name is Arthur MN NIS yes I'm a member of the law firm Bey pavano um and uh just this afternoon we were retained by ucmh Tera Heights LLC uh in Union City uh at this point I'm not even sure how uh UMC ucmh got notice of this matter um I've I've listened tonight and I I guess I've heard that it was on two days notice that this is now on your agenda um I'm here to to both object to the project that's being proposed by these settlement agreements and also to ask that you defer any further discussion of this matter to give folks an opportunity to review this uh I looked at it this [Applause] afternoon so that it's clear my client represent uh owns property located at 504-6888 Palisade Avenue and certain property that is west of the viaduct the uh the partial settlement agreements that you're seeking to approve tonight regard a lawsuit in which my client was a third-party plaintiff as this Council may know the lawsuit was originally commenced in 2021 I'm not sure I see what the what the rush is is to get this matter resolved tonight for reasons that are not yet clear and to my mind are somewhat suspicious our client's lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed we were a third-party plaintiff along with Union City um I've admit that I've come to the party late I don't understand why that happened but our interests have been severed and they should not have been I want to to be on record on behalf of ucmh my client objects strenuously to the partial settlement agreements these settlement agreements call for 300 additional residential units and to accommodate that an additional five stories that's a lot of density that grossly exacerbates the reasons that ucmh brought the thirdparty action in the first place although your agenda has the propos list the proposed resolution the agenda does not State the general substance of the settlement agreements or even contain a reasonable summary of what those settle agreements provide neither the agenda nor the resolution states that portions of Madison Avenue are being affected or more to the point being vacated neither the agenda nor the resolution states that the height of the bill buildings is to increase by five additional stories I would also like you to know that my firm also represents an additional client in Sarah supermarkets whose Supermarket is located on 9th Street between Madison and Monroe they have asked us to review this situation as well they and their landlord were not aware that the street running adjacent to their building is proposed to be vacated as you can imagine this could have extraordinary implications for their business we have reason to believe there may be certain conflicts of interests with some of the attorneys but as I said we were retained today and we're still investigating that so in some I want to reiterate we object strongly to these settlement agreements I request that this matter be postponed to provide uh my firm and others to look into this situation to determine what is in the best interest of uh the people and the citizens of this city thank you thank you [Applause] Mr um Mr Solair I can't read you said c consent agenda do you wish to okay thank you um and P and Miss waiters you didn't sign up are you interest you just signed up do you have a okay thank you so that's it for public portion um no other speakers on on this item just yep uh any motion to uh close public portion motion second alls favor I I so Council council president councilman Russo thank you councilman uh I I might as well start since I think I'm the only dissenting uh vote here but I've been committed to this settlement for years at this point but that settlement was all inclusive that was for all parties involved there were multiple points during these conversations where I thought we were very close where all parties would be okay with a settlement agreement unfortunately that fell apart for different reasons I still believe that there is a good settlement to be had I just don't believe that these terms are the right terms for that settlement there are other options for us [Applause] we are increasing density we are increasing uh uh height we have the ability to defer those units over a larger portion of the city of Hoboken by having conversations with different Parcels of land being brought into this conversation those are those are ideas that I think were on the table at one point and fell off the table for what ever reason I think that's still a viable option I think we could do that I think we could rely on this particular developer to do things for the city of Hoboken that are of vital importance to our residents we could talk about building parking we could talk about building additional um affordable housing senior housing veteran housing I would most certainly rather write a check to help build 18 veteran house for uh housing for 18 homeless veterans out of the city's coffers then make this settlement and just allow additional height density and units on these properties I I just I am hopeful that we could come back to the table and and do that but I cannot support this settlement in this form I think are so many more options that will be not only good neighbors to other municipalities but excellent neighbors to our own residents in the city of Hoboken by fulfilling the needs that we continually hear day in and day out affordable housing senior housing veteran housing parking these are things that are major issues across the city of Hoboken and I think we're losing an opportunity to partner with a developer in the city of Hoboken that I know in their heart is willing to do all of those things on the projects that they provide we know it factually one of those one of the principal developers has taken money out of his own pocket to make sure that our veterans our homeless veterans have a place to sleep we know that they're willing to do that I wish we would go back to the drawing board and settle this in a different way but I can't vote on it in this form thank you thank you councilman I'll go okay F thanks uh councilman Russo is wrong he's not the only dissenting uh vote oh you weren't in the close session I'm sorry I wasn't in the Clos session uh so I think um a couple things one I want to clarify something that the initial attorney came up I did give that quote um but I think he he um misinterpreted or or misapplied it um I gave the quote because you know I think we all have to ask our question why are we even having this settlement right we back in 2020 the city council approved a building that was 158 ft tall had the uh I think we voted 72 to pass it at the time the mayor signed it everyone celebrated um we were going to build have affordable housing we were going to have for veterans and then something changed not the city council our view didn't change but a year later the mayor decided that he wasn't going to uphold his support of the project and he they put out public statements threatening the developer and he told a number of people that the reason why he no longer could support it was because mayor stack and Union City threatened to run someone against him for mayor that year right so for political expediency we're in this mess and let's talk about like financially what this means right so originally we had 158 ft that was approved we had um $6 million Community uh um benefit payment towards the swimming pool Community Center whatever we wanted to do um he pushed the developer and threaten developer to bring it down and he was not going to stand behind the 158 ft and now we're at 158 ft plus 50 ft right so now we're at we're not at 701 units which were approved in 2 or in um in 2020 we're now at a th000 units 300 more units 50 fet higher so way more than what the council and the mayor originally approved in 2020 right and the value of that probably $150 million upside to this developer and just so you know I know the developer I'm friends with the developer both of them I think they're great they've been given the absolute worst runaround for the last decade and they have completely suffered but we are in this right now where taxpayers are taking a hit on the community B benefit we potentially have a pilot that is not going to contribute money to our schools we have a thousand units on one property that are going to be built that are going to crowd our schools and just require a lot more services so a lot of of negatives that the burden that taxpayers are going to have to um take on because the mayor changed his mind that's why we're here anyone who votes in supported this tonight I I don't even actually know how the mayor can sign this because when you make a choice like that to benefit yourself that's questionable from a criminal and ethical standpoint so I'm going to vote no on this tonight I I actually think the council first of all I think the mayor should step down over this this is a terrible terrible deal for Hoboken and he's doing it specifically for his own benefit has done it for his own benefit and we as a council I actually don't even know how we vote on this and without understanding how the mayor can even sign it or what our potential um what our potential liability is for signing this to cover up the mayor's change of mind so I'm a no tonight I I I don't think anyone should vote on this tonight I think we should table it I think there's a lot more information that we need to understand before we move forward the one thing I will say although I appreciate everyone here from Union City Jersey City um Etc and I and I get it right um there isn't no one has a right to their to their views um we we have to do what we need to do in Hoboken we are literally boxed in and we have to work within our three dimension and so from a from a priority standpoint we priority we prioritize our residents I appreciate you coming out and it's important for us to hear the voices but we need to make choices for our community just like Brian stack needs needs to make him for his community mayor FIP needs to make him for his community so I'm going to be voting now thank you I I would actually like to move back into Clos session I have some questions um I don't know how we do this um well I mean we could throw everybody out well I mean I have questions that I you know that we discussed before and some of you want to make a motion or I'd like to make a motion move back into Clos session I mean I don't want to I don't want to prohibit him from getting the answers he needs right one way or the other so I'll I'll second the motion I just I'll second the motion I'll leave it or we can just table or we can or we can move it to the end of the meeting but then but then we have our Council col are waiting we have council members and we have professionals that will be hanging around which honestly it's it's your call Council vice president yeah I'm going to put right on you can we make a motion back me I'll make a motion to table at one meeting and we have we have time to figure it out we have a motion in the second you have a motion yeah we already have a motion to going to close session which has been seconded so we have to vote on that right yes so Mr motion to go back into Clos session Mr Mr con I I Mr dorl I Mr Fisher no Mrs Jabor yes Mr President Zano yes M Cano hi Russo hi I'm very sorry everyone wait Council uh council president really hold really really quick hold guys hold on one second one second one second one second Michael why don't we go upstairs to the second floor instead of making all of them leave the clerk's office it's crowded I was everyone can stay we will leave you guys stay good suggest well you won't have to go back through the metal detectors too next time get your questions ready for the first session he wants going into the's [Music] office where you sorry uh for the second readings the first three were one two and three but four is up [Applause] for e oh  e [Applause] I'll e [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] was so [Applause] you my e e ch e [Applause] here make difference we spe sorry to I just wanted like to interest that [Applause] she what we have e we go back forget about the Jimmy Jimmy [Music] come [Applause] C pleas [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] spe [Music] his name mention I meant reality which I hope he doesn't [Applause] [Applause] making a cake great what ingredients you going to put am I correct spe spe [Applause] God for [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] I e who was that nonprofit thing what resolution number was there [Applause] spe spe [Music] [Music] for e [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] spe spe you for you [Applause] th cont [Music] [Applause] told e [Applause] all [Applause] [Applause] [Music] just e [Music] [Applause] T she said w e [Music] e e [Applause] you guys spe spe [Applause] for e course for spe [Applause] you briefly I give me some good advice I think just like you I heard through the Great Vine hi ho what is uh what is this thing oh what is this thing uh we're waiting on think that was very nice got everybody think that was is he at the pizza par ready right there all right ready councils will now be back in session so do we have to vote to come out a close session or are we fine oh we did upstairs never mind okay thank you hope you all enjoyed your recess um no I we apologize for uh the delay I apologize so um do we have a motion motion to table okay motion to table is there a second second second uh okay call a vote Mr con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mrs Jabor yes Mr President xano I Mr Cano I Mr Russo I okay so we're we're tbling C d8 this evening and it will it will come back or not in the in the future at a future meeting so can you inform councilman ra Ramos come in okay so we're going to I Mr F can we let uh Ruben come in from uh we're going to let him know right now okay so we're going to take a moment to collect our group and I think we're going to be doing yeah I got wait for we're going to be doing a resol a uh declaration what's the proclamation for Ryan for Ryan yep Proclamation Proclamation Ryan sharp who's this Jen you want to speak about sign up she did sign I don't know council president yes I know we're I think we're waiting oh he's here so yeah we have a we have a proclamation do we want to get call up director sharp is director sharp here yes councilman Ramos is present thank you so who uh get this you yeah I that's what I'm suggesting I I'm happy to so where is this Proclamation I have it so we're suspending the agenda we can what are we doing yeah get up for you who was the first oh yeah you can hold it I have I'm gonna do it from right here I I don't I couldn't bear to stand next to you um thank you council president um so unfortunately um after 14 years director Ryan sharp is moving on from the city of Hoboken and I know he's very uncomfortable standing here this is not this is not not his cup of tea but um truly on behalf of the city um and and councilman Doyle can read the proclamation if he so chooses but but on behalf of the administration in the city of Hoboken um really thank you Ryan um I think that you have your impact over the last 14 years has been incredible um we look at the your legacy here it is one that has created a culture of safety that I don't think will ever go away and it has really made Hoboken a model across the country for what streets and sidewalks and Roads and how we share them all together um look like and really it it means I've learned a ton from you I think all the council members have learned a ton of you ton from you and we are going to miss you dearly um so I I I tried like I told you we're going to make this the longest council meeting possible to try to get you have you stay here as long as possible we're tracking pretty well so far um but in addition of the Proclamation on behalf of the administration um I wanted to present you with this it is just a small token that's really heavy um of of just our appreciation for you and the impact that you've made on Hoboken so thank you very very [Applause] much the microphone I um I'm ran I'm team when he was is it correct that you were an intern then or were you had you become an employee by that point I I think I was getting paid at that point yeah okay well um but anyway I there the proclamation is has got numerous paragraphs but I think the second which is the most General um whereas his tenure uh during his tenure director sharp has spearheaded transformative initiatives that have significantly improved the quality of life for the Hoboken residents including the national Acclaim Vision zero initiative which has made Hoboken one of the safest cities in the country for walking biking and driving um a number of other accomplishments have been listed here um you know he's he Ryan has been instrumental in the city's efforts to reach its climate action goals and uh recently launching the most expansive not expensive electric vehicle charging Network in New Jersey so um Ryan if you want to read the rest of it out I don't um I do all right well thank you very very much so we want to you want to get a picture and would you if you'd like to say anything Ryan you're afforded that opportunity uh do I have to okay speak all the time all right oh boy okay uh your touch the mic I can do whatever I want what are you going to do about it uh wow I mean uh I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to have served in this role uh in my previous roles for 14 years now I can't believe how time has flown um I'm very thankful to Mayor Bala and the city council for giving me the opportunity to have served as director of transportation and parking for almost seven years now um and really one of the things I'm most proud of is kind of the working relationships I've had with each and every one of you on the city council um you know even if we don't agree on things which often happens we found a way to collaborate and move things forward uh for the benefit of Hoboken and its residents time and time again um and I really hope that Spirit of collaboration continues after I'm gone so uh thank you for that um you know I want to say thank you to the directors and Chiefs that I've worked with in the trenches for years and years uh I I'm dead confident that hope oen has the best uh Municipal team anywhere in New Jersey period uh and I've learned so much from uh my colleagues and they've made me a better professional so thank you uh and lastly I want to thank uh my incredible staff uh really the the truth is a lot of them have the most difficult jobs in city government and they rarely get the Public Credit they deserve uh and honestly without without them none of the accomplishments that we have over the last several years would have been possible so uh thank you again to them thank you all uh I wish you all the best and yeah thank you [Applause] Ryan there's a box good that's very heavy right should call we should just call him everything okay I got it uh the next item of business we have a public hearing on the Cy 2024 budget and we have uh one speaker thank you Ruben this I don't know what it is so uh okay so um Mr Manuel Rivera Solair has signed up for the um for the budget the hearing on the budget if you're welcome to come up now I'm not really sure what we're voting on was there something new um uh yes councilman Jabor and council president gtino um earlier this afternoon sent a an amendment over um it was sent down to the state the state approved it at around 6 o'clock tonight and it was posted online by the clerk okay we have it I edit to the yes yes councilman president I think I think Council woman javor was actually just going to say what the edit was which is fine because she's probably clearer than me or more easily heard I was just goingon to suggest can you summarize this um it's one update relative to the amendment that was passed at the last meeting um with a 5 to four vote it adds $250,000 back into the health insurance line following a discussion um and a memo that was provided by the business administrator regarding concerns that were raised about that specific um area of funding and so in a conversation with council president um we had a conversation about coming back to the table to add um basically to split to split the baby um and to come back with $250,000 to address what was initially proposed to be a $500,000 cut um in the previous amendment that was voted upon so effectively that difference is just the only difference is it's the same amendment that was V voted on last meeting with adding $250,000 back thank you you can is there any document at all for us to see either a resolution or at all oh you you have it do you only have one copy okay I I'm I'm GNA go you finished that's okay uh I'm making it a rule for me I am not going to vote on any thing that I do not have in my hands going forward for the next three and a half years period I have too many I looked at something that I voted on that I thought I was getting the thing and some things were not Kosher on it for me so until I have it in my hands I'm I'm going to be a no vote but it needs to be in my hands if I'm going to vote I'm sorry I don't even have an email I mean the Thousand emails we've gotten on the two issues that are really hot now everything gets buried but I mean we should have in our hands to to read and to look through and these are numbers these are our budget this is our budget so again this was one change uh it was one change to address a memo that went from business administrator last last Monday counc Doyle yes counc president thank you I don't can you hear me yes yes great um it's 200 we've all been looking at this budget now for I can't tell you how many months it's adding 250 ,000 to healthcare it's the same budget you've been looking at it's an amendment to that it's really not that confusing and I will say I think my personal feelings about this um this has been a long ongoing conversation and I'm not totally happy with where we are at this point but in the interest of the greater good of wanting to put this to bed and move forward and have really constructive conversations going into the next year's budget process uh you know often they say a the sign of a good compromise is when everyone walks away feeling like they left something on the table and didn't get all the things that they wanted I think that's kind of the spirit that council president and I had in the conversations the many conversations that we have had in good faith over the last several weeks trying to get to this Appo to a point where we can all come to some agreement um it is not perfect by any means and I don't think all of us feel great about it but I think there's a point at which it is the end of August uh we need to move forward and hopefully people will put the same energies into next year in a proactive way rather than having these conversations going into September so so I'm guessing that means in in what's today the 21st is today 21st 21st so in 10 days we're going to start talking about next year's budget then 2025 I want I want commitment right now from this Council and from the business administrator that we will begin discussing 2025 September 1st of this year in 10 days 11 days so council president and I had this conversation and not to cut you off but we talked about creating an ad hoc committee to move forward starting in September and both council president gtino and myself have committed to being part of that thank you C Council vice president this question is actually for council president why why would we create an ad hoc committee when we have a finance committee um I want to make sure Committee of people that work that that have been focused on the budget I know that councilman pres Zano is actually on that committee anyway councilman Doyle is councilman Jabor you are not on that committee correct correct um but councilman Jabor has offered has offered I'm I'm actually just going after to people who have offered amendments so they clearly have an interest in the budget and getting a budget passed so I want people who are going to offer amendments working on the budget for next year that's why so the amendment that we put up for 2.9% does that qualify that qualifies you to be on them I couldn't hear that is it siing and I yeah I said so the the 2.9% amendment that Ruben and I put in does that qualify as being interested in the budget and could be on that committee did you just say can you be on that committee that's what she's asking yes that's what she's asking yeah yeah yes so so why not just change the finance committee it's a temporary I I get you it you know this is an ad hoc well we could change the composition of all of them or we could have temporary ad hoc Committee just a working group that's all to do with voting on the budget right now appreciate your thoughts andely take them as thank you very much so we still have uh a public speaker that would like to speak and thank you for indulging us Mr Solair but I think the context was helpful so good evening and thank you council president council president proam members of the public uh I know in Du of time I will try to be as quick as possible but um questions should be asked um again I appreciate the clarification for from the council but just for clarifications uh purposes and for members of the public to understand there is just one Amendment that's being changed this evening and everything else is what was agreed upon in previous meetings is that correct yes council president yes yes and the next question would be is when you discuss that you're going on committees uh these committees is it the whole Council as was just mentioned that many people wanted to get on a subcommittee of a committee um I know that that's not this but can members of the public in future also know when they can start getting information from for the budget for next calendar year thank you and that is I you back my four minutes okay thank you Mr Mr Rivera so um so that there no one no other members of the public have signed up to speak on the um the budget motion to uh close public portion motion second thank I all those I thank counc vice president yes may I ask um U director um I'm going to expound upon councilman president Zano's ask can we have next year's budget by September no or when we can start having the conversations but there's a lot of outstanding things that don't come until the new year we can try to predict them so if you remember back in my in the budget introduction presentation I listed our best assessments of some known things going into 2025 and some of our estimates we can operate off of that and that can be our starting point I just don't want to be I don't want any of us to have to be held to certain numbers that we know aren't going to be tried and true until the new year yeah listen budgets are predictions anyway right like so at the end of the day I think that I think that would be helpful for everyone to get that document so they could see it and then we could start working off that that would be awesome sure thank you I appreciate it thank you so Mr F resolution F1 resolution to amend the Cy 2024 budget all a vote the con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mrs Jabor yes Mr presen Zano no Mr Cano no Mr Ros I Mr Russo no president gtino yeah Jimmy uh M cantero was a no not a yes oh okay sorry about that no problem okay so uh F2 yes the amendment passed so so now F2 uh resolution to adopt the Cy 2024 budget and director this you said that the state approved this today is that correct correct so council members anybody or should we call the vote Council pres vice president yeah I'm just going to reiterate what I've been saying for years at this point I just think it's I think it's unfair to our residents that we continue to burden them with a tax increase year-over-year um I wish we would have made more amendments and changes but unfortunately we didn't so so I can't support you thank you council president counc president yeah Council vice president sorry you have so much gravitas that um I find myself in the same position but for entirely different reasons as councilman Russo uh this budget is um fall short of what we need we're going to underfund uh a lot of what we have uh our reserves will be depleted we're not even going to fund our health care for our employees to the recommended amount it was a shortfall so hope hopefully everybody stays pretty healthy uh that's dangerous right um while no one likes paying taxes the truth is our tax rate in Hudson County is the lowest you know it it's it's a fact it was in the New York Post and an unrelated article and and and and it was mentioned today in this room um so I think we're playing with fire here um I think we are settling when we shouldn't settle in this instance um and uh so I I can't support it Council yeah uh I am supportive of it um you know I think unfortunately it did take through August uh there was early back and forth and a lull for several months and then we came back to it um but the process worked out in a way where the council you'll never see the council adding money into the budget what you'll always see is the council trying to fight for the administration to tighten their belt you know do more with less um Etc and so that's what kind of we've all been doing um I think there was an initial amendment that you know said we want to tighten a little there was a second amendment that said uh that we want to tighten even more and this you know swung a little bit back but it's still um a lot lower than what was originally put out by the administration so I think it's um you know the best that we can do and I think taxpayers should feel good that Council m MERS are doing their best to you know hold the administration accountable for spending and try and keep that low I I disagree um I I don't I don't disagree with councilman quintero's decision or his view per se um you know the question is how much in our reserves is sufficient at a time when we're asking or you know people are struggling um with affordability issues we always have the ability to choose how much we want to keep in the reserves all over the place and sometimes we need to tighten that a little for the benefit of taxpayers and other times you know we might be able to have a little bit more in reserves so I just think this is the year that we need to pull some money out of those reserves and do what we can to keep the tax rate on the lower side so um I'm a vote Yes tonight and I appreciate everyone's work on uh finally getting to a budget that will pass hopefully thank you thank you councilwoman I'll go thank you yeah I mean when it comes to budgeting I voted yes on budgets and I voted no on budgets but one thing I've always done is always try and look for a compromise no matter what my position is I'm a yes Vote or a no vote I've always tried to to make sure that my voice was heard reflecting the constituents wants and needs and the reality is I would have liked something to be lower as well this this budget the tax increase to be a little bit lower but we have to land in a place to put Hoboken Hoboken On Solid Ground not Ruben Ramos On Solid ground but try to put our city in the best position possible and I think that we try to achieve that and as councilman Jabor said in compromises we don't always get what we want and you have to bend a little bit and this is I would propose zero and other things but we weren't get five votes for that here I feel comfortable we could get five votes and live in a place from there and make decisions going forward at this point in time so I'm comfortable voting at this point so I appreciate everyone's efforts and the conversations afterwards that took place after the the no vote last time uh we can move forward from here I feel comfortable thank you thank you president um go ahead sorry I'm realiz L first sure uh I just wanted to reiterate my thanks to council president getino um Council Ramos I know we had a couple of calls on this since the last meeting as well um I think people really did put a lot of time and effort into talking about different approaches and ways to get there um I agree wholeheartedly with the comments from councilman Cano I'm very concerned about the trend that we've had in terms of how we're getting to these settlements because a lot of it is reliant on Surplus that the city needs for our own Financial Health uh and I continue to be concerned that we're painting ourselves into a corner with how that is being utilized um I will celebrate the success of the council having added a couple of places we do add sometimes money back in um and so the rent control office in particular I know has the benefit of adding some additional funding for more staff there to support some of the initiatives the administration is working on with respect to rent control um and also uh an amendment that I had suggested regarding a youth services coordinator um so we can expand our Recreation programming um for the Youth of Hoboken uh we need to do more to have uh more broad programming that goes beyond Just Sports programs um to really meet meet some of those kids where they're at and uh workshops like the one that was held this summer I think were really successful um in engaging kids in more of an art and cultural approach um so I just want to thank everyone for being supportive of those amendments because I think we all came came together in agreement on that and uh I'm hopeful that this will go forward tonight so that we can move and turn the page to 2025 thank you very much councilman pres z um I feel as if people don't just blindly say let's put the budget up let's keep cost going up let's keep looking at this let's keep doing that and nobody in the word has used the word cut we can cut we just have to do our when you're in when your boss tells you you can't have this in your budget what do you do when you can't afford to buy a steak or a lettuce if you're a vegetarian I I'd be fair to everybody you cut back we haven't done that you know I've been accused of being a uh pencil counter which I thought was really cute tonight when the business administrator gave me my ID that I've been asking for for N9 months and put three pencils in the envelope that's the professionalism that I'm dealing with when I'm fighting for this I'm a no vote because we should be cutting our budget and we should be doing the right thing by you guys president uh just a quick question pres what does this bring the overall uh tax rate to 3.8 3.2 no the overall uh let me get that give me a minute I can get that 3.2 like 3.2% increase you say 3.2 she says 3.8 sorry you want municipal or County school and well why don't you why don't you give me give me the municipal since we don't have a consensus on that and then the overall the overall impact on a taxpayer for municipal was 3.4% 3.4 for municipal so you're both wrong go go ahead and then what's the over I have to I have to get that one for you give me a minute thank you and you can give it to me offline that's fine it's lower thank you Council I appreciate it councilman Cohen thank you uh councilman doy so uh you a few people have said that this is a compromise I I I am concerned that there's an expectation that uh going for 0% tax increase is normal when the costs of operating the city of Hoboken are not going down our pension costs I think we're up 21% we want all of our Public Safety people to get the pensions that they've earned they deserve it it's in their contracts we agreed to it uh our Union contracts are not 0% increases and they shouldn't be because the people who work for the city of Hoboken deserve to be fairly paid uh so while it's good politics to say that we should never have a tax increase it does not match the reality of what it costs to live in this world prices are going up for everything for all of us it's true for the city of Hoboken as well so I think that it's important that when we look at our budget that we have an honest appraisal of what it cost to operate the city of Hoboken uh you know you can talk about the importance of having Cuts but you can't cut pension benefits we it's not you cannot cut the utility bill you cannot cut insurance premiums you have to pay them that's that's just the way it is you have to pay for garbage collection so I I think this idea that the way to get to fiscal integrity and to and to help our taxpayers is to rate our surpluses is wrong it's wrong it's just because those surpluses protect our excellent Bond rating where we need to borrow when families don't have enough money for things what do they do they put it on credit cards they borrow that's how families operate okay as a municipality we can borrow at preferred rates and we do it when we need our new Mobile police van in the in the Housing Authority when we need to have a resiliency Park to protect us for the long term we Bond and because we've been responsible and had responsible Surplus for many many years we've got an AA plus rating which allows us to borrow at preferential rates which helps our taxpayers I fear that the budget that on that we're voting for and I I'm I'm voting for it and I I think it's the right thing to do because we've had this budget since April and we need to move on to other things and you know I'm I'm for this but I think we need to continue to act responsibly and I think the trend of rating surpluses in order to make uh press releases is wrong and I think it should stop thank you president I'm sorry I I do have to address just one point I I love the analogies I love the analogies and I love when we cherry pick the the pension payments and the Union contract but the reality is for every working American family they don't have the ability to go into someone else's pocket like the city of Hoboken does in the form of taxes that's the difference here that's what we're talking about and when the prices of milk go up in in the city of Hoboken and across the country a family has to make a choice the difference there is the city doesn't make the choice to go to the store brand versus the popular brand we never do that we didn't have to we did not have to vote on a $7.5 million contract for our garbage pickup we could have explored other options we could have bonded less Through The Years there are so many other things so I I just want to make the point that the analogy sounds great but we need to talk about all the factors involved the city of Hoboken has the ability to go into everyone's pocket the average American homeowner the average American citizen doesn't have that ability they have to work within the means that they have and I think that's councilman president Zano's point where sometimes we might have to cut things that's it Council thank you um I would only add that I would like to thank councilwoman gatino and Jabor and alphabetical order for uh for working tirelessly on this effort to to finally come to resolution Mr finina call a vote Mr con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mr Jabor yes Mr preso no Mr Cano no Mr Ramos I Mr Russo no president gtino yeah ordinance for hearing hearing onance F3 is removed yeah hearing on Nots amending to Oben city code chapter 192 parking for persons with disabilities we don't need relocate Reserve parking space um you're talking about number four correct b66 B uh B 686 four um I'm looking we have Patricia waiters has signed up Miss Waiters this Patricia wait is 15 Church Towers what's your name write it down this is hers just give me one oh this is your I'm sorry um I just want to thank you um Miss Jabor I received the letter I don't know if this particular resolution is for that matter but there's two more on here too so I'm going just put it all in the condens version um if you need anything from me like I told you the process is being adhered to I'm sorry for the attacks I know you receiving them cuz I'm receiving them and just to let it be on the record tonight I'm no longer on the committee but I did tell you if you need my assistance just as an advocate for the community that I will be here to help you this have nothing and don't play no role in you giving me a spot because you was not the chair then Ruben Ramos was the chair the process was adhered to I go strictly regulation I got notes not only notes I got facts and I know we follow the process right I never voted on my space so with the personal attacks that's why I'm going on record with it there's nothing you did wrong or should be held accountable for those letters that I'm receiving for attorneys and such and I'm quite sure missa got a letter too from the attorney but I don't scare easy cuz some lawyers are big Liars so I don't jump at an attorney letter or somebody threaten to sue me I just want to make that loud and clear so if any of you council members want my paperwork and my documentation go back read the legislation and make sure it was done right I'll challenge each and every one of you you got my information just let me know thank you thank you thank you Miss waiters um is Jessica maitlin Matlin I'm sorry okay so I'm here to talk about the Municipal Court receipts and shift okay CL better the microphone sorry um so shifting gears this doesn't have to do with any of the topics that you guys have discussed earlier before so I'm here to talk about Municipal Court receipts I'd like to know how many speeding or reckless driving um tickets have gone through or just violations have gone through the court system in uptown Hoboken so here's why I ask I moved to 15th in Garden in 2021 with my 1-year-old daughter in that summer there was an incident where I was almost hit straight on by a speeding car who was within inches of my face there were several witnesses and many of them had children and people came to see if I was okay so this was not a random incident in the 3 plus years since then the these near Miss moments have become commonplace I regularly I regularly see city buses speeding and running Reds speeding cars flagrantly disregarding zebra Crossings flashing yellows and stop signs and also running Reds cars blocking crosswalks cars and large Vehicles like delivery trucks double parking blocking visibility so you can't see the speeding cars coming and there are no fewer then five schools in dayc carees uptown I'm probably underestimating if you look at the radius and there are lots of parks and play areas that are unenclosed I don't feel safe I know I'm not alone you can just talk to any parent and I'm sure you know how connected all of the moms are Uptown and I'm very concerned about the lack of deterrence to the reckless driving that you con that we constantly observe it's a daily thing now the traffic concerns are Reckless sorry the traffic concerns and reckless driving violations are worse than any other areas that I've lived and if that sounds hyperbolic I want to just add some context I moved from Manhattan where I lived for 18 years before this and most recently 34th and 10th which is strange to say but I felt safer walking my daughter to daycare to and from from there than I do here in Hoboken and I know I did not expect that quality of life shift to change when I moved here so I'm aware of some of the efforts that you guys have put in um certainly from the award that you just gave your colleague but I think there is a lot of substantial Improvement especially Uptown here at Hoboken so can the council please share the next steps real tangible action actionable next steps that you plan to make here in Hoboken thank you thank you actually director sharp and maybe director Baron if you could maybe provide um Jessica contact information with I'm it sounds like a public safety as well as a traffic issue I'm not sure they're they're both in the back of the room if um if that's helpful for you to to you get now you later no you could go back and talk to them Jess Jessica I I'm your council person and Paul just gave me your email so I'll reach out to you as well all right all right thank you y all right thank you um that's it for for B 686 motion to close motion to close public for second all those in favor okay um council members Jimmy Mr F call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Mr fiser yes Mr Jabor yes president ano 68 hold on apologize uh yes yes yes yes yes Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos Mr Russo hi president gentino yes yes that's two yeses okay uh she gets two votes B 692 amend Amendment to the Hoboken city code chapter 59a Department of Public Safety Article 4 for division of fire at section 59 a-31 staff to increase the fire departments table of organization uh was no one signed up to uh speak motion to close second all those in favor I I uh council members no Mr frina call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mr javor yes president hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos Mr Russo hi president Cho ordinance B 693 in ordinance amending chapter 19 0-13 and entitled bus designated to create permanent shuttle pickup and drop off Zone on Hudson Street between nor Street and Hudson Place no members of the public have signed up to speak um second all those in favor I I uh council members Mr finck call vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Fisher yes Mr Jabor yes president Zano I guo hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes ordinance hearing on an ordinance B 694 ordinance amending chapter 19-9 entitled stop streets designated to add multi-way stop control to the intersections of Clinton Street and 10th Street Clinton Street and 11th Street no members of the public have signed up to speak motion to close public portion second all those in favor I Mr finina call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle hi M fiser yes Mr Jabor yes president Zano hi hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes public portion on consent agenda items and resolutions people oh sorry can we are are we are any of the ones we talked about being carried the or no yeah but it's public comment right we don't do anything we don't do it yet it's on resolution items y sorry yeah you're not going to do claims Jimmy am I miss no that's that's on a consent okay it's on consent all right thank you unless somebody wants to pull it off so what what do we want pulled well we're do public comment first okay I was with you know that's what I thought we were doing um okay so yeah people didn't put down oh cl4 I believe is so Russell Hoover excuse me with regard to cl4 hi good evening uh my name is Russell Hoover I am a member and a coordinator of hobok and Fair Housing Association and a member of nto the New Jersey tenants organization and we at HHA really want to thank the council for coming up with the draft that you came up of the alternative interpretive statement uh that is an alternative to the msta um interpretive statement which uh I think at this point there's no denying that that statement by msta uh was specifically crafted to hide its true intent so we thank you for coming up with your version um however in terms of clarity and brevity um your statement uh just isn't quite there um by the time the voter gets to pursuant to he's gone he's not going to read it so uh therefore I'd like to read to you the joint hfh ngto statement that was written with those two principles Clarity and brevity clearly in mind and I have copies to P I've sent you all this statement in an email I have copies I'd like to give each of you individually if that's okay okay yeah um hang on uh let me just save three of them well Mr Hoover I think we've all received it but okay well you got it in your hands now yes thank you talking about not having something in his hands a minute ago okay right uh so I'd like to go ahead and read this it's very short which is sort of the whole point um of this this is the interpretive statement that we have come up with and it reads this way interpretive statement this ballot question would modify one section of the hopan rent Control Ordinance chapter5 section 31 dealing with vacancy de control it now says that a new tech a new tenant can be charged 25% more than the previous tenant but that can only happen once in a three-year period the proposed amendment would change that to allow a landlord who contributes $2,500 to the hobok and affordable housing trust fund to charge the new tenant whatever the Hoboken rental market will Bear proponents say this will produce new affordable housing without affecting current tenants opponents say it will not create any appreciable affordable housing but it will incentivize landlords to convince current tenants to move out in order to get much higher rent from new tenants leading to harassment of current tenants so a yes vote means you support allowing any landlord who pays $2,500 to the horo Hoban affordable housing trust fund to charge a nenant an unlimited rent a no vote means you oppose the unlimited rent increase for new tenants and you want the rent Control Ordinance to remain unchanged sorry um so uh we respectfully ask you the council to consider adopting this statement or something very close to it and that's all I have to say thank you thank you very much Mr [Applause] Eileen Lynch speaking on cl4 hi I'm also going to address the language and the interpretive statement um I'm going to remind the council that New Jersey has a statute that says any public question voted upon in an election shall be presented in simple language that can be easily understood by the voter um New Jersey is among 22 states that have passed this ballot um elsewhere in the state law New Jersey has endorsed using tests to uh assess the readability of these documents um New Jersey Administrative Code 11 col 2-1 18.4 mandates minimum readability standards for documents and endorses the flesh concade test to assess the readability of a document the flesh conc test was uh used to assess mst's ballot interpretation the test revealed it had a grade level score of 18.5 which is designated as being at a college graduate reading level in the mst's 2113w statement the average sentence consists of over 35 Words which is challenging for any reader in a voting booth that said I urge the council to adopt the more accessible language contained in the HHA n jto interpretive statement voters from all reading backgrounds have an inherent right to know what they are voting for and any attempt to deprive voters of this right should be condemned I encourage the city council to reject mst's confusing convoluted ballot language on the grounds that it violates existing law furthermore in the effort of in the interest of full transparency I encourage the city council to adopt ballot language that is accessible to all Hoboken [Applause] voters uh Emily wart I wish I I had a coffee with me hi Council my name is Emily wart and I am a Hoboken resident I have lived here for almost eight years thank you for allowing me to speak today I am also here to encourage you all to adopt a new interpretive statement to replace the proposed msta interpretive statement their current ballot proposal is misleading at its most Innocent but let's call it like it is it's blatantly predatory politics and ballot language are already confusing enough for an American population with dimin finishing reading comprehension I was feeling spicy so when an out of town corporate interest who doesn't have any actual true care for the most vulnerable communities in Hoboken tries to manipulate our City's politics they should they shouldn't also be able to lead with any more dishonesty than they already have the msta used misleading tactics to gather their signatures in the first place in order to even get this question on the ballot it is shameful to use the vulnerable communities in this town as a political pla to that end can anyone on this Council or anyone in the city at all tell us what the supposed affordable housing trust fund would be used for canone anyone tell me how that $2,500 per landlord would be allocated who is in charge of this trust fund and will we not be promoting evictions in order to gather those funds other the GU under the guise of affordable housing without an actual plan I also take issue with the idea that landlords would be freely negotiating with any new tenants that is an absolute fallacy landlords already have the leverage new renters have to deal with making 40 times the already astronomical Market rent prices then we have to pay broker fees which is another predatory real estate service followed by security deposits and first and last month's rent and even before all of that I can promise you we have absolutely no say on what we pay for the apartment the competition to rent one is already so steep in this market that if I tried to negotiate with a landlord I'd be laughed at while they went on to the next offer we already have an uphill battle to make sure rent control remains in the M Square so that this supposed negotiation doesn't have to happen so if we cannot undo their greedy misdeeds in placing this on our ballot at all then let's at least make it honest and clear as is mandated like Eileen mentioned in the second sentence of that 20 2022 New Jersey revised statutes title 19 election section 19 3-6 just so you guys can look it up which states the printed phrasing of any said question on a ballot shall clearly set forth the true purpose of the matter being voted upon in closing I am aware that the HHA has PR presented you with an updated version of Prov Pro excuse me proposed ballot language and I highly encourage you guys the public servants of this beautiful city to accept this language on behalf of its over 60% population of renters thank [Applause] you thank you um Michael Evers sorry to surprise you Michael you know it's like listening to a symphony listening to the city council meeting it's just beautiful um um Michael ever 252 Second Street Hoboken New Jersey um I'm I doesn't go up and down magically oh there it is okay good um I'm following up on an email I sent to all the members of the city council earlier this week in reference to the proposed settlement of the uh Eternal law suit that's been going on with fair share housing in the city of hobber and boken versus several developers um uh trying to enforce the affordable housing ordinance and their obligation to uh produce over 50 affordable units to give you an idea how long this has been going on the original docket number for this is from 2011 okay and um I was shocked in on Monday morning to get a phone call from the folks at fair share housing that have done most of the litigation and most of the heavy lifting on this stuff to find out that they had not been consulted about this proposed settlement agreement it was news to them I've got a letter here from fair share housing from um Joshua Bowers who has been handling the litigation on this for several years and as it says here if I could read very briefly on Friday fair share housing center became aware for the first time that the city in advance had worked at an agreement to provide affordable homes on a separate location so the question number one is why weren't these guys consulted they're party to the lawsuit just because the city makes a settlement doesn't mean that um it all goes away secondly we've been fighting this and it's great news we're getting near settlement don't misunderstand me I I don't like being the guy who doesn't take yes for an answer okay but the fact is this has been going on for 13 years okay the developers have fought tooth and nail for 13 years not to provide the housing so where did we get the idea that because we signed a settlement they're to of course provide the housing okay more importantly why are you doing the equivalent of of decommissioning your nuclear weapons okay which is fair share housing they are awfully good at this sort of thing why are you cutting them out of the agreement and finally um I I don't want to read this whole letter to you but there are a number of problems with this settlement agreement according to fair share housing legal issues errors Okay so we' 've been at this for 133 years so why is this being rammed through so quickly and my suggestion to the council would be two things one you listen to the gentleman from fair share housing who's here tonight to speak to you and two you consider tabling this approval right now there's no need that has to happen tonight refer it to fair share housing so you can get their input on this thing rather than making it Hasty and from what I'm hearing not particularly great decision ision that said it's really great that the city and the city council have stood by this you've passed the affordable housing ordinance we got hundreds of units being built it's a really great thing so don't take what I'm saying as like oh you're this is bad it's just it could be good as I I put in the email let's not fumble the ball on a five yard line okay let's let's do this right okay thank you thank you Mr iers uh Mary Andrea and I believe you've signed up for two two I get my seven cl4 c ca7 7 Minutes Mary Andrea 159 9th Street the first one I will address is ca7 which is talking about authorizing the award of a contract to a thirdparty power supplier to provide electrical generation service to the city of Hoboken is this is this usually done for I'm assuming for the charging stations what is this third party well why don't you I mean we can ask uh we can call up director Gonzalez to answer the question after we finish with the public portion okay and you'll hear the answer okay because you're you're adding a third party for electrical supply correct yes just yes or no okay all right I'm wondering about our electrical grid that's all that okay but I need to know what's this for okay fair enough okay and now I will talk about cl4 um my understanding the interpretive statement that the city came up with how many people did that involve please pay attention that means you I'm looking at the resolution so I'll know what you're talking about okay I'm I'm going to talk and I need you to follow me all right thank you this is serious stuff here now thank you for your attention I need to know how many people were involved with this fil because you read an interpreted station uh statement the other night and you added a lot of crap in there like CPI which has nothing to do with this you you're if now I haven't read the latest one and I'm assuming that that you were responsible totally for that am I right did all of you contribute to the interpretive statement that's all I want to know no no no no okay how many people that our renters were asked to contribute to that interpretive statement since everything's on the line for us you people are out of touch with a lot of things especially with renting now I respect you Jim Doyle because you have a renter at least you did it one time and you have some knowledge but there's 65% of the people in this town 65% are renters and we need to have a say in this and now we very clearly the other night on the zoom call forced all of you people to vote no we made business here this is not a game we need to have an interpreted statement that is simple this is ridiculous because MST obviously wants to screw it with the people they'll go in there see this long statement and then you Phil add cpis in there like what the hell's that about that has nothing to do with this we've got to keep it simple and I'm asking you nicely to use our statement or something as close to it we do not want to confuse the public because many times on the public statements they are confused or they look at it and they go I'm not going to read this crap you owe us that you're my ward too you ought to behave better than that thank you thank you I'm sorry Daniel Thompson pardon yep yeah hello Dan you got five minutes sorry I said you have five minutes thank you thank you is this is this on on hello yep okay the city council must impose and edit and correction on the interpretive statement for the msta r rent control initiative the current msta interpretive statement reads a vote Yes means the amendment creates an ad option to all landlords governed by the ordinance to pay a fee of $2,500 to the hobok and affordable housing trust fund in order to lease voluntary vacated apartments and a freely negotiated rent the interpretive goes on to say that msca Amendment quote does not elim minate any existing provision of the current rent Control Ordinance or the rent amounts being charged to existing tenants in hobok unquote freely negotiated rent should be changed to new rents not limited by rent control this unlimited rent increase is not a one-time decol the msta initiative changes the rent control law to allow an unlimited vacancy decol for any vol arily vacated apartment regardless of how long the vacating tenant lived there thus the landlord can persuade or bully a tenant to voluntarily vacate their apartment he can jack up the rent to whatever he wants regardless of how long a tenant was there or how many times the unit was vacancy decontrolled in short the interpretive statement must be edited to clarify that there is no limitation to the rent increase upon vacancy it is not freely negotiated but is determined solely by the landlord contrary to rent increase limitations under our current law there is no limitation under the msta rent control amendment to either the amount or frequency of the rent increases as long as the current tenant voluntarily vacates the proof of which is not specified in the msta Amendments since there is no requirement for the landlord to prove that the tenant really vacated voluntarily there is ample incentive for the landlord to harass the tenant to leave the new tenant can be forced to shoulder an unlimited rent increase thus the msta rent control Amendment on the ballot in November effectively undermines rent control tenant protections and this should be made clear in the interpretive statement please revise the interpret statement to make this unlimited rent increase Amendment clear to the voter by utilizing the interpretive statement provided by the Hoboken Fair Housing Association and New Jersey tenant organization thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Thompson uh Cheryl alic you've you've signed up for two so you have seven minutes good evening again Council I just first want to touch on the affordable housing settlement I'll be brief um my understanding is that these developers who pretty much have been  us around since 2011 as far as the affordable housing requirement offered something pathetic like 15K per unit and then we said no no no we want the units um and this settlement does have that the problem is we don't get them for another five or six years or never because they're in a building that's not built yet so who knows what will happen so for that reason I would say you can't accept the settlement it's giving us nothing and what the council might not be aware of is during the many years of of litigation on this there were certifications from the management of these luxury rental buildings that the UN the building completely recycled 50% every year and that's there are certified documents from the de the owners themselves saying that so we could actually secure units within a year in these and that's what we should be doing secondarily um I want to thank the council I guess it's councilman Coen who's not listening to me and councilman Doyle for putting forward the different language for the um ballon initiative um in my opinion in a lot of people's opinion it's pretty obvious that the language put forward by msta is deceptive you know they say they don't change the Run Control Ordinance at all that is true they amend the ordinance so they're layering in language about what can happen when a tenant leaves or or is pushed out or is asked to leave at the end of their lease if it's an owner occupied two or three unit building um that is deceptive um it's not an affordable housing ballot question it is a vacancy decontrol ballot question and I don't think their interpretive statement says anything about that whatsoever um with that said I also do prefer the um hfh a NJ ballot language again I'm very appreciative that the city council uh the council members who put forward the alternative language agreed with um the officers of HHA did reach out and in consultation with Renee steinhagen the executive director of New Jersey apple seed who is an expert on initiative and referendum they said this ballot language is not clear it's deceptive please change it and something else was put forward the problem is it's a little clumsy a little lengthly it's not you know you're not doing a brief for a legal case you're not putting forward contractual language we're trying to make sure that the public understands what this ballon initiative is so we're hopeful that you'll consider the more simple but barring that I certainly hope the council will at minimum vote for the language that repl laes the msta language do not be scared off by their threats of litigation other people might actually step up and litigate his well like it's a rock in a hard place but one thing that we're intent on at HF and by the way where H ofha I don't think that the Democratic Socialist whatever it was had anything to do with submitting any ballot language so I I they're just trying to mix apples and oranges in a really grotesque way um they should stop that um we're just a whole bunch of different folks who support rank control it's very like heartwarming to me to see how many of us there actually are because I've been here a long time and I've seen Administration after before Administration before Administration and Council before Council but seem to think oh we're we're taking care of this problem we're getting rid of all of them you didn't we're here we can win this um so just to conclud and the other thing I'd like I'd ask that nobody talk about how we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the administration nobody knows better than me how we got here I'm not concerned about that right now there's going to be a ballot initiative on the ballot and I just want to make sure that we win I do appreciate councilman Co and councilwoman Fischer coming out strongly in support of the no vote I hope all the rest of you will as well and again please consider the H FHA NJ language if not please at least vote for the replacement language that while cumbersome and a little too wordy is at least honest and you know it's it it actually is what what is being done to the community thank you very much thank [Applause] you uh Nate Hutchinson you got five minutes Nate hi good evening Council my name is Nate Hutchinson I've been a Hoboken resident for nine years and I am a co-conspirator with the Democratic Socialist of America um like everyone else here I am asking you to adop like everyone else here I am asking you to adopt a fair interpretive statement for the ballot initiative in November um as has been clearly demonstrated to you and confirmed by the city council's own attorney you have a legal right to change a leading interpretive statement most of you have publicly acknowledged that msta statement is in fact misleading so in my mind you really have no choice but to change the language and it's really just a question of what the new language should be I think the statement proposed by HHA and nto is clearly the best one that we' have heard it's simple and clear presents both sides of the argument that being said I do not expect you to wholesale adopt a statement offered by one of the groups that is vocally opposed to the ballot initiative I will say that the statement that is proposed on the agenda while not being actively receptive like the msta statement is a bit confusing the two paragraphs that precede the yes no statements are 237 words the first 100 of those which is over 40% of the content are devoted to explaining the regulations on lease renewals which are completely irrelevant to this ballot question I'm not sure what the purpose of this is but I would recommend cutting this down significantly the statement proposed by H FHA and nto is less than half the length of the statement on the agenda without omitting any important information I think voters would be better served by a shorter simpler statement thank you [Applause] thank Zachary King hi men and women of the council uh thank you so much for hearing us tonight um and I also wanted to say thank you for coming out in support of hobok and tenants at the last city council meeting where we had a lot of public comment um I'm a Hoboken resident uh going on four years now I live at 415 Newark Street um uh let the record show another Hoboken resident against Simon C's ballot initiative uh this attack on rent control I think uh everybody speaking tonight on this is a Hoboken resident I mean I just have to say that because time and time again we're being called like out of town conspirators or something but like we we live here uh we're not out of town conspirators we're in town conspirators I guess um so I I want to make this as quick as I can uh honestly I feel for you I'm like really radically Pro democracy but I hate writing by committee like I I really don't like it I know that it's a it's a tiring process um and it's been a really long work week for me too so uh I feel for you um I I just really want you to intervene against this uh I don't know if everyone's aware of like Ron Simon cini's lobbying activities he's been attacking rent control and I think going on 30 cities in Jersey now so we're not the only stop um and I really think it's important that we take a look at what's going on we don't let him you know uh take take us out like that we need to stand up to it um so I'm here to just urge you to adopt fair and clear language um I really like the statement presented by the hobok and Fair Housing Association um but again I understand that you probably can't just wholesale adopt a statement put forward by one of our groups uh I think that there is some language from it that that might be better suited um but at the very least just I'm just asking you all based on what I heard from you right you you told us that you don't like this referendum language uh you you told us that this is a bad referendum you told us that it was deceptive every single one of you said that right so I I am just asking you please the very least do anything you can to make it clear to the people of our city what this thing is that this rent hike referendum threatens more affordable housing than it provides um and just to be clear like you know we we support affordable housing we're not against affordable housing we just don't want rent control to be gotten rid of because we know that that's going to destroy more affordable housing than it creates we want to help our city understand that too so thank you very [Applause] much Eric vpy okay yeah Eric vulpi I've been a uh I'm a member of hobok and Fair Housing Association and the NJ and I'm 43e resident of Hoboken and I don't have much to add to some of the people said in particular Mr Rusty Hoover made a very good statement also from HHA about the interpretive statement so I agree with what he said um if there has to be a referendum certainly we certainly should have an interpretive statement that explains what is in the referendum if we have to have a referendum I mean I I'm still think the dubious manner which the referendum was was was created and and and run I think I still think it they shouldn't even have the referendum because it was very misleading and very disingenuous I was approached on the street and told this was for affordable housing this was not for affordable housing like Zach was saying you know Mr simonini has been going all around the state attacking rent control these people are not interested in affordable housing and also I really don't know the particular of the case that Mr ever was talking about but it seems to me I've heard similar things about when mandated affordable housing is supposed to appear it never seems to appear all you know they talk oh we'll have affordable housing and all these new developments and that always seems to kind of disappear so the idea that the pushing affordable housing is even more dubious I mean this is obviously an attack on rent control and as as we've said HHA has submitted a proposed imp interpretive statement and really we need something like that to make clear what this is all about um and I just don't think the pveers of this petition should be allowed to be rewarded with a very misleading interpretive statement thank you thank you John uh skan kapore is that close John sh Laur Shang Laur I apologize and I I know John yes exactly imagine how I would have butchered it if I didn't know it that's true too um I don't know about you guys but I'm exhausted just have listen to what what's going on but and I applaud you for um listening to me this evening I'm here to speak about something that's not quite as important that what has been spoken about but to me I have to represent my society and the people that that do the same thing that I do I'm here to represent the nonprofits and I'm here to speak of on the resolution um on the mayor's veto of the ordinance um to remove the permit fees now as a business owner I understand where this comes from bills need to be paid I get it uh as a citizen I walk through the city of Hoboken and I see a lot of wasted money but I'm not here to speak about that what I'm here to speak about is I'm asking you to reach into your hearts and to think about the fees that these festivals pay will the city go bankrupt if it picks up these fees the problem is is that the city of Hoboken has become the nonprofit's largest vendor I am the President of the Hoboken Italian Festival I'm the second oldest Festival in the City St ANS being the first we are the two largest but there are many other smaller ones okay that being said on 4day Festival I paid the city of Hoboken $25,000 you are largest vendor what I'm asking you to think about is that $25,000 can be better spent as a nonprofit to be doled out to people who need that money we've given so far to the to the to Hoboken High School over the course of however many years over $100,000 in scholarship money that could be $200,000 $300,000 but again the city of Hoboken is our largest vendor and it you know and and it it really a it doesn't aggravate me but it hurts me to think why does why do certain people think this way is it because the two largest associations in this town are Italian and they're and they've been around for a long time and is it be is there certain perception that makes them think they have it they've been around for 98 years they've been around for 104 years but I'm here to tell you we do not nonprofits have to live by certain rules those rules are we need to give out that money okay so I'm asking asking you reach into your hearts and think about where that money could be better spent will we bankrupt you I doubt it my family alone in the parking fees that we pay can probably pay for the festival so I'm asking you again reach in and think about eliminating these fees and thank [Applause] you thank you John uh Ernest leaf well Ernest you it looks like you signed up for an ordinance B something or cl4 but there's something else there or is it just cl4 it's a boy Bo D Bo oh that's your last name I'm sorry I apologize that's okay it's okay my name is Ernest Leaf Boyd I live in Marine View Plaza I've been there your penmanship needs some work yes thank you I've been there for 23 years in Marine View Plaza I'm a workingclass kid I'm from the Bronx I've been in this town almost half my life I urge this town to keep this town semi-working class we all know what it used to be completely working class it no longer is so I urge you all to just keep this language plain and simple it's not difficult to do that whatsoever there's no reason to make it difficult for people to read we need to keep this town we need to keep it the character that it's been we we've made this town the place that so many people love working people no matter what you are no matter what you do a teacher a cop a fireman you all know that don't Destroy This Town you cannot do that we will not let you we will not let anybody I this is the this is the family I come from it's working class and we're going to try to keep it like that that's all I have to say thank you [Applause] uh Manny River Solair he's in for everything Manuel R solel Council vice president president protm thank you very much for recognizing uh I see that I have seven minutes I will try to be brief uh um I'm hearing consent agenda I just would like to know if um members of the public could get more information on A1 C A7 ca1 cc3 cd7 and of course I would like to also add my voice into cl3 and cl4 Council uh president uh vice president uh members of the public have expressed themselves in these two issues um regarding obviously the um Initiative for the rent control um again many people have been here 2 3 10 5 years and more um um nobody's here trying to um say that issues like rent control and affordable housing um are just for one side of the tracks it's for everyone so the language that's proposed for this Initiative for this ballot initiative in November should it come to that should be as clear as can be you should make sure that members of the public can understand it can synthesize it that it's not 20 paragraphs because many people go to the polling place they do not have the time if they didn't read this at home to read it when they're at the bowling place when there's a line trust me I've been there so I ask you to please um pull that one out discuss it amongst yourselves and let members of the public understand further with more elaboration on your part on how you believe that language which is going to be and how specific is going to be in regards to any changes to the rank control as well as the veto that um is here on CL um three once again uh I want to see how many members of the council council president proam how many are going to pull this one out and explain their votes on this one regards to a veto that they are very rare that a city council is going to override a veto I hope I hope that you do I hope that you uh let members of the public who were here expressing themselves how they've been helping uh the community for Generations let them know let them know how you're going to vote so that every member of the public could understand these two uh resolutions and with that council president I have further but I will yield the rest of my time thank you thank you Mr Solair Patricia Waiters all right this all agenda items right that's correct all right let's go to page seven parks and recre wait no not page seven I want to say something real quick about the last young man that spoke and said about our city and leave it that way and he been here so many years I feel the same way he feel but I think it's a little bit too late our city have never been like this sir but we got to get it together like Michelle Obama said let's do something about it um Parks and Recreation Mr Quintero I know this I guess you on that committee that's why you sponsoring all of these right all right I just want to put it on the record tonight while you guys was in here talking I'm not saying every issue isn't important in our city a few moms and children's was out there tonight in the hallway with issues we have with Recreation with respect to the football team I know these moms reached out to each and every one of you if they didn't I'm apologizing for accusing you if they did we got to do something about it I want you to take me very serious on this I say that every time I'm up here cuz I'm not going nowhere um for the coaches I don't know the whole full story I got to talk to the director briefly and I tried to tell all of the moms Don't just run up here it don't always have to be protest image I don't want it to look like that but when we constantly being ignored and called the mayor 97 times I got my phone tonight and I make sure it's fully charged cuz I want y'all to see this I spoke to Mr Freeman texting back and forth they pick when they choose it they discretion when they want to answer me but when I call them and tell them I have a serious problem I get involved so I could prevent from a bunch of mothers coming up here and we protesting and putting this city to shame it's bias it's racist and it gets me angry because to build up anger and hate that we could eliminate I have never again y'all know me for years gotten this emotional where we have a mayor that take a known disregard and he really don't care pick up the damn phone it's disgusting now I joke I tease I go year after year I can't even imagine if people that's not like me with this big mouth to keep on going and get the strength and energy to say I'm not going away I'm not cuz none of y'all fear me and like y'all deserve a good quality your life so do we it's horrible what those people going to do and to see anything from DCA on here Mr Quintero anything on here you talking about funding for the recreation you get funds for those poor people in the hous and Authority hopeless unforgotten you don't know our pain and keep telling y'all this year after year share it with me talk to me everybody here spoke tonight talk about how deceptive you guys get with your language and your legislation the way you were steadfast tonight Paul that's what I expect to see of you I'm hurt too because you miss Fisher I lived in your ward I pulled out of the election I fought hard for you I got those bogus petitions that they signed for Lauren with me tonight with Jason and all of them name on it the dirty po politics y'all play is horrible and I set back for years and ain't say nothing half of y'all should be in handcuffs enough is enough I'm blaming the people cuz I feel so bad for them sitting here night after night chevel had all of this solved if Robbie didn't want to play even and get even with her and kick her off her rent leveling we wouldn't be here she was doing a wonderful job but this the dirty politics again and you got the nerve to have Recreation on here tonight did the recreation director tell you I called her almost 3 weeks straight she fired every coach she fired all the coaches and they look like me you think our kids want to go with somebody strange they don't know the whole thing is greed y'all at the end of the day I see money money money for recreation so you fire the black coaches cuz when you scared we going to get the money they volunteer y'all didn't give them a penny y'all not pay them why did you fire them I need answers I need an I'mma Ste call now it's going to be 97 tomorrow Ravi I'mma call 98 times 99 I'm going to continue to call we need answers please do not vote for no money or none of this Recreation mess on this agenda until you give those kids in the hous and Authority an opportunity to at least get answers please thank you Miss waiters uh Diego R but it could be an L hi uh can you hear me yes thank you uh I'm representing fair share housing this is actually about cd7 uh we would like to ask for that to be tabled fair share housing is a party to that those settlement discussions and should have been included uh with the settlement discussions with Advance um our attorney has actually been in contact the attorney working in that case for fair share housing Joshua bars has been in contact with your city's attorney I'm just here to remind you that since fair share housing is a party to that settlement we would like for that to be tabled uh so we could have additional discussions thank you thank you sir uh and that's it for public comment motion close oh hang on one more oh sorry it's waited a long time okay I we'll find out if you could spell pronounce and spell your name uh my name is Michael RIS the last name is spelled r m u s and I'd like to address item cl3 please um hello my name is Michael RIS um and I want to talk talk about the uh removing permit fees for nonprofit organizations uh I'm a resident and a homeowner in Hoboken but I am also the current exalted ruler of the Hoboken Elks Lodge I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and I want to say thank you to all the council for the hard work you perform for this city I know that you are all committed to continuing to make Hoboken an amazing place to live work and play but I here tonight to address the city charging nonprofits to use City facilities the Elks first became aware of this issue when we were charged $100 for the first time to hold our hoop shoot Free Throw Contest this is a free Event open to any youth in the community and each event sends qualifiers to our district they can go up to the state and the national championships where they could get enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame we do this because we believe that youth sports can nurture confidence promote healthy choices and strengthen a sense of community our organization does not receive a dime for these events and we actually use our charity fund to purchase t-shirts for all the kids who compete we've been holding this event for decades without being asked to hand over money to the city and many of your constituents either competed in a previous hoop shoot or may have children or family members who did this is only one example of the charitable work our organization has been doing in the community for the past 136 years and every dollar that we place in the city's coffers is a dollar that we will not be spending on the other many charitable causes that we support such as the homeless shelter Community Center ambulance Corps and many more groups and events which are listed in Flyers that I'd be happy to hand to you after the meeting as the head of a charity organization and as a partner in a business I understand the challenges and trade-offs required to balance a budget but at the end of the day a city is not a business it is a public body representing and benefiting the community the quality of good government should not be measured in balance sheets but it should be measured in how it cares for its citizens I would challenge you to see our use of the recreation facility as a valuable gift to our neighbors rather than a drain on the financial funds of a bureaucratic organization we are not some special interests we are a civic-minded group that is almost as as old as the city and we want to be your partner not your rate payer I know that the majority of you voted to pass the amendment to solve this problem and I also know it was not a veto proof majority I have contacted the mayor but I do not expect him to change his position I appreciate that unlimited free year-long use could be abused by a few nonprofits but I believe the proposed 10day Pere organization limit is a good compromise to address that particular issue so I'm here asking that those of you who voted no please reconsider either changing your position or to work with your fellow council members to come up with a solution in addition I have asked my 464 fellow members the majority of whom are your constituents neighbors and our registered voters in this great City to reach out to you and explain why this is such an important issue to us I hope my presence here and their feedback will provide you another insight into this issue and thank you again all for your time thank you sir Mr Vance I take it you didn't put my name on the wrong line It's Not Unusual uh city council thank you very much for allowing me to speak um I'd like to talk to to more about housing and affable housing and the rent control um um ordinance that's on the ballot I'm the interpretive statement is that pardon are you referring to cl4 the interpretive statement thank interpretive statement I um I'm sure that uh as a as a landlord of small property uh three unit owner occupied uh and I'm a member of the msta but I'm certainly not here speaking for them that their language probably needed to be sorted through a little bit and the language put up by the r control crowd as well and I hope this Council and it's wisman has put something together that that makes sense in a in a fairly brief way um that people can read and and have a good understanding of what's going on um what I'm really up here to talk about is that this ordinance this rent control issue all of this has been going on for God knows how long now um I don't think should have ever been even brought up uh it's wasting a lot of people's time in money we had a rent Control Ordinance that as far as I'm concerned worked I played by the rules I've worked my my rents up as I can I've taken good care of my buildings so tenants have come and gone and most of them remain good friends and come back to visit um but what we're not doing in this town the elephant in the room is we're not doing anything to really do serious housing build housing this country has a housing crisis they've been talking about it in Chicago the last couple of days and and no doubt camea Harris will talk about it in her Acceptance Speech but we're not doing anything about it Hoboken well I had a conversation um back and forth U Mr Cohen put out a a a document as he does often that castigates us terrible evil landlords uh for doing terrible evil things and um so I wrote something back to to him and says you you really want to do something about the cost of housing build more Apartments when I've suggested maybe in a back of town on the other side of the viaduct um and um west of of Willow we go 340 50 story off 50 story Towers residential Towers um I got this city council not this one but some of them were you on at the time when the when the city uh mayor wanted to um uh build a parking lot on that little plot land across from the new resiliency Park and the plan uh there was a contract to let the planner both plan the park and plan a parking garage and I woke up on Wednesday morning this is crazy parking garage on a city park I mean I guess you build a parking garage on Central Park or any other park it just doesn't make sense people ought to be in there and it's an opportunity since the city owns the land to and and to put in affordable housing Workforce housing and and um senior housing and some market rate housing and the city council said yeah it's not a bad idea Von pulled that PL portion out of the plant um and the park got designed and built and yay um and that lot still sits there nobody's living on it um so Paul says to me there Phil says to me building 40 story apartment buildings is good for Jersey City not for Hoboken this is not nimbyism it's protecting the character of what makes our community special I wrote back protecting the character of what makes our community special defines nimbyism I don't you were saying it so many words that those people need to take up residence in Jersey City elitism at its best no wonder people are right for picking on the likes of Donald Trump there's a will there's a way there's a way seems to be no will at all on anybody's part here in the city from the mayor on down to do anything about doing anything about building houses just building the hous and getting the people that live on the Palisades in tents out of those and have a great view by the way because we don't have buildings Too Tall get them off the tents out of there and put them in housing we have to build housing this nation has to build housing um I brought this up to councilwoman Jabor and she said oh no oh this will be terrible mayor stack will sue us that's why we don't build houses so thank you very much I want you guys to get together after this rent control nonsense is over and start building some real housing for real people thank you thank you Mr Vance it's not the vice president but it's the um right so no more members of the public to speak motion to close motion close second all right all those in favor he doesn't imitate anyone else I thank you so we're um now we consent agenda ladies and gentlemen ca7 oh P5 was pulled ear was announced at the beginning of the meeting so that's off uh as far as resolutions I think that's the only one so far I think we're GNA going to carry the fair share uh settlement on Advance the the uh seven y are you car carried to next meeting okay are carried cd6 cd7 Carri well I mean are we they Carri or being pulled off Carri for discussion she's saying yeah car we not are we gonna not voting tonight we're not voting who's who's deciding that for us but right uh spor yeah I'm the sponsor okay okay what is what cd6 and CD that's the okay I Corporation Council is there any time clock on cd7 that we should be considering cd6 and cd7 are carried and then so far only ca7 was pulled off okay I I not that it's my call but okay thank you so cd6 and 7 are carried ca7 uh somebody just yeah C CA I think he did yeah circles C ca7 ca13 for discussion yeah for disc these are now pulled for discussion not pulled or carried 13 and what else or you can keep we can come back to you ca7 ca13 yeah [Music] uh T3 and I'm good T3 Okay C got that cl3 and a43 A4 anybody down this end of the I'm sorry cl4 uh we've got get hold A4 ca7 ca13 T three um cl3 and that's cl4 and cl4 cl4 counc vice president uh P5 I know that was removed but just a quick why we are it already exists we don't need to reenter correct okay so uh on everything else actually council president I I meant to say co4 when I said CO3 so I don't need to pull so CO3 is not okay wait did I say want cl3 is not cl3 is not cl3 A4 ca7 ca13 cl4 and T3 are pulled and everything else on consent Mr fer call the vote Mr con consent Mr d i Fisher I didn't vote well so I'm I'm a a no on cl3 and a yes on the rest I thought we were P cl3 he decided not to no on cl3 yes on the rest it didn't get let's start all again we got Mr con Mr d i m fiser Mr Jabor no uh yes except for cl3 Mr pres Zano I yeah Mr cero no on cl3 yes on the rest Ramos I Mr Russo hi president Geno I'm I'm no on cl3 as well he's a no on cl3 these two cl3 correct corre no I just said I'm a no on cl3 I apologize I got it but it fails an override the mayor override they needed to yeah I was assuming Jim's vote but he just yes which I just no I just want to make sure we get that all on the record yep that's fine scen recorded three times okay yes sorry Jimmy with the confusion all right so we going to talk about a A4 A4 which is sorry this um I just I guess I just wanted to get an update is uh Caleb here relating to the E the Jersey City easements Caleb I can handle if you want me sorry yeah no it's pretty simple so um after we completed the G study um we sent a copy of that obviously the city council received it Jersey City received it and the D received it um upon that um Jersey City and mayor Philip signed theou um to uh move forward now D and Jersey City are essentially negotiating the actual easements themselves to turn them over that requires an ordinance from the Jersey City city council great awesome thank you that's great that's great news thank you anybody else Mr Pina call the vote Mr con I Mr d i m fiser yes Mr jabore yes Mr President Zano hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos I Mr Russo president J Tino yes did you get Jen on the yeah okay thank you um ca7 yes I I think Mary had talked about this as well I I have a question on this one as well is this for the third party on our electric bill that we opt in I mean I guess I think director Gonzalez can explain this better than anyone else uh yes councilman uh it is for the extension of the current renewable energy uh program that the city has um we the current program actually expires in December okay and so we went out to energy auction um bids came in today um we received bids that were actually significantly more cost effective for our residents um than ever before yes um we actually anticipate that the new provider who is uh who is the recommended new thirdparty supplier would actually be uh saving residents um approximately $10.67 off their monthly average uh utility bill um that's in comparison to about $356 on our current program so we actually reive much better pricing than our current program okay um and those are opt outs I saw there was a list of three or four one had opt out and the rest had like blanks had opt op so uh by state law the program has to be opt out um however what so what we're offering as a I'll call it the default option is uh 20% higher than the amount of renewable energy that PSG provides so we're providing 20% more renewable energy for a savings of more than $10 a month compared to psng okay correct so we're getting rid of our current one it sounds like correct because they just had a massive billing problem where they drilled us pretty hard I just got off the phone with them today I got a bill for $500 from them and they said there was an error and they're going to refund this if we look at social media and Reddit there was something going back and forth people were asking the same question so they made a big FAA here just as of some feedback now sure the other thing that we've heard I'm sorry they didn't bid they didn't bid okay interesting um well that's a positive now the other thing we do have to look at I know the state law I've Reddit it's opt out I get it many of our seniors and people that aren't Savvy enough with some of this stuff have a massive struggle with this and we while I wasn't on the council when that happened I did hear the feedback back and we got massive push back from people and just the fact it was so difficult to opt out is there anything that the city can do or can negotiate with this new vendor on how this can be made easier that literally it comes to you call this number you're you give your name your address you're out or you go online and you click a box and I'm out uh yes and yes um we actually did specific meetings at the Hoboken Senior Center to ensure that if seniors wanted to out before the program started that they had the opportunity to do so of course they then can opt out at any time throughout the program as you know by calling or going online um if the process for calling and going online is difficult and you have specific feedback I I welcome that we can absolutely bring that to our energy agent and discuss improving the process however um yes we will continue to do very dedicated Outreach to seniors before the program transitions in December um including iners meetings at the senior center how about Beyond seniors because I'm talking non- seniors I'm talking 30-year-olds that were struggling with this well we did online meetings and inperson meetings prior to the start of this program we will do those again okay but you said there's going to be like it'll be a simple phone call and it'll be a checkbox type of thing I mean it's you do have to go on and actually enter your name and address I give you a check box but but it's going to be easier than what because I tried I looked at the process and it wasn't easy from this current admin this current I would welcome an offline conversation about what particular in particular you found challenging and and we can discuss improving that okay yep thank you thank you director anyone else Mr Pina for ca7 could you uh Mr con I Mr Doyle I M Fisher yes Mr Jabor yes Mr President ano yes Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes um ca13 resolution granting North Hudson sewage Authority permission for temporary overnight construction work on Observer Highway in Newark Street for the sewer lining upgrades all right so this one thank you for the time uh this one I'm concerned about because we have a 4mon debacle I I believe it's 4 months correct me if I'm wrong for the uh test uh the pitting over in uh the test the Jersey a stuff I I don't maybe I'm speaking at is it four months is it one week is it two weeks Jers Avenue closure will be done this week it'll be done this week period for the test pitting yes for the testing um quick question uh was that able to be done at night because this has caused a unbelievable push back from the south of hobar I think councilman Ramos can probably the stuff we've had back is just it's a nightmare so um that work in particular no cannot be done at night due to the actual noise that's associated with it the reason that we're proposing the nhsa work being done at night is it is not a noisy operation underground and it and also it's you have to do it when the volume of the system is low right so that's the nhsa project um with regard to concerns about the test pitting on Jersey Avenue um we hear you um we've actually had several conversations internally with um our Police Department OEM um and I could defer to others if they'd like to to add to that um to talk about how to improve that process moving forward but I think it's really a conversation with Jersey City yeah that I I get it and that's one of the but unfortunately the way our residen see it it's our entry it's our gateway to the southern part of our town and you know we know that we can go around Jersey City and come down those other little uh tributaries I call them uh but if we're going to do something where Jersey City is going to work on that is there something we can do from the administrative level that speak to them that somehow we divert traffic up the hill to come down and some of the other avenues into hoken so that we don't have that Log Jam we will look at any and all uh options but I think a lot of this has to do with actual uh police traffic control um in Jersey City and that's a conversation that we're going to be um having with them in the future okay thank you could you just did the hours and the dates for the operation uh for North Hudson sewage Authority yeah for it is sorry one second um August so it's next week um August 26th through August 29th between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. that is weather permitting though so if we get obviously a huge storm for some reason it would be pushed to the following week and director one last thing on this Newark Street from garden to Willow is a nightmare almost in every storm I know we had the perfect director frany and I and OEM have been on the phone during the the nightmare of the high tide full moon everything yeah in my time living here this has always been an issue now the water recedes very quickly because some of the resiliency things we've done and I applaud that however when it happens um we've worked with some traffic you know some things to stop wakes and things like that is there anything that we can be creative that some of that water like we've done up in the north uh the north end of town where we've put all that stuff in uh in Council women Fishers board to get stuff right out to kind of clean things up is there something we can do down on those streets where this is not a a problem so fundamentally the problem there is topography yeah this the lowest point I get we can't change right um the biggest Improvement there is honestly the H1 wet weather pumping station um that has caused a a a dramatic Improvement certainly um you know things like the the paving project on Park Avenue did not help and uh so there are you know we're obviously um in discussions with the with the county about that um in terms of if you're asking a particular you know resiliency park or something like that um a large area for detention is not really available in that particular area but all of the work that we are doing in Southwest does relieve pressure on the system correct I get to pump holistically but the pump is the really the biggest the only thing is word and I I agree with you it it's gone down and you know provided the tides work with us but but my question becomes we're Ward one in the South End we're going through Redevelopment right we've got the elor projects we've got the Herby building going up in the old DPW we're talking about um Newman leather uh 83 Willow I can name a a bunch more right so as we do this I do know that we require these people to on site detention yes however is there something that we can do even more because even if they do that it's not going to do that much but this is something that I'm wondering like is there a way to pump the water even at least just to observe Highway because that doesn't flood actually those projects will help tremendously because all of that on-site detention does add up and all of those systems will be do you know Ruff how much not off the top of my head now all right okay uh I know a lot of numbers off the top of my head but all right um but also all of those systems will be you know be controlled by smart sensors similar to the city systems and so we will actually we currently have and are expanding with every new approved project the amount of onsite detention and the amount of um automatically controlled detention that is going to slowly release uh water to the system after the peak of the rain event okay thank you can you just uh when is the northwest park pump when does that that's not on yet right it uh the actual pump itself is not in yet but the tank is functional yes a and when does the pump like uh part of the next phase of the nhsa construction project they first have to build the actual Force main um which is currently in progress so I don't want to give you an actual date but uh within the next few years yeah okay and then when this isn't for you but real quick I just want to thank director frany and uh Kevin Cruz from OEM in the past two storms uh they've been extremely receptive and actually have taken some advice and done some worked with me on getting some things done to alleviate the Wake for some of my residents in in the First Ward so thank you very much Mr Pina call the vote Mr con hi Mr Doyle hi M fish yes Mr Jabor yes president Zano hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo I president J Tino yes cl44 council president resolution of the city council of the city of Hoboken adopting an interpretive statement to accompany an initiative petition councilman Cohen thank you uh councilman Doyle uh first I want to read two paragraphs from the resolution that accompanies this because I think it it they're important uh whereas the proposed ordinance uh this is the uh the petition for a interpretive statement proposed by the committee petitioners to go on the ballot November whereas the proposed ordinance was accompanied by an interpretive statement proposed by the committee of petitioners however their proposed statement is misleading and Frames the issue from a particular Viewpoint namely it emphasizes the benefit of the amendment providing funds for affordable housing without mentioning the potential negative impact the amendment would have on rent control and uh two two Ras is down whereas the city council has prepared an updated statement attached here to which it believes to be more factual measured and informative than the statement submitted by the petitioners to accompany the petition ordinance on the ballot and seeks to adopt the same I I want to thank all the people who've emailed uh the council and me about this issue and all the people who waited through a long meeting tonight to talk about this issue I was pleased that it was unanimous of all the speakers including Mr Vance who's on the committee of petitioners that this statement that the council is looking to replace uh needed to be replaced which is remarkable and I frankly I wasn't expecting that this evening so I appreciate that um I I think it's important that if we're going to have such an important question on the ballot that it's the duty of the governing body to make sure that it's accurate and I agree that it should be well easily understood uh councilwoman Fischer stepped out but she is uh she um the the critique that that I heard mostly tonight was that it could be shorter it could be more easily understood and and she has uh proposed two paragraphs which I'm treating as friendly amendments to replace the first two explanatory uh paragraphs uh the yes your vote Yes and your vote no will stay the same so I'm going to read them out so people know what these are uh first paragraph hobooken city code comma chapter 155 comma controls how much landlords can raise rent for residential units comma both while attend tenant is living there and when a new tenant moves in Period currently comma annual rent increases are capped at either 5% or the Consumer Price Index perent CPI rate which is whichever is lower Pern excluding certain sear charges period however comma when a unit has been occupied for three years or more and becomes vacant comma landlords can raise the rent by up to 25% Dash a process known as as quote partial vacancy decontrol period close quote this increase can only happen once every 3 years for the same unit second paragraph the proposed ordinance would allow landlords to increase rent to Market rates without the 25% limit when a unit becomes vacant period in exchange comma landlords would pay a $2,500 fee to the city of Hoboken comma which would go into the affordable housing trust fund to support affordable housing initiatives in the city period and affordable housing trust fund is all initial capital letters that uh Council One Fisher notes as a drop of of uh more than a hundred words uh and uh and I and it captures all the content that was in there which is important uh one person one speaker asked why would CPI be in here uh Cheryl phallic made the comment that this is a vacancy decol question and I think it's important that we include the concept of vacancy decontrol which is in here and what the impact of this vote would be so I think that this is uh addressing the spirit of what the CR critiques that we heard this evening uh and I I want to some uh someone asked who drafted this I got a a letter we all got a letter from Mr Gali of brocker who said in his letter of august 19 quote the proposed language for the interpretive statement which was supplied by the Democratic socialists it's part of their well financed campaign against the public question and then it goes on from there that's false uh I I drafted it myself uh nobody from the Democratic socialists contacted me with their suggestions and I got a lot of good feedback and a lot of good suggestions from well-intended people and frankly I I referred to councilman Doyle uh who I think is an excellent drafts person and councilman cantero and our Corporation Council and now I've Incorporated the comments of C councilwoman Fischer it was an effort of the representatives in the Corporation Council to put forth something that was accurate that was understandable and would survive a potential legal Challenge and that was that was the goal of the effort so excuse EXC mey I didn't interrupt you can I continue thank you so so that was the goal of this uh uh one of the critiques that we got in Mr gor Mal's letter was that uh that this body is biased and can't be uh trusted to put forth an accurate statement uh the effort was made here to be even-handed to be accurate and to be easily understood uh by by the voters of hobok and who are going to be voting on an important question uh I have been public about my view about this referendum and so so is councilwoman Fisher and so of so of others and but that is a separate question from whether the uh initiative uh statement the interpretive statement that goes with this question is accurately presented so that's been the effort here uh and it's been done in good faith in a way that uh that I think reflects a good collaborative that on behalf of the city so uh and I've talked with councilman president Zano about his questions about it when he raised them with me and you know I've tried to answer them all fully so thank you Council thank you councilman Coen Council vice president yes the one and I haven't heard from Corporation Council on this so I just want to make sure we have it on the record in in this letter from Mr gmali the second paragraph of of that just identify he's the attorney for the petitioner correct that second paragraph makes the claim that we have no statutory authority to make any changes so I just want to make sure we have it on the record from our Corporation Council that that is not the fact and that we do have the authority to do this as I know we've heard it from not only council members but members of the public and many Beyond but I do want to have that on the record from our Corporation Council you can certainly get challenged on this and there is no when he says statutory there's nothing in the statute that specifically says you can do this but there's case law that supports your ability to do that so that we have very colorful arguments that what you're doing is absolutely fine and that's what I want to do so we we can certainly will will defend it if it's challenged and frankly I think you've come up with a very neutral um interpretive statement for the public to uh to review where the other one I don't believe is neutral so I believe it would be upheld very good thank you I appreciate that's all have thank you yeah and I I would just emphasize and I thank everyone who who's come tonight to speak um especially some of this yes council president I'm sorry no no I don't I didn't mean to cut you off you keep going in no I I well I I won't be long I I I do want to thank those that acknowledged that uh you know and that it would be frankly inappropriate if if we were to accept part and parcel uh certainly it has happened I can think of the Bush Administration but um where uh you know lobbying groups come in and and write things and it just gets regurgitated so there is an there's no pride of authorship here I I thank councilman fiser and uh Cohen who have reduced it by a 100 words um but we also want this to be defensible both from the perspective of you know having an advocacy group give us an interpretive statement that we just drop in but also um I think ours is more neutral than the the uh statement that uh has been suggested from uh you know HF so I I'm I'm glad to hear I mean a number of people got up and said we don't want their statement and some of the speakers apparently were unaware that what we're proposing in was our statement not going forward with theirs so um we can all we can all draft by committee but I think I think we're in a good place now and there's also the timetable to get this onto the ballot so you know delaying this is not um Antion an ideal situation so uh council president getino thank you councilman um Corporation Council you said there was case law that stat that proved that we or that allowed us to do this but I read that case law and that case law was for a referendum not an initiative so there there's a bunch of different case law one that I read yep there's a bunch of different case law that supports the position that we are able to take the action we're taking tonight there is not a case that we could find that's exactly on point but that's not surprising because in cases like this normally it would be decided um you know a simple challenge you to appear at court and the judge will rule one way or the other way very rarely would a case like this in my experience be appealed or reportable but so there's case law that supports the position that you can do this council president could you hear that yes thank you okay Council vice president yeah I I just want to um first of all just thank uh my colleagues for um taking the time to do this and it you know I want to stress to the community I think it was one of the members that are here tonight that pointed out this this opportunity to make the change and and these guys followed up on it um literally just sitting here I think I think the intention was to be as clear as possible with a level of detail that you know we all look at and we all think is valuable and I think as a result of hearing from you saying it just needed to be more brief we that's when we weren't listening to you and you were yelling at us we were literally trying to make it like more brief because um I think the glasses that we looked through it were just not quite um those glasses so um and you know regarding this issue whether or not we're challenged um you know happy to hear legally challenged happy to hear that we do have the support and we know that we've reached out and some of us have gotten emails on it we're just going to do the best that we can like we either Put It Forward um and get challenged and we either win or lose or we just don't put forward at all and you know if you don't ask you don't get so um I hope everyone just votes yes on this tonight and and we hope that if we get challenged we win and you know we have a better interpretive statement so thanks uh everyone involved like councilman preso thank you Council vice president um I want to be clear I voted to put this on the ballot and that was after listening to the constituents um and not to accept the compromise however uh the point of a citizen initia referendum is so that the citizens can create and challenge a law that their legislative bodies will not create or challenge themselves so if the city council can arbitrarily change the wording of a citizen initiated referendum or information statement then I have to ask the question to to the council and to everybody then what's the point of the referendum or the process that we have so I struggle with this one because there was a process that was signed by and we can the petitioners whether we agree or disagree where they were valid or not they were certified by the clerk that how a council peer can change the view of the petitioners at what they signed and so as I don't know if you want to call it purist however that there's a process that went through uh they put it forward and I'm struggling with the fact of of what we're saying here tonight so that's all I have to say can I briefly respond to that can I go first councilman can yeah just um just a I mean I'm I'm supporting this and and I I thank everybody who worked on it I think it provides a more neutral clear uh statement as to what the actual implications are without bias either way presents the facts out I disagree with councilman prano in that we we shouldn't be addressing kind the language because uh in its original form it was somewhat biased and it was presenting uh the referendum or the initiative in the absolute best light possible for the petitioners almost close to campaign materials and what where the persuasion should be should be in the campaign materials not in the statement that is written down uh what should go what you should be reading when you go in is what is the what will happen to the law if you vote Yes what will happen to the law if you vote no not whether it's good not whether it's bad not whether we'll lose a bunch of units or gain a bunch of units it's just how will the law change I think we've done a decent job at at at at doing that um and you saw government in real time action with the changes so thank you to councilman fiser and and Cohen for for those real time actions so uh I'll be supporting this and also be supporting uh those who will be fighting against this uh referendum councilman Cohen just a brief brief response what council councilman president said the people who signed this petition did not sign this interpretive statement they didn't sign on to that that came later and it only came after the signatures were collected for the petition so that was produced to us later for c for certification of the council so nobody who signed this petition signed it based on the language for those interpretive statements that that came later uh and also I just want to reiterate the fact that even a member of the committee of petitioners who spoke here tonight said that he thought that it should be changed that's what I heard you say so speak on their behalf he just says no but he is a member of the committee of and that's what he told us so I I just wanted to repeat that thank you coun than you counc another bite um so I'm G to I mean have we approached the other side of this equation and ask them would you have any input or would they want to agree to it along either side that's the point that's my point earlier we didn't go and say let's sit down with the tenants and tell us how we should write this nor did we ask the landlord Lobby how would you write it we wrote it we did it based on what we hope is objective and neutral so if if it does get reviewed by a court the court will say this is not a biased interpretive statement and it can go forward so I think councilman Cohen thank you for that clarification because um I they didn't approach me and ask me whether I wanted to more affordable housing in town so I didn't actually see what was on the signature you know the petition sheet but um you know knowing that this was not before them you it's it's harder to say the they relied on this language and I want this language in there they just looked at the resolution portion so anyway are we good to call a vote no I'm fine no I the same question you had so we're good all right Mr frina call the vote Mr con I Mr DL as amended I Mr Fisher assuming it's amended yes I yes as amended you amended it yes pres Zano yes Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president Gan Tino yes yes I just have before we go any further I I just have a question for the Corporation Council on August 5th the council voted down the amendment to the rent control ordinance on August 6th we sent the uh the initiative and the interpretive statement to the county clerk now what we have to do I guess legally is send send them not send the county clerk a notification that the interpretive statement yeah has changed Corporation Council discuss tomorrow you're going to send the resolution and the new interpretive statement to the County Council we've already spoken to them and he told me it's by the 23rd that's correct Friday the 23rd is the deadline today's the 21st so you got your work cut out for you tomorrow all right thank you thank you so for the um the last resolution T3 and I believe that was councilman president Zano yeah I pronounced your name correctly all night ah yes so I I wanted to bring this one uh up only because it will have some impact in the First Ward um we're spending this money and after discussion with director sharp and and the committee we are looking to move the city bike station from in front of City Hall to over in front of CVS an underutilized area and the reason being is one we achieve several things for everybody uh with the rebuild by design project going on right now that's taking away a massive amount of parking and loading zones we're embarking on a uh study with cameras to study loading zones this would allow us to have two sides of a street in a very busy area we are allowing for people struggling to park to do business with City Hall uh to go in and out and we the last part is we increase bicycle parking by eight spaces uh I was also educated on how the city bike uh program works and how revenues come in from uh some of the signage and along those lines and it is not a it's actually a positive thing for our bottom line uh we also have 30% usage at the uh PATH station so this helps alleviate some of that as well so I just want to make that clear and then we have the actual first reading of moving the station uh and coming uh on the next part but I I just want to explain what that is uh and that it it it's a winwin win for everybody uh and again it allows us to do a little bit more study of traffic patterns because we have both sides of the streets that we'll be monitoring thank you councilman uh anyone else Mr Pina call the vote on T3 Mr con I Mr Doyle I Mr fiser yes Mr Jabor yes Mr President Zano hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo I president gtino yes ordinances for introduction for first reading yes an ordinance amending chapter 19071 entitled municipally managed electric vehicle charging to add Bola charging station to the west side of Washington Street north of 14th Street Mr fer call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Mr Fisher yes Mrs Jabor yes Mr President Zano IO I Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes or for introduction and ordance amending chapter 192 D4 parking for persons with disabilities to add remove add and remove revised Park R reserved parking spaces Mr con I Mr Doyle I Fisher yes Mr Jabor yes m president Zano I Mr Cano I Mr Ramos I Mr Russo I president gtino yes B for introduction amending chapter 141 entitled garages and lots public chapter 141a entitled parking permits and chapter 190 entitled vehicle and traffic to update the parking utilities Fe schedule Mr fer call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I M Fisher no no Mr Jabor yes Mr President Zano yeah I Mr Cano I Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes or for introduction amending the lease with Bono piz cor DBA alicio Mr finina call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Mr fiser yes Mr Jabor yes president Zano I I IO I Mr Ramos I Mr Russo I president gtino yes Bo for introduction amending article one chapter 46 of the Oken city code entitled lease agreement at 46- 9.5 authorized May to execute a lease with pen pen LLC DBA blue eyes Mr fra call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mr Jabor yes president Zano hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president Chino yes orance for introduction and ordinance of the city of hoken in the county of H New Jersey establishing a pilot education trust account and approving contribution of portion of the annual service charge provided to the city of hobok and pursuant to the finance Financial agreement by and be in between the city of Hoboken Monroe Center Hoboken urban renewal LLC and by Between the city of hobok and obser a highway urban renewal LLC and into for the pilot for Education trust account Mr frina call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle i m fiser yes Mr Jabor yes president Tano I Mr Cano I Mr Ramos I Mr Russo hi president gtino yes B friend deduction amending chapter 190 D9 titled stop Street designated to add multi-way stop control to the intersections of Jefferson Street Third Street and Jefferson Street and Second Street Mr priner call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Fisher yes Mr jaor yes president xano Hi Mr Cano hi Mr Ramos hi Mr Russo hi president gtino yes or for introduction or amending chapter the 168 1100 entitled bike share location designated to relocate City Bank Docking Station from City Hall The Pedestrian Plaza at nor Street and Washington Street Mr Pina call the vote Mr con I Mr Doyle I Mr Fisher yes yes Mr Jabor yes Mr pres Zano I Mr Cano I Mr Ramos I Mr Russo hi president gtino yes new business actually I think we're going to do public portion before new business all right it you're right I forgot so and so um Ron hin hello Mr Hine see Ron Hine 5:15 will face out uh you just passed uh an ordinance on first reading uh to authorize a new lease for the uh sonot Park Cafe uh I've been interested in this lease because because it goes right to the heart of an issue that we've been grappling with since we began our plan for the Hoboken waterfront in 1990 how do you create a truly public Waterfront our solution ution was to make a clear delineation between the public and the private spaces and our Line in the Sand was Sonata Drive everything on the Riverside of Sonata drive would become a continuous public park all the private uses the residential commercial retail and that includes restaurants and bars would go on the west side of Sinatra drive on the Upland blocks so we fought successfully over these many years to make sure that that happened uh but there are a few exceptions the Sinatra Park Cafe being onean um so for the past 10 years the city has leased the Sara Park Cafe to an exclusive high-end restaurant uh the initial construction of Sinatra Park was made possible from Grant from the state's Green Acres Program this grant required any lease to be approved by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to ensure that it complied with the state regulations the current lease starting in 2015 was never approved by the njde uh we uh raised this issue three weeks ago after reviewing the city's uh RFP from last March uh the D Green Acres Rags do not permit restaurants affordable concessions catering to park users however are allowed uh I assume the city of Hoboken has been in discussions with the DP DP over this issue because in reading the new lease it appears that they have tried to comply with the state regulations uh there is another issue however I don't think uh that has not been resoled after the blue eyes restaurant started operations in 2015 they added an enclosed patio wrapping around the front of the building what this did was it intruded on the required 16 ft paved portion of the Hudson River Waterfront walkway so I invite you to go down and look as people are using the walkway coming from the North and the South walking running they get in front of the S to Park Cafe and that 16t requirement is squeezed down to about 6 feet so you have another problem here in that another part of the Department of Environmental dep Department of Environmental Protection regulations pertain to the walk way and in this case uh that enclosure uh presents a uh a violation of those requirements and The Simple Solution is to remove that incl inclosed patio so you just have the original structure and that would give you the 16 ft required walkway so uh if you want to disc I I communicated all of my concerns to to the city council Committee in charge of this and to director Gonzalez and if any of you want to discuss this in Greater detail uh I'm certainly available I think you all have my number thank you Mr H um Cheryl Alec yeah' good evening One Last Time Council and um I wanted to come up and say yay public portion at the end um I wanted to put an exclamation period for all the reasons you said but then there's one more um I like to be able to come up and say thank you to the council for voting unanimously I also like to come up at other times and say I can't believe you did what you did and if you don't have the public portion at the end then my only option is to come back two weeks later when nobody's thinking about it and then I look strange so if you could keep it here I know that people don't like waiting but most meetings aren't as long as this so that's the first thing um second thing just a couple of notes through the me and again like through the meeting I really wish we would stop bonding this goes back to the budget um I'm somebody who does have to watch her pennies I understand the whole thing about the double or tripa a or whatever quadruple a rating I don't care a lot of our bonding has we' put a lot of energy into bonding for things that have actually exacerbated hyper gentrification in my view I'm a big fan of parks but we did only Parks Sometimes some police equipment which is good and important but I think that we can stop bonding for Parks which is like the only thing we ever seem to bond for I certainly don't want us bonding for protected bike Lanes on Washington Street times are tough so tighten the belt and don't think about the the the the candy and the extras um um somewhere during the course of this evening Council through the chair through the vice chair councilwoman Jabor I think it was said something about all the mayor's rent control initiatives oh that has me scared because the last time well the last time there was like brilliant ideas to do something with rent control where I know I well I think there were like some meetings one meeting for the tenants and one meeting but it was really after a whole bunch of things got messed up so I'm worried rent control is is terribly terribly nuanced there's a ton of unint unintended consequences for everything you do and a lot of times when you do something you end up with a ballot initiative or a ballot referendum and and then other things that you could have done don't happen like this is the thing that kills me the most about how we got where we are because we had like inexperienced people be put on the rent board and suddenly they were the experts and they said we're going to do these things and I'm not saying they were wrong in what they saw in the ordinance I will tell you every accusation about mismanagement or you know administrative issues every single one that has ever happened for the past 40 years as long as I've lived here has been to the detriment of tenants and yes they were right in what they saw but I can I'll I'll never forget the phone call where I said you put this forward the next thing you know there's going to be a bunch of landlords in the city council room this guy Ron simonini is going to show up and before you know it we're going to have a referendum to the tea every single thing I said happened and I say this like it's like great if we have rank control initiatives maybe because there are some things that we could do that would be so simple that nobody would have a problem and when things blow up we can't do them and I'm going to give you one example because I still have time we have a situation where it says a tenant must be notified about the rent control the fact that we have rent control but there's a between the uh the form that explains that and the ordinance there's a mismatch because says once you sign the document you have two years for the statute of limitation but you're not a tenant until you move in so there is the thing that needs to be fixed because a lot of times somebody who's renting an apartment they're going to sign that disclosure form would they sign when they get the lease which can be two weeks a month or so before they actually move in and somebody they tried to Time bar a tenant for 2 years from his date of occupancy I know I'm not explaining that really well but this is something we could have fixed and nobody would had a problem with it and now we can't fix it and we can't touch it because we're ending up with this whole referendum and I appreciate through the chair councilman Quintero saying that he's also going to help us we want to know how we appreciate everybody's the three more than three um but are you going to door knock like let us know get into touch with us we we certainly appreciate we want to win yes I see thank you for not cutting off the mic thank you um Michael RIS I don't believe yeah you miss this speak twice um Mary Andrea come on Jo you slipping thank you Mar onrea 159 9th Street I am going to speak about the fact that I don't know if any of you could possibly comprehend how much time I have spent living in this town trying to stay in this town I never dreamed coming here that I would be threatened by so many forces and it's just a tiring process we are always fighting the city's trying to be fair to landlords to tenants you talk a lot about affordable housing but we are naturally in affordable housing because rent control is naturally affording I'm sorry I had nothing to do with the markets most of the town in the 35 years I've been here has changed for a more moneyed class of people Simon cini came in this town and he's his group of people have really pushed out a lot of people there's very few of us left so the thing is a lot of people and I've found out that some people on the council even think that nobody really cares about rent control that much it's not important but I'm seeing something change that there is a concern because even if you're paying a lot of rents you don't want that to go up either so there's Renters of all stripes and we're all fighting for the same thing to stay in our homes it is our home that's the bottom line and we have to fight again I put so much Blood Sweat and Tears in 2013 and 2012 I never dreamed I'd be back here again I we had just a few people and we were on the line you're right things have changed but it's changed in a different way now we we do have more of an army and we aren't the enemy we contribute to the town many many people are very fine people families even in these rent in these rentals and we're going to have to get the vote out to vote no it it's a long statement on there we can't do anything about it and no you were all I could see the faces on the zoom calls who was torn and I could say yes you to Jim Emily you you were torn in your faces as you could see them cuz we sat through that long medium listening to all those people but we just want to live here I'm sorry I'm not rich and that's not a crime but the $2,500 for the affordable housing it's just a turn bandied about so much you can only do so much because that's not what makes money what makes money is Luxury Rentals or luxury condos but that's not my fault but the city through the years of the 35 years I've been here has help not you weren't even all on here helped facilitate it for a certain class of people and we had to do it again in 2013 because Gali made us do it again he's still in the picture and he used Sandy as an excuse that this person didn't get the vote and that so we had to go through it again and I was just cleaning up and I found my Blood Sweat and Tears in these two one for 2013 one for 2012 that I had to do myself between my job and it killed me and I remember thinking I won't ever have to do this again I was wrong but this time we have an army and I don't know how much you people will help us but we didn't get any help last time thank you thank you Mary uh Manuel Rivera salair thank you council president uh proam council president and Council vice president uh again this evening uh I just want to speak uh just like other members of the public said um things that happen in this meeting um some of them people agreed others didn't but I just want to say something that was not on the agenda which was pulled um which was um B uh 674 and b677 they're they're still important I just hope that the one for the hobokin historic preservation commission uh does not come back there are people there are people and citizens who are interested in joining um these uh commissions and Boards give them a fair Shake check them out I know people who put applications in these things and have gotten no answer not even a thank you no thank you and then the misconception is that in in especially in this one there was a person in the meeting which was by the way the same day that we had the special council meeting in August 5th um I was participating in both so they just said that they can't even fill the positions for the alternate when there are people there and then they still wanted to take two so I'm very grateful that you uh decided not to vote on it today and that it doesn't come back and that we do get U members of the public which I hope they're listening um do apply and do join these this is very important because this is what just occurred when it starts from from these commissions how when they decide to give permission for something to be demolished for something to be removed added space in the air that belongs to the citizens to the people of hobokin so members of the public need to be there plus there should be more res more representation of um people who want to join said commissions and Boards so uh council president with the remainder of my time I do want to I know that this is not the United Nations but I do want to say this statement and if nobody can translate I will do it umene March council president briefly that just says Long Live Venezuela and her duly elected president edmundo Gonzalez IM Maria Corina Machado uh they are uh the elected representatives of their country and they are being denied by dictator that does not want to give up the power and this is has to be said because there are members of our community who are Venezuelans and need to hear and need to know that there are people standing with them even uh miles and miles away so I like to I thank you and for the Indulgence and the Indulgence of members of the public for listening and then again I will close with Slava Ukraine ero Slava glory to Ukraine and glory to the heroes and we also continue to pray for peace in Gaza and for the return of the Israeli citizens who are wrongly detained or taken away from their families so with that council president I want to say uh Council vice president brm God bless you God bless you all and God bless H booken and thank you for your time this evening and for your careful consideration to the people's concerns good night thank you Mr Sol Jim Vance oh or oh okay Patricia to to end our name hi Pat waiters please listen to me y'all I came all the way back I made a u-turn with man and he called me and said the public portion I just want to share a few things I don't want to lose focus I didn't want to get jumped tonight cuz I'm standing up here and apparently it seemed like I'm the only yes vote and I'm going to explain to you why it doesn't have anything to do with deception you don't need a college degree I'm tired of the stereotypes of people I had literally had to go down to the house and myself and explain to some of those people that really don't even have a high school diploma don't be embarrassed that's how you learn ask questions so when they spoke tonight I was waiting to see how many of my Council people going to say hey we going to go out we're going to educate them the difference between yes and no vote I'm so glad Mary found those flyers cuz I have paperwork from 1979 man he been in my apartment and it's real organized it's real mind bothering that Jean Drayton was the NAACP president I got the original document where they pressed charges for affordable housing in 1997 I want to know what happened with that it was always a fight about affordable housing and we don't have to even without the paperwork perceptions just look open your eyes and look they don't have to read they don't have to know languages but I guarantee you go to the housing authority and ask many of those families and some of them paying $2,000 rent we're going to get affordable housing they got them psyched up thinking yes mean no so in 2012 and 13 they went and told all my family members Pat don't want no affordable housing vote no vote no and they was really deceived they didn't know so now this year I'm running again for the board and I was going to make my flyers with a big yes and let them know I do want affordable housing so see it ain't about the way you deceive them it's about you educating people and to go down there and take advantage of that many vulnerable families is disgusting and they in dying need for housing I'm talking about their living conditions inside their units and they paying $2,000 and they being told oh that's all right you're going to be good you're going to be good those would be the first keys that be taken away I told them y'all a key away from getting locked out we want to stay in Hope B to we built this we did but everything they built the last 10 years not one affordable unit and if I'm wrong I'll say it tonight if you tell me the address and location it is a dying need for affordable when is the right politician going to sit up there and be honest honest enough to say that y'all live in affordable housing no y'all y'all can afford it so it's not fear for the people to come up here either and put that on your back and single out in that Zoom meet and who had Expressions on their face or who didn't cuz y'all don't have to worry you can afford it please think that just go to sleep tonight and think on that cuz I'm going be out educating go out and educate and tell them the true facts and think about the their education and when you write in the language and abbreviations and all of these statues explain to them please now I'm talking about about accountability real quick and it's only going to take two minutes I have here and this is why I mention you tonight Tiffany these is the Flyers when they wanted to attack you and this is what I'm must talk about dirty politics cuz we so close to that mayor seat these was put on my door people know I can't afford an attorney these petitions that was electronically and Jimmy and Jerry know never in history this happened in Hoboken days before the cut off date these petitions were signed and it bothers me because people quick to say what's right and what's wrong in the city with the employees city employees wouldn't even dare I found D Zimmer's original language won't even sign your petition even when you go out physically and knock on the door but it's so disturbing these petitions have Jason Freeman Rachel Rose Jim Doyle I mean this is sad and the list go on okay now when this attorney put this on my doorstep you know I don't got time to go do this type of things and go on the computer I'm saying this tonight to say this no one's Above the Law not even your business administrator I'm standing here frustrated tonight cuz I thought what I had a good relationship with Jason was it's not it goes for the business administrator to the director Personnel to his assistant Michael Krauss I'm asking you as a government body tonight to hold this mayor and these business administrators accountable I'm begging y'all because I will show you true facts I got a affidavit from a young lady that had a mishap with Michael CR he shouldn't even be here y'all opened up the door for them Ukrainian people all of those people came down here and beg y'all for a cease order the very next day I told you my son was attacked the very next day the guy was from Ukraine somewhere and he said you my son was in your uniform working for the city and got hit by a car almost you could see the video he got out his window walked around with Witnesses thank God Linda petracelli was in the car behind and spit in my son's face and I called you Jason and they choose to fire my son never had a criminal record all right I'm wrapping it up with this never had a criminal record good kid you can investigate that's what I'm asking you investigate who hold Jason accountable who holds Robi accountable this city council this city council you got to do your due diligence tonight when Paul said no it's not in my hand I want it get on your bike and investigate for me as a councilman that supported you they not above the law and they ignore me and take a known disregard and won't even answer the phone show me another way I can communicate with them please thank you council president with that I'm being serious I'm wrapping it up with that investigate all of y'all got my email get in touch with me cuz I need this to be taken care of please my son shouldn't re banded from the city that he worked hard in and born and raised in thank you Patricia that's it for uh public comment motion to close good job council president