e let the record reflect we have reconvened with all members present for those are able please stand for the pledge and I ask you remain standing standing after the pledge of the United States of America to the stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all please remain standing we always take a moment at the beginning of the meeting to uh remember those um longtime residents that we've lost over the last few weeks uh just yesterday Joseph giasi lifelong Madison resident passed away uh at Pine Acres at the age of 88 up until his passing he lived in in the house that his father built on Locust Street um many of you may not know Jo debiasi but as I talk about him you'll you'll know exactly who he is and what he meant to Madison his full obituary was uh not published yet so uh I will just share a little bit of my background story he his his parents opened up Central lunch on Central Avenue in the 1920s um and as in a proclamation I presented a few years ago for their 90th anniversary Joe literally was raised behind the counter and then started while working behind the counter my first round and living on Britain Street I would walk past there and in a little sign in the window said Don't Laugh at your loss I finally said I've got to find out what the story is I went into a central lunch and became a lifetime fan at that point Joe obviously was running it but his parents were actually still working behind the counter helping him out on weekends it was a uh small place if you have the chance of go in there probably maybe sat 12 if you were were all friends maybe 14 uh but Joe and Joe made it like family giving awards to those that came too early before he was ready to really open up I won't call tell you what the name of the award was but uh it was an interesting plaque on the wall the uh sausage kondik was the meal to have I tried to replicate it but could never match it and breakfast is and lunches were always delicious maybe not healthy but always delicious there um as you have Chief here I first met to Lieutenant James Blair behind that counter he was probably 12 years old helping Joe with the operations every Saturday and then it expanded and he was at Joe's side helping him in the last couple years so uh we will certainly uh Miss Joe D Joe DiBiasi and what he meant to our town for those that uh uh want to show their respects they will be a visitation from 9:30 10:30 to Madison Memorial at 11: uh a.m. um the burial will be celebrated at St pin martyr we also remember Gloria Marie palella longtime Madison resident passed away on February 8th at age of 95 survived by three sons retired Madison police Lieutenant Al trianello Anthony and David Damiano three daughters antonet fanine and Angelina sever several grandchildren and great-grandchildren she was predeceased by her beloved husband who died at a young age Ralph tranel and her second husband Anthony Damiano two sons Ralph and Steven two brothers Anthony and Ronald born in Summit she was raised in uh in Summit with her brothers moved to Madison her senior year high school her Father Anthony Mason by trade was building a new house for the family on Ms Avenue graduate from Madison High long career credential uh in Newark and um also at automatic string F Park she was acting at St Vin Marty Church also remember Theo teranova long time Hadis a resident he was 74 he he leaves behind his wife of 17 years uh Carol her cherished daughters Donna Nicole Tara respected spouses and one brother Peter sisters Sally and Patricia predeceased by one brother John and one sister born Elizabeth he grew up Elizabeth moved to Madison early ' 80s he uh served the United States Army um after being stationed in Germany met his future wife Carol and a blind date at Charlie Browns no longer there and they were married in 2007 he had a um career as a hbac mechanic and volunteered as Madison firefighter and many of you may remember driving the iwalk street sweeper in Downtown Madison for a good number of years and he was always always smiling as as keeping our downtown very clean also remember Thomas cavezza lifelong resident of East Handover passed away January uh 25th age 52 survived by his father Carmine Brothers Michael cavezza and Madison police department Sergeant James cavezza he deceased by his mother Diana and infant Sister Christina born in 71 raised in East Town over was at Han Park we love fishing and the sery of being surrounded by water and nature Tom worked at East H Department of Public Works for many years most recently was a self-employed contractor and uh Anna stoic passed away at age 96 on January 24th she lived in Madison for 72 years she worked 23 years sister the cafeteria manager at Comm Foster and was also a member of St Vincent Martyr Church to survived by her loving children Joan and her husband Gregor and her son David his wife Janet daughter-in-law Patricia her sister Joan six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren predeceased by her uh husband Edward let's take a moment to remember Joe DiBiasi Gloria Kella VTO ter NOA Thomas cavezza and anast stoic and let us pass our thoughts on to the families and friends they leave behind thank you I have a motion for the reorganization minutes of January 2nd 2024 so moved second any discussion or Corrections all in favor I right and a motion for the executive minutes of January 22nd 2024 so moov second already discuss all in favor I I and uh motion for the regular minutes of January 22nd 2024 so moves second you had the one correction on the motion on going into executive any other Corrections or changes all in favor I and a motion for the special me meeting minutes of January 29th 2024 so moved second all in favor I I thank you very much welcome all nice crowd tonight and um for those that did come out tonight I can't cannot promise that it'll be as as exciting as last night's Super Bowl but U I will promise that we will strive to avoid overtime oh wow uh and we are bracing for what may be our first major snowstorm in a few years so and we've already have a delayed uh announced a delayed opening for burrow operations tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. uh schools have already announced that they'll be closed so let's uh you know this right now we've today it's felt like spring and tomorrow feel like winter so let's be careful as we're out there because we're all a little out of practice a few other things going on over the last couple of weeks um uh 2 weeks ago I had the honor of uh performing my 250th wedding ceremony and it's uh 251 if you count my son's wedding but that was performed in Massachusetts so that wasn't added to the list but it's uh one of the great honors as a mayor to perform those ceremonies and certainly I enjoy that part of the job in January 26 we had a gathering to send burough engineer Bob vogle off to retirement and the impact of his work was reinforced with all the staff and outside professionals former boss and even his predecessor who showed up so I think Madison gave him a great send off and we hope that he's uh enjoying his new life and uh Bob if you're missing it and your home watching right now hello and on uh Friday February 2nd I hosted the fourth grade Tory J uh satini girls Girl Scout Troop and as always I uh put them through a mock council meeting it's always interesting the things that are higher on the list the initial proposed ordinance was require dog owners to walk their dogs after 1: p.m. uh a a motion was made for that uh ordinance and it did not get a second so for those dog owners out there you can still walk them at any time of the day um so they did shift their attention to uh the trash in our downtown um and so they passed ordinance unanimously that uh we should strengthen our rules against people dropping TR trash and as I shared my experience of picking up many cigarette butts of my litter Grabber if you see me go through town with that there is a they started talking about banning smoking in downtown well we ran out of town so uh ran out of time so they did not pass that ordinance but uh very interesting there the what comes out of the groups I have here and last Thursday I attended a um a hearing on proposed legislation to afford address the affordable housing in New Jersey I shared Madison's proud history with u affordable housing I also got a taste of what a hearing is like I the hearing was scheduled for 11:00 it started about 11:20 and about uh 10 after 1 they broke for a 1H hour recess which was 2 hours and about 520 I've got to share my remarks um and so I uh did uh thank the uh the subcommittee and the legislation for their effort to work on a better system for man managing the obligation but I also shared uh concerns with the bill as it stood last last week uh Amendments have been made and um there recognition there's still work more work to be done I have not been had a chance to analyze all these amendments um but with this in mind I have spearheaded a letter that will be sent to Senate President and assembly speaker asking them to slow down the process to fully engage municipalities in the process as I said at the hearing the involvement of Partners such as the state nonpr nonprofit housing uh affordable housing Advocates and yes Developers that will support the effort to um for affordable housing is very important but it it is the commitment from the 564 municipalities will actually put those in need in quality homes so they need to have the municipalities at the table to make sure this is the right uh legislation and uh to announce the uh employee of the month for February Nick santangelo from the sewer department Nick as um a Foreman made sure his Department was ready for a heavy rainstorm we had mid January Advan preparation which included monitoring the storm outfalls and dra drain uh drains throughout the day and evening cleaning the pump station servicing backup generators gener ensured we were ready for the bad weather so um please congratulate Nick on employee of the month and uh all the extra work he's done now I'm going to come down below to uh for a couple of proclamations [Music] that's [Applause] words hisory mon February February the contrib there we go thank you celebrating the contributions AF African-Americans have made to American history in the struggles for freedom and equality of our nation's history whereas negro History Month week was first proposed in 1926 by scholar Carter Woodson who DED dedicated his life to educating African-Americans about achievements and contributions of their ancestors and whereas in 1976 President Ford expanded the Comm commemoration of black history in the United States to Black History Month saying the celebration enabled people to seize the opportunity to honor all the all too often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history and whereas this this year's theme African-Americans and the Arts celebrates a profound impact of black An ancestry Artistry in our culture national identity and social movements and whereas through literature music architecture dance film and many other mediums blank black artists have used their art to preserve history and Community memory as as well as for empowerment and whereas for centuries contributions of people of African descent uh to to the Arts have been denied or minimized even as Artistry was mimicked and whereas various forms of creative creative expression have had a pivotal role in opening new dialogues challenging us to examine hard truths and inspiring us to work towards something better now therefore I Robert H Conley mayor burough Madison on behalf of the governing body hereby Proclaim February 2024 excuse me as Black History Month and ask all to celebrate our diverse her it Ag and work towards equality and opportunity for [Applause] all the power our freedom movement in the United States has come from this new has strengthened us with the sleet R courage began to has calmed us with its Rich harmonies and Spirits with and Now jazz is exported to the world for in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there kin to the universal struggle of everybody has a br everybody longs to everybody needs to love everybody needs everybody in music [Applause] especially I want to for [Applause] this so as far as Madison connection [Applause] [Music] all right the cultist family please come forward or or Dave you staying back to take pictures okay Cathy L come on up [Applause] I know we have a few friends in the audience so I'm asking those um who can if you have been directly helped by Bob culus over the years please stand up and this since most of you is already standing but if you those who have been touched by Bob's kindness please stand up or if you already standing just wave a hand for a second and those who have been inspired by Bob's work wave that is just a part of the uh Bob cultist story it is not just in Madison where his influence was but across the world through his work with rotary through fighting disease and whatever challenge rotary would take on Bob is ready and just kind of some of my personal stories I I got to meet Bob initially when he was uh volunteer with the Y one of those volunteers that was never let allowed to leave he was chair of the board for a while he also did a lot of uh Team leading workshops for our staff and if you don't like my style leave the room now because I think a lot of my style came from me some of the things of workshops I learned from Bob on how on how to be a leader um and he also was always very good with advice and predicting the future I had to feature some of that advice because I remember about 30 years ago after my first uh attempt to be a council member did not work out the way I thought and Bob suggested you know you're going to make a good council member someday maybe you should switch parties to be elected right and I didn't listen to that one but he he did say Bob after I was elected you should be mayor someday and I I took that to heart and that's the type of person Bob cus is he is a leader and a sets a time for others not only for him to do the work for others to do the work also so are I have a and if you want you can sit down now but I have a proclamation as many you know I created award a couple years ago called the mayor's Legacy hero award and we've got one right here and mayor cus slogger and this is for those that have through their body of work over the years have truly made a difference in our community and in the story of Bob cultist is our community our County our state our world so I presented the award last Friday and his a proclamation to uh as a followup whereas Bob cus a lifelong Madison resident graduate from un College in Cranford and worked as a Salesman perfect job for Bob cultis to start right before starting a successful family printing business and there is 1959 Bob married Kathy rosika who was a member of The prominent Madison Rose growing family and they had two children David with the camel that's not the camel's not in the proclamation and Linda who ra here Madison whereas Bob served as a board member for many years with the now Area YMCA as I mentioned where Bob whereas Bob's life long time narian truly Lees the L model and service above self and whereas feeding the poor IM imizing children education literacy and important goals of of the cesses and Bob and Kathy traveled extensively for this volunteer work and hosted dozens of exchange students from all over the world and have and student children grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren at this point and whereas in 1980s as chairman of the madis L board of directors Bob spear headed the capital campaign to raise necessary funds for renovation of the former Lu school which became the FM Kirby children center the center continues to provide much needed quality affordable chare for parents in our area whereas you always B is present dud who his distinctive laugh no matter how Crow of that room was how many rotarians knew B was there when you heard that laugh you could let up that one and as I mentioned that uh my pres word he he let he let a great laugh out that day and where whereas during interview several years ago Bob explained his view on volunteering on by saying what we do for ourselves dies with us what we do for others lives on and whereas we often hear of power couples but after 65 years of marriage and service Bob and Kathy have shown us what it means to be a caring couple now therefore our Rober County mayor Bar Madison on behalf of the gummy body hereby recognize the contributions of Bob cus with his Proclamation and the mayor's hero Legacy award he is a local hero and example to all of us the bur and the world are a better place because of Bob's efforts and Bob couldn't be with us tonight but we will recognize him with his [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Proclamation I just want to say that nothing happens by yourself there's a lot of people in this room who have helped my husband uh with all the adventures and jobs and work that he's uh that he's done as a volunteer he loves being a volunteer and came from a family of volunteers um and a family of a lot of history in this in this uh Community um back to Dr cus who was the town doctor many years ago a terrifying in individual um but um Bob love loved this town and uh he continues to you know monitor what's going on and I really appreciate the award for the on behalf of uh on his behalf and again thank you all for everyone is uh I see so many faces who have helped him uh along the way so thank you for that [Applause] and uh Kathy and Linda when you go home please give them a big hug for all of Madison I mentioned the invitation I sent out to rotarians you all welcome to stay for all our reports and the budget presentation but uh if you have to go somewhere else we won't take it personally [Music] but well my son went to Curry so if I known that I would have stood up because they basically raised Julian when we first moved here so guess I was touched by Bob cus all right we'll move on to reports committees Public Safety Council president range thank you mayor from the police department tonight on February 5th Sergeant barart lab graduated from the New Jersey State Chiefs Association sponsored class titled command and Leadership Academy the training is an extensive 13 weeks and is and is by acceptance and Invitation Only the training prepares the officer to lead and understand and motivate others topics vary from leadership Sciences to managing change we are proud to say that each and every Madison police department supervisor will have gone through this training by the end of the year on February 9th members of the investigative Bureau and community policing unit took part in the monthly basketball at the Y which is sponsored by project Community Pride officers took part in shooting Hoops with juveniles uh from town while sparking conversation and humanizing our officers which helps continue our goal to strengthen our relationship within the burrow Community we're also happy to report tonight that the New Jersey arrive together program that was first announced last fall will be commencing in the coming weeks this program uh with this program mental health professionals will be responding to predetermined call types to assist our residents going through crisis the Madison police department will have mental health professionals in-house at headquarters to respond and conduct follow-ups with with our residents our social worker will be arriving at headquarters later this week to meet with officers and just a note on uh the upcoming storm tomorrow with the storm forecast for tomorrow street parking may be suspended tomorrow evening uh to Aid in clearing streets so be sure to follow burrow social media accounts for updates there and from the fire department uh so far this month uh in February the fire department has responded to 21 General arms still alarms conducted 36 investigations and 70 medical calls for a total of 142 calls on January 26 the fire department responded to the area of noi Avenue and Crestview Avenue for the odor of natural gas firefighters found a large leak in the roadway and where gas was bubbling up from a large area it was also found that the gas was starting to enter several homes psng was notified and six homes were evacuated firefighters remained on the scene until psng was able to secure the broken pipe under the road on February 1st the fire department responded to 26 Clinton Place in Morristown for a third alarm structure fire on February 11th the fire department was alerted to oil in the Waterway behind the baseball fields on rosale Avenue firefighters found what appeared to be an oil sheen on the water starting from Main Street going all the way past the Madison pool Morris County uh Asmat was called to investigate and it was determined not to be oil but a natural forming bacteria and was deemed not to be hazardous lastly tonight another storm related uh note uh with the most significant snow event in Madison in a long time the fire department would like to remind uh residents to clear the fire hydrants of snow that are on or near their property residents should shovel snow to clear at least a 3ft radius from the hydrant the simple act can save valuable time should that hydrant be needed during a fire and lastly tonight from our joint Court the oversight committee for the joint Court of Madison the cadams and Morris Township held their reorganization meeting on January 25th their chairperson for 2024 will be Township committeeman uh Jeff grelle from Morris Township on our Council agenda tonight we've got two appointments related to The Joint Court the first is uh Lisa Thompson uh to serve as the prosecutor for chadam burrow and Madison burrow replacing uh Maran odonnell McCoy in in that position of her as she's going to uh be a municipal court judge in Washington Township we wish Maran the very best and thank her for many years of service in Madison and the joint Court in addition uh tonight we have a resolution uh promoting Cynthia mcaffrey to violations clerk uh therefore we'll be hiring a part-time violations clerk for the joint court experience in Municipal Court is preferred but anyone uh can apply details regarding the position can be found on the burough website and all applications must be submitted by Friday February 23rd at 4:30 p.m. that's all from Public Safety toight mayor thank you thank you finance B clerk is early thank you mayor the council has already had multiple Financial presentations over the last few months and tonight we'll jump into the process in Earnest this evening we will get our first look at a draft Municipal budget developed by the burrow Administration it's important to note that this is a draft budget and will change as the numbers are refined voting on the budget is one of the most important actions that the council takes we work hard as a governing body and administration to be transparent and to make information available to the residents tonight we will have the third of seven scheduled budget presentations on January 22nd we discuss the Water and Electric utilities and on February 26th we will meet with department heads on March 11th we'll discuss the municipal budget again and review our Madison strategic planning guidelines and then on March 25th we'll have one final discussion on the budget along with the introduction of the official state budget document as per New Jersey statute we will take a 4-week break so that all residents have the opportunity to review the budget document and then on April 22nd we're scheduled to have a hear hearing and vote to adopt the budget all budget information is available on the annual budget process page on rosenet.org in other Finance news the burrow has two major payments going out this Wednesday first is a monthly payment to the Board of Education this month the payment is $3,941 10167 and the second major payment is an interest payment of $31,100 this payment is paid out of the open space Recreation and historic preservation trust fund lastly the Chief Financial Officer has filed the annual debt statement with the state of New Jersey Division of local government services this document summarizes the total debt for both the burrow and the school board and Compares it to the average of the last 3 years of our equalized assessed values the annual debt statement or ads is available on rosenet along with many other financial documents the the ads is yet another tool used to help ensure towns are being fiscally responsible and transparent thank you thank you Public Works and Engineering Mr landan thank you mayor okay the first few announcements here are related to the upcoming storm due to the pending weather conditions garbage and recycling pickup scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday February 13th will be rescheduled to Thursday February 15th as all Municipal officers will have a delayed opening at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow February 13th and let's see DPW is monitoring to weather forecast with the pending storm plows and soul spreaders are ready to go and now this is not related to the storm uh for the DPW mechanical staff is getting Lawn Equipment ready for spring which is nice which is good news at this point uh the parks department is repairing player benches for the upcoming Sports season and the road department is out patching potholes and finally uh due to the trous amount of rain in the last couple of weeks and the SE Department was in overnight cleaning drains and maintaining and maintaining the pump stations with the upgrades we have been doing on the pump stations we are handling the high flow times much better and are seeing less emergencies thank you mayor thank you utilities Mr how buis [Music] hello everybody hello members of the community uh reporting on the Water Utility uh kenel Brian isn't around he's on leave so Robert Duffy is next in command sent me a few updates uh there's work continuing on wellb upgrades the well needs to be up and running before spring wellb is the well over by by John Street uh there's a lot of work being done there uh reconditioning the well and all the power over there there's going to be a new generator to back it up so there's a lot of uh positive upgrades there for the burrow uh the Water Department inspected four new water services and did numerous waterline shut offs and turn on for plumbers doing work for homeowners and there's a water valve testing that will start in portions of the b in next few weeks is going to be notif ifications posted on the burough social media if there's any shut offs that will affect residents they'll be notified from the electric utility uh Mr Jim matina uh Danforth and Morris Place there was a big accident and the electric Department worked on replacing a utility pole that was broken and it took almost a week so it was a major uh down uh knock down the pole but I don't think anybody service was disrupted for very long 150 Main Street the standby was called to Verizon building for no power the underground primary wire chipped out the contractors are pulling the wire with the help of the electric Department the stand on February 11th a standby was called to a generator running at the well on John Avenue for unknown reasons and did not find a problem the electric utility the electric Department continues to respond to its typical activ activities including service installation demolition disconnections street lights repair markout requests solar itans broken branches and wires we have all of our uh new uh historic light posts already at the electric department and they should be starting to install soon and then uh from the recreation activity committee which I had the pleasure of sitting on uh for the first meeting of the year there's six meetings uh the director is Zach Ellis who does a fantastic job as a part-time ear employee and Dave Carver is the president of Iraq just for the community's knowledge in case you didn't know this there's 13 youth sports that we support in the burrow and each sport is organized by a community volunteer we're very fortunate in addition and their uh male and female sports soccer has both baseball softball lacrosse tremendous hockey we have a lot going on plus we have a junior school or up to Junior School age teacher that Zach Ellis organizes he has three full buses of students that have been going to Peter Mountain I think each called an Upstate New York but it's not really Upstate it's just the end of Route 287 um we talked about the fact that the burrow supports all of these youth programs with some sens to help them financially but they do a very good job fundraising and fees for the uh parents from the parents and uh we also talked about the revenue which you'll see an open space that the burrow gets from renting our Fields when they're available which helps a lot with the program and then we talked about the solar deck it's going to be installed over at the MRC and how the burrow is very conscious of not blocking all the parking there and starting the installation if if it does materialize uh in June after most of the transports have already begun and the other thing thereor is we our anti-idling committee had a meeting uh with Bridget and Kathy kavali and um officer dco and lieutenant plumet and we uh were happy to report that we handed out handed out about 200 of our ation for residents who were not idling and to go redeem uh at the Madison bagel for a bagel and coffee supported by Madison rotary in part and by the bagel store and now we're discussing how to reach some of the retail establishments in the burrow that tend to have a lot of idling in front of their establishments many of them are on private property so we have to maybe collaborate with the grow see how reach and what can be done to reduce it so we can have a nice impact on uh helping the environment you know and uh with the true forest trees don't have to work as hard getting all that CO2 out of the air that's is that enough sounds good all right great work sure right community fairs Miss Hunan thank you mayor uh the next regular meeting of the Downtown Development commission will be held on Thursday February 22nd at 7:15 open to the public and it is in the heartley hge building here on the second floor uh the DDC plans to reinvent the Madison Farmers Market for 2024 it will now be called the Madison farm and Artisan market and will be held on Saturdays from May 25th through December 14th uh in the Prospect Street parking lot from 10: to 3: hoping that the new format will allow for greater participation closer to the heart of Madison the 2024 Taste of Madison will be taking place on Monday March 18th at the Madison Hotel tickets are available at Garry's wine and Marketplace and taste of madison. org tickets must be purchased in advance and guests have to be at least 21 years old there are two levels of tickets one is a VIP ticket for 125 which allows for early admission and some other special benefits and the other ticket is $85 uh and allows for entry to the event which will begin at 7:00 it features a silent auction Tricky Tray and 50/50 raffle proceeds benefit local charities Business Development and civil improvements in Madison the Downtown Development commission launched a total refresh of the event formerly known as May Day last year and the event is now called Madison Green and clean the event will uh take place on Saturday April 27th from 9: to 2 the rain date is the next day on Sunday April 28th and the annual Arbor Day celebration will kick off the event this event also features a focus on eco-friendly initiatives information on sponsorship donation and volunteering is available on roset from the Chamber of Commerce the Madison Chamber of Commerce will host some of community's favorite events again this spring find Shelly the Easter egg scavenger hunt will run from March 9 to 22nd and Easter FunFest will take place on Saturday March 23rd from 11: to 12:30 ladies night is scheduled for Thursday March 9th the Madison Community Art Center uh the monthly music open mic will be held 700 p.m. on Wednesday February 14th music showcase will be held at 7:30 on Saturday February 17th and the monthly comedy open mic will be held on Wednesday February 21st the summit Film Society will screen two Oscar nominated short presentations on Friday February 23rd a 3 p.m. showing of short documentaries will be followed by a 7:30 p.m. showing of short liveaction films there's a discount for those who wish to attend both information is on the art center web page as of February 24th there are 820 scheduled events at the center the average hours of use including event set up and take down is 8 hours per day or nearly six 60% of available hours all events can be found on the mcac landing page thank you very much and Health Mr Forte thank you mayor the Board of Health has been busy assisting the burough with resolving property maintenance issues regarding various Residential Properties on tonight's agenda is a resolution increasing the compensation for senior office assistant Janet wag staff who successfully completed the state certification process to become a health registar neov virus cases are on the rise personal hygiene practices such as frequent handwashing is recommended the emergency housing Safety Committee that deals with chronic property maintenance issues and Resident concerns has been reconstituted and will be meeting in the near future the Board of Health president and myself as Council liaison will be participating members that's all for this evening mayor you very much move on to Communications petitions uh yes may mayor and Council received a letter dated uh February 12 from Resident uh Richard zipper of Greenwood Avenue regarding uh yard Recycling yard waste recycling thank you and now we move on to invitation for public comment this is one limited to our agenda discussions and the resolutions are part of the consent agenda on our agenda discussions tonight fire department budget hearing and EMS update the Madison Green infrastructure plan and budget hearing draft budget discussion and fund balance so we may comment on those and these are the items you the resolution make comment on and these are also part of the consent and please bear with me with the extra week in between um meetings we have a lot of resolutions uh resolution 61 is uh plan uh authorized and directed The planning board to conduct a preliminary investigation to determine if um real estate property identifi as block 30 3303 Lot 2 um uh constitutes an area of non- condemnation area of Redevelopment this is uh under all the farm resolution 62 is approving the salary increase for Janet Wagstaff has mentioned that she's now a registered of useful regist resolution 63 pointing Cynthia mafre to the position of Deputy clerk administrator at a compensation of $56,000 annually resolution 64 is appointing Mike Michael philipone position of Public Safety telecommunications officer annual salary of 45,000 uh resolution 65 is amending the award contract for purchase of video cameras and security equipment to Johnston Communications of Springfield under Union County cooperative pricing uh program and this is uh not to exceed an additional $100,000 funded through ordinances 43221 36 2022 37 2022 and 38 2022 along with uh the American Rescue act funding resolution 66 is purchase of police vehicle accessory equipment and other related equipment from police outside Duty not to exceed 6,000 uh resolution 67 is um for awarding the contract to Riverview Paving for Paving improvements under the Mars County cooperative bid not to exceed 444,000 this is funded through ordinance 3 2024 resolution um 68 is awarding contract for micropave systems for crack sealing under Mars County Co-op not to exceed 40,000 also funded through ordinance 3 resolution uh 69 is to saell Sun Contracting for curb replacement improvements under the Mars County Co-op not to exceed 30,000 also funded under ordinance 3 resolution 70 is contracted Denville line striping for striping work about to exceed 30,000 also funded under resolution three resolution 70 or ordinance three resolution 71 is um authorizing the uh submission Grant application the county Mars for U Community Development black grant for installation protected air conditioning systems at 24b John Avenue and 28b and C to me places in support of the housing authorities application also another application is uh uh through the home program and this is during $50,000 Grant application for replacing Rooftop hbac at re rexord Tucker and resolution 73 is proven contract to Melgar cleaning services for cleaning services for the commun art center water light building and police department um not to exceed 22780 as part of this year's budg operating budget resolution 74 is authorized and shared service agreement the Town Township of Berkley Heights for IT services renewal of a agreement we're supplying services and resolution 75 is simar one with Mountain Lakes resolution 76 is a authorizing the annual Little League parade so mark your calendar for April 13th at 11:00 a.m. resolution 77 is authorized special day event permit for egg hunt at James Park on Saturday March 30th uh host it's going to be hosted by the United Methodist Church resolution 78 8 is authorizing contract with sple con Sullivan and drill Esquire for Professional Services regarding Municipal land use La resolution 79 is endorsing the adoption of Green Building practices for Civic commercial and residential buildings resolution 80 is uh Grant application for Community Development Grant uh block grant for U the Sonic Lodge ada8 project resolution 81 is confirmed the membership of Gabriella scel Todd hlon in the Madison ladder company number number one so two more volunteers thank you very much Chief resolution 82 is uh Mars Council Municipal Council fair housing resolution this is the affirmative marketing and marketing and uh related uh requirements resolution 83 is appointing part-time per DM emergency medical technicians to the Madison fire department there's 13 of them all at the rate of $30 per hour without benefits resolution 84 is authorizing Professional Services contract with Dr Matthew laia for as a medical director for the Madison fire department EMTs resolution 85 is awarding a contractor coronus Health LLC for medical billing services through the state County cooperative pricing system again this is related to soft billing uh resol ution 86 is a resolution of burough Madison appointing Frank Zara to position of substitute uh crossing guard at 2145 $21.45 an hour resolution 87 appointing Lisa Thompson as prosecutor for burrow of Madison and bur chadam not to exceed 30,000 at a rate of 450 per court session resolution 88 is proven raffle license for the AA resolution 89 raffle licenses for the Madison High School ptso and resolution 90 is uh supporting a Grant application for um deer funds of $ 5,845 our cash match is 1461 and in kind is 4,300 and resolution 91 is uh authorized increasing change fund for the court office to $350 so if you want to comment on any of those 30 resolutions or the three agenda items you may Step Up state your name your address and state the resolution or the um agenda item you wish to address if you want to comment on any other topic as I lose my voice um you have to wait till a later part the meeting um just just quickly I don't really understand uh the resolution authorizing the planning board to conduct a a uh investigation into block 3303 um as an area in need of Redevelopment is that that's at Dalal you said correct and um yeah that that is the last was home to fiser um is primarily vacant at this point and uh so ability to look at the property and look at alternate uses and come up with a plan that would uh utilize that property working with the potential developer in the burrow but the the planning board will leave the effort and it would be approved by the burrow Council um there is an owner so it's working with the owner of of the property but it's a very open process led by our planner and the uh planning board but this is step one to do the investigation before an actual plan is developed anyone else wishing to comment on any of the uh resolutions seeing that I close this part of the meeting and we now move on to the U agenda discussions Chief good evening I was in Jim's office today he said to make sure being this my first to really make sure I go all out and talk for at least an hour so please bear with me all right um so this is our call breakdown for last year as you can see and as I've talked about it a lot and especially the council reports is this was our busiest year in history um a lot of things have led up to the reason why we're so busy fire calls are busier but really the EMS calls has really taken over over everything we do um it's I think it's 44% of all our calls um just tonight there's been three calls I've I've listened to tonight I don't know if you heard my patient go off before but um been very busy um the trend is going up it's not really going down but the fire apparatus responses should probably go down as we start getting an ambulance back online 24/7 um we going to go to the next slide Michael um see here so call types we had 34 fire related incidents which means fire was present at 34 of them so you can see we had 587 EMS calls um accidents with injuries were 38 and without injuries 15 the trend of accidents just keeps kind of ticking up every year a little bit more people are in a big hurry um a lot of car accidents but we don't get as many serious injuries as we used to because the car industry has really done a great job of making automobiles so much safer um cars that would literally just destroy people actually are built to protect people really well so we've noticed the injuries with cars especially a fatal accidents has really dropped over over the years of 15 elevator entrapments and another interesting thing that we do is ring removals uh we get a lot of people actually only two last year but the year before that we get a lot of people that show up with a stuck ring on their finger and we actually have several tools to safely remove a ring without damaging the ring or the finger um it's actually quite interesting to watch watch we've had 133 Haz conditions including carbon monoxide alarms or four where there was actually carbon monoxide uh present 101 gas leaks um we get a lot of calls for gas leaks as psng doesn't like to get a call and say hey I smell gas so after you call psng they immediately call the fire department because they want the responsibility to kind of lift it off of them a little bit they know we'll get anywhere in Madison about 2 and 1 half to 3 and A2 minutes and usually they their response is within an hour so that's why we go to so many gas leaks now um 351 fire alarms mostly due to cooking defective detectors that trend of false carbon monoxide alarms has gone down as technology with carbon monoxide alarms have gotten better again we recommend that they're all replaced within 10 years of 52 public assist uh the police department does automobile lockouts we do house lockouts uh 16 of those and then 23 lift assist is when somebody actually has fallen and they can't get up and they need help and so we go to a lot of uh calls where it's not a medical emergency they just have a difficult time getting up so we send two people over we help them help them get up and we make sure that they're fit you know they're medically okay in clear them and then we just we just return back to the Firehouse there's no transportation to the hospital um 19 Mutual a assign assignments at 7 we went uh out of town 19 times a bunch of those we count as Route 24 anything on Route 24 is a is a tried Town response of chadam chadam BAU um us and Floren Park we kind of divide it up the problem is when people call 911 and say there's something on Route 24 they can never tell you exactly where they are so we go to the Greenwood Bridge chadam gets on by the mall and Floren Park gets on over at Columbia Turnpike and so we kind of like stage and wait until we find out where the incident on 24 is um next slide please and I'm stuck fire prevention uh we continue to do our commercial inspections our safe housing inspections every time a house is sold in Madison by law they has to be inspected for carbon monoxide and smoke detectors um we as you know the housing real estate market in Madison is very hot and so we go on quite a bit of these usually several of them a day um fire safety programs School visits um K through five we saw 400 preschool kids 100 seniors and adults and about 2200 prek through 8ighth grade uh we do an excellent program uh for fire safety with them and every year it it just gets well uh we have a couple programs that every year get upgraded and really Captain non organizes that really does a nice job with it uh senior citizen house visits and smoke detector battery placements um we provide free of charge smoke detectors for senior citizens if they need a smoke detector we or if they think they do we will go to their house we'll do an inspection and then we'll replace them and make sure there's one on every floor where is needed and it also replace their carbon monoxide detector we get these detectors uh from the American Red Cross and this program has been very successful over the years and we even used to go out and changeed their batteries for free but now the smoke detectors that we give out actually have a 10e sealed battery so we've noticed that our battery placements have freely dropped off because it's the batteries now like I say last 10 years so uh next one there so we added uh four volunteers last year and actually we just ordered we added two more tonight we did lose two but we're up to six since about this time last year so we're we're starting to generate some interest in in the fire department which is nice again we're always trying to find you know the younger crowd that wants to stick around and be be on the fire department for a while it takes a while to to to kind of train these people but we've noticed a kind of an uptick where people seem to kind of really be interested and we're kind of and work with them and keep people organized and I got to give it a hand to a lot of uh our volunteers that have been on for a while they they've kind of really started to embrace the new members and make sure that they're really getting along and like enjoy it and kind of encourage them to kind of stay on most of the time when we lose people it's because they move away like a job or they school or a lot of them lot of them just go south but but we are seeing a small up uptick geographically sou geograph that's right good good call um we hired three career firefighters last year this is the first time in Madison history or the fire department history there's actually three brand new Proby firefighters it's been an interesting challenge but again the the senior and the veteran firefighters have done an outstanding job of stepping up and training them and not only that but training them quickly uh two of them are already EMTs they graduated very quickly they're doing great with it and the third one is about 2 weeks out from graduating and I don't expect any any um problems with him he's he's doing a really good job again I can't say enough about how well these guys make sure that the new people are trained I mean they are on top of them and it's it's just it's really a joy to watch how seriously they take they take it uh National Night Out we partnered with the police department that's been very successful we really enjoy helping out the police department it's a great event downtown we're all down on Waverly at the end in last year that was that was great A Day of Service when we bring the high school kids um we had one day we would kind of bring them in kind of try to you know nudge them a little bit to say maybe you want to volunteer one day and and we they help us out around the firehouse we teach them about our job we do we got our new engine three which was a rescue pumper which replaced our rescue truck and our 1989 or 90 engine um that's in service doing well and we also had a joint two-day trench rescue drill which we train with the SE fire department the whipy fire department and uh we weren't able to do it with moristown this year but this year when we do it again moris toown and we're also partnering with the largest career Fire Department in Morris County which is pitini Arsenal which is once to get involved with training with us they have a a lot of lot of great equipment and federal dollar dollars to help spend on on our training matter of fact they're actually uh putting on a class for confined space which we do and they're paying for so they're going to pay for the train training so we don't have to to hire somebody to to provide that training like we usually do um oh and we also did a New Jersey Transit drill where we started to realize there's a lot of trains that go through town and these trains carry a lot of people we want to make sure that we're really prepared that God forbid there was ever any type of incident so we had a representative from New Jersey Transit come in go over the trains and then I sent half of the fire department to the rail yard in Carney where they actually boarded the trains and went over all the safety features and I'm looking forward to I I I hopefully soon to send the the other six that had not gone so the next one um is our goals I said our goal right now our big goal right now which I work on every day I it's I I can't tell you H how hard that we've been working on this but it's it's it's to establish and Implement and sustain our new EMS program um we we're there we're just about there um it it's been uh quite the task and I was warned that trying to build this from scratch was going to be something but again you know the theme of the night is I've had amazing help from not only the fire department the ambulance Corps but some of the staffs here of Michael and Jim have been great with really helping help any questions or help I've needed everybody's really stepped up and I'm going to be real proud of this when it gets off the ground it's going to be it's going to be great um we're going to recruit new volunteers which we seem to be doing a pretty good job to of that and word's getting out that we're building something good here and um we want it our new volunteers even our old volunteers we need to get their responses up people are very busy people are working more than one job people working two jobs they get home late last thing they want to do is go to a fire alarm at 3:00 in the morning but we're we're working on it 9% average response is is not great but part of that is they realize that there is an on duty fire department that's there 247 365 so the kind of the feeling is well they'll just take care of it but we need help we need help and we need getting them motivated to come out is one of our goals more but we're they they've recognized it and they know when we're taking steps to try to make that that better we want to continue training training is very important to me uh we train up at the moris County Fire Academy which has been great and we also um want to kind of highlight that our confin space and our trench trench rescue team is really going to um with the help of K Tenny and moristown is is going to be pretty um pretty in depth but the training again I said I'm excited that the federal dollars coming in that to pay for this is going to be great and it's also going to be held at the Morris County fire academy and then the trench class we'll have again here in Madison um off by the FM Kirby Center the next one so we'll do the EMS update where we are with this we're about 75 to 85% done everything I do I send to the state for their approval they approved our initial license but they have some small things that they require that that I wasn't fully aware of one of them was the um the the markings of the ambulance has to match what's on the license which is the town name and the town fire department so I've worked with some members of the ambulance Corps and the bureau and that's going to be taken care of this week the state actually asked for pictures of the ambulance before before you do it I wanted to make sure that it was state approved and then they'll actually come come and they inspect every little nook and cranny of each ambulance we have 13 pums um that were that are on the agenda tonight to ready to start going we did a great job of of going through a pretty good number of applicants to make sure we got a lot of good people that will fit and it'll work well in town um we probably going to bring that to maybe 15 but we have two that are kind of outliers waiting to see if we're going to move forward with them but we wanted to make sure that there was enough work for them to do so we didn't want to go too crazy yet but again these are part-time employees they're not working full-time we are we are starting to buy the equipment for the ambulance core or for the EMS thing is we've taken over kind of purchasing the equipment to to help the ambulance core out and then we I talked about the Rel lettering with the medical director and the billing which is also on tonight we're required to have a medical director and the medical director doesn't just approve your policies and how you you operate in the EMS World they actually provide the training the updates that we have to go through for let's say like an EpiPen a Naran training and all sorts of things like that that the medical director will provide um we we did um a big search to try to find somebody that was wanting to get into this the doctor is fantastic he he's an ER doctor and he's really into the emergency services and he's he's pretty Hands-On so we're we're excited our targeted goal is to have this up and running in 18 days by by March 1st um biggest thing that we need to get now almost and now that the ambulances are going to get done this week is is uniforms believe it or not um they're tricky to get there they're it's high demand I went to one place and they said that the New York fire department came in and bought 80 sets of gear and they took everything so we're kind of wait wait for everything to get replenished but we're on our way to to getting the hopefully the uniforms by the end of the month and hopefully we'll have an ambulance ready to go by March 1st um next one uh capital budget you see we replace uh two to three sets of turnout gear a year the cost is rising I was only able to buy three sets this year because the cost has gone up but the good news is the the uh we've done such a good job over the years of of buying gear that we're really not falling behind they they have about a 10year life before they're they're really they're they're not accepted by NFPA standards anymore and as we went through people's gear we realized that they've done such a good job we've all done such a good job with buying gear over the year that we're really pretty much caught up that we only do need a few sets a year but then we starting to get a rash of new volunteers and so now it's the new game of finding gear for them and communication equipments like pagers um replacement of SCBA cylinders it's for 2027 $40,000 I'm going to try to apply for a grant for that um I was successful in getting an SCBA grant for our breathing cylinders in our back about 10 years ago um I'm hoping that by the time that we get to 2027 in that area we'll be added two standards and we can apply for a FEMA grant for them again um have on here also the replacement of the 1998 engine 2 which is budgeted out for $300,000 each year I replace the uh Chief vehicle 75,000 this year and then the last on here is the knoxbox elock system which is basically without getting into too much of operational security it's the way that we access businesses and Residences when they're closed we just want to make sure that we need to secure it more there's a two form factor kind of like when you're getting like a password you have to put a two form factor into something this is kind of adding a two form factor to uh guarantee the the security of of these locks of we when we enter businesses and Residences when they're not there we're we are a combination fire department we're pres Staffing is 14 including myself we have 18 volunteers 20 now that we're probably adding two more tonight seven suppressions and 10 support we have two firefighters that are in the fire academy right now doing really well um one of them um she's fantastic you guys approved her not too long ago she's actually actually I met with someone from the fire academy the other day and they said that she she is something else she actually made team leader um she's really doing well up there some Madison very well represented up at the fire academy doing great very proud of them um hopefully the the the two new ones that joined and I got a third will be going to the fire academy in the fall when the next firefighter one classes is up questions thank you very much Chief and just two quick comments and I'll get from the council but uh one uh very impressive with the EM you know this is a major undertaking and it I knew it was in great hands but to see the report uh you're really impressed upon you know how the speed you're attacking this at thank you it's it's been a lot and and the other comment is you you to talked a little little bit about how your veterans take the training seriously but we know from our interview process how seriously you took training and your experience and making sure people are well trained so it sounds like that's all trickling down and you not training not only helps our residents but helps your retention a well-trained employee is a someone that likes to stay so thank you for your leadership there thank you Bob doing a doing a Tom harus right now watch you yeah you know he of cross me what can I tell you um I think in Mammoth County the Sheriff's Department EMS because they cannot get enough volunteers and I have to believe that it hurts the response time if there's a medical call so you've done a great job and I really appreciate the fact that everything is headquartered and housed Within Madison so just keep going the way you go when I can't stand enough thank you yeah Mammoth uh County had the slowest response times in New Jersey and they invested $5 million into a new EMS countywide program which Morris County kind of has a small one yeah not like this and the volunteer side of it it's not just us that's hurting as we've talked about it's everywhere matter of fact we're uh dispatched to a neighboring town today for a structure fire this morning and we were the first arrive to this town with the city of before their fire department arrived really yes but the good news is it wasn't a fire but you know when I talk to their Chief you know the frustrations are there it's it's it's it's everywhere it's actually National so I can't say again how great it is to have you and this group in this town doing what you're doing thank you and Rachel and then Eric thanks mayor Chief I will just Echo what um Bob said I'm so impressed with the way you've managed to attract volunteers it's a delight uh to this year have uh approved so many volunteers to serve uh so thank you for your efforts in that regard it's really impressive um two things I want to ask about one was that you mentioned for the EMS response that uh accidents with injury have gone down because cars are safer for the car drivers and passengers but I was looking back at the Madison police reported uh crash statistics in 2020 2021 and 2022 this was in Chief M's budget report last year in 2020 the police responded to 209 crash investigations in 2021 it was 292 and in 2022 they had 334 crash investigations that increase by 50% in 2 years which is just shocking to me so I'm interested to know if going forward you could help us understand we know that cars are getting safer for drivers and passengers but as they get bigger and go faster and more recklessly there's been a nationwide and a Statewide trend of more drivers injuring the vulnerable people who are walking or riding bikes on our streets and I'd be interested to know if EMS call Trends in Madison for those kinds of injuries have increased at the same rate that our uh crash investigations have increased I don't expect you to have that data on hand tonight but it'd be interesting over time to understand how uh much at risk people who are not in these cars are and it'll help us make good decisions about how we can protect the other users of our sidewalks and Roads so something to think about uh for future reports absolutely and you also mentioned you pointed out that we have a billing vendor contract on tonight's agenda can you just for all of us Briefly summarize what soft billing is in in a very high level way what that will entail sure we're calling it actually the the the term that's used most widely in the industry is balanced billing um for instance you you as a provider you don't have to balance Bill a resident because basically the the burrow would be subsidizing the the um the cost so if if you're a private entity let's say like the paramedics come to your house which is based out of Atlantic Health they by law have to balance bill you so if they bill you a certain dollar amount let's say $2,500 if you don't pay them the money they put you in collections we don't have to do that what we B basically will'll do is is we won't balance Bill we send your insurance bill your insurance company a bill whatever they pay that's what you get and you don't go after the balance that wasn't paid there is certain rules about Medicare and Medicaid that you have to make three reasonable attempts but usually that's just to collect insurance information but it doesn't mean that you're going after them to like balance Bill like $50 if that's what the balance was that needed to be paid so the billing company is set up where they they say okay we don't Bill Madison residents Beyond whatever their insurance pay so in most cases no one would ever even see a bill so if they get if a resident gets a notice or um a letter from uh that looks like a bill I'm I'm hoping that we can give them some reassurance of of what they might expect going forward sure I as long as the the paper whatever they received clearly explain what it was again most of it's just getting the the information that might have been missed like like the like maybe a number from an insurance card but one thing that I I did not mention beside on the EMS charts which is our our new software that we're using it is uh actually tied in with the hospitals where we can pull information from the hospitals so if we miss something we're able to whoever wrote that chart is able to actually pull data and and get that information so a lot most of the times people won't even see a bill because we would be able to get that information thank you and Eric thanks Chief uh you know once again awesome job getting the EMS operations up and running I know we've had a bunch of phone calls about it and of course all the support you've gotten from your team I know the you know the stories you've told me of firefighters and the lieutenants and everyone who's been kind of helping you along the way and and it's really been a a whole department effort to get this uh service going for for our residents and and it's your leadership that is really done that so thank you thank you um loving seeing kind of the more specialized trainings and kind of growing our knowledge especially the New Jersey Transit piece I think that's that's really interesting um so again thank you for your leadership in that just curious and and Rachel sort of touched upon it but um you know seeing six new Volunteers in in really anything in the burough at this point is pretty uh astronomical let alone uh uh a volun position that we're asking people to potentially put their lives on the line so just curious what uh recruitment strategies new programs that you might have done um or are they just following the pi Piper a a lot of it is is I think words kind of getting out there that what we're doing what we're kind of building something that hasn't really been done around here in a while I can't think of a very many in this in this general area of where we've kind of combined with the ambulance core while keeping everything kind of intact and I I I think that the hiring of the 14th firefighter I think that attracted uh people down the road that might be saying hey you know like maybe I want to volunteer there maybe someday there'll be a job for me matter of fact I had a 20-year-old kid come in last week I interviewed that's in the pipeline to join too so he hopefully will be on your table in the next month or so to approve so I think just kind of stuff like that I think the word is out there and I think our guys have done a good job of trying to attract people but the target audience that we're really having the hardest is like even though I just said a 20-year-old is is getting the younger person involved um that is that has been I I joined the Madison fire department when I was 20 20 years old and a lot of the PE the senior members over there senior I can't believe I'm saying that um speak up on you it it it really does like I joined the new Vernon Fire Department in 1993 when I was 18 years old because I thought the idea of a volunteer firefighter was out of this world I it was outrageous I'm from Los Angeles I lived in St Louis and Chicago and when I moved here and I heard what A volunteer firefighter was I I I was kind of dumbfounded I'm like what happens if there's a real fire and and because of my conversation in high school I'm standing here in front of you today and I think that's the hard part is trying to motivate you know it's hard to find someone to be a plumber an electrician you know a volunteer and I think that we're doing a pretty good job of starting to kind of really get that word out to the younger people and I'm hoping to see more and more younger people in the near future thanks so much and I mean that kind of leads us right into you know since we did hire those three firefighters last year we're going to need a new hiring list soon so yes yes that's actually that's another it's on my pile I'm working on it I that's a hard thing to navigate trying to figure out all the rules for that I need to work with the administration absolutely thanks Chief thank you Tom all right Chief echo echo echo we don't have to say what they said it was great great presentation Chief uh question for you is what do you do now for your EMS calls if the you're not going out in the ambulance so we when when we receive a medical call during the day we send two firefighters and we we have this they call it uh the closest unit dispatch if Madison ambulance can't provide an ambulance ambulance the computer AED dispatch system at the police department which is tied into moris County will track down GPS the closest available ambulance and but we do have a partnership with moris County um office of emergency management which provides an ambulance on Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays during the day and then I am in contact with their director almost daily trying to find an ambulance from them at night and I've able to get them a lot of times I get them down here on a Saturday or a Tuesday night or a Monday night actually tonight was one of the nights they actually couldn't get an ambulance from them if not we're getting an ambulance you usually um from Floren Park on that side of town chadam on that side of town and then Atlantic health will send an ambulance for anything on the Drew side of town so it's it's kind of been a challenge to um to get an ambulance tomorrow the ambulance I believe is going to be in the mortown beard area so I'm probably going to staff an ambulance in Madison with the daytime crew to make sure during the snowstorm that there's a quick response sure sure sure okay thanks Chief and then so how much training is required for somebody to be a volunteer s so they have to go to the fire academy up up in par Symphony and it's usually 19 weeks and it's well when I say 19 weeks it's it's a the two that are in the fire academy right now they go every Tuesday night and then all day on Saturday and so that starts in that started in January and they'll be graduating in I want to say it's June and then the next one starts in August and goes to December wow that's great did they take old people like me sure absolutely absolutely jobs are right could sweet um and then oh you get a new a new car yes yeah is it going to be electric um it probably I I yeah probably something in the hybrid thing electric it's I've been talking to the Bur garage about some of their issues with the hybrid car so I'll I'll figure something out hopefully they no one so much better if you can maneu that that would be great thank you you you'd be surprised ifone almost got to join you tonight yeah someone you know at the thing we're at maybe played professional hockey so we're working on it okay that' be great thank you Chief um so first of all thank you for opening your doors and giving a new council member aour of the fire department including uh letting me sit there and watch the closest units dispatch in action cuz that was pretty cool to see how all of that works and you gave me a lot of perspective as I came in but I really want to commend you you heard a lot of those comments tonight but uh it's not easy to to walk into your shoes that you know into the role that you're in today uh but you also came in at a time when there was a lot of change and when your department was taking on a lot more than any fire chief before you really had to deal with um and I think you've done it uh really well and you have a tremendous responsibility and I think you're quite aware of that it shows with everything that you do and certainly you know I think this Council has an appreciation for that and you have a lot of support um as you saw in 2023 so hopefully you feel that um because certainly I think it's very sincere from this group um just a question um do you think there's an opportunity to revive the explorers in the high school because I know when I was there uh that's where lot of the guys that uh you know we knew back in the day that's that's how they joined sure is that a possibility we even beyond that we're looking at a possible Junior program which which uh they actually have at the fire academy where they accept uh younger well I don't want to say kids but younger adults that are um 16 and 17 they're able to go to the fire academy and then when they turn 18 they're actually issued their firefighter one certificate and that is something that we've been looking at too matter of fact um I I worked at the fire academy for for about 5 years and I was in charge of a junior class over the summer and of the 25 kids that were in that class that I was in charge of them I believe 12 of them are career firefighters somewhere so that is a lot of them go down to Maryland and one of them actually worked for the Madison fire department and abandon us for DC but um he I wish him all the best but a lot of them that's who we want to attract and if we can get people that are interested in firefighting and get them into a junior program like this it's only going to benefit us down the down the road because hopefully we can get them to stay but yeah that is something that we're looking at but the Explorer program isn't really around as much as I thought it was but we could look into it but the junior program is something I really want to look into and is that something you would uh Engage The Madison public schools in to oh oh def definitely and I think once word gets out there if we're able to build something that's that's professional for the for the younger kids that come in using the career staff and the volunteers to really like engage it put something together I think that it could be very successful okay I mean some towns it's it's a little out of control but other towns I I've would would like to model of how well of a program they so like a Morse Plains does a pretty good job with it thank you thank you Chief very well done welcome I let an hour J sorry he said 4 minutes yep yeah you were somewhere between somewhere between thank you very much have a good night all right we'll now move on to our Madison Green infrastructure plan oh I have it on my screen but thank you you okay so I was told I had nine and a half minutes so I'm going to try to go quick um my name's Chris abrupta I'm with Ruck University I'm the extension specialist in Water Resources uh for Ruckus Cooperative Extension I teach uh environmental engineering in environmental science department on cook campus down New Brunswick uh next slide please um so I'm going to talk to youday about storm water management really quickly um we have some really great storm waterer regulations in New Jersey uh but mostly they're for new development or major development so it's development that's greater than one acre us a municipality can change that and and kind of apply those to smaller developments but what's really happening in the state is the flooding and water quality issues are being caused by historic development development that was built before we had storm water regulation so um so what we're trying to do at Ruckers is we're trying to work with communities go in and retrofit that older development with storm water management so we could reduce flooding and improve water quality next slide please so we do that with green infrastructure next slide so the idea with green infrastructure instead of building that big Basin at the bottom of the hill to capture all the storm water from the development now we're sprinkling storm water management and throughout the entire development trying to capture water where it lands before it starts running across the ground picking up pollution going Downstream so putting these at the end of down spouts next to roads capturing it filtering it absorbing the water and then some cases reusing the water uh next slide so these are the practices that we typically use um bio retentions like the technical name for it most people know this as rain Gardens uh shallow landscape depressions usually filled with 3 to 12 in of water when it rains uh that water slowly percolates into the ground over the next 12 hours they're great systems they usually are designed to manage an inch and a quarter rain uh in New Jersey 90% of our storm events come in storms that are less than an inch and a quarter uh we at Ruckers have been designing the manage 2 years storm which like 3 to four inches of rain because of climate change and rainfall is getting more intense so you do much better uh permeable Pavements another thing we're talking about and I'll show you a little examples of each of these and rainwater harvesting these are the three ones that we typically use next slide please so you know I went to college I got a PhD in civil engineering uh but the bottom line is it's all about managing storm water run off from impervious surfaces it's real simple I can show you all these crazy equations up here but it's not important I mean we just have to capture this water and not let it get into the catch basins get it back into the ground not into people's basements but into the ground next slide please so a lot of times we're using these rain Gardens so we're we're cutting the down spout we're putting in a garden now your lawn can absorb maybe the first half inch inch of rain from your rooftop but this Guardian I can design to to capture two three even four inches of rain from rooftops so that's which really important we had a storm I guess uh a few weeks ago dumping a lot of water in Somerset County where I live uh it was 2 to three inches of rain and entire town of Hillsboro was flooded and we couldn't get out of town so it doesn't take a lot in New Jersey to flood out roads next slide so these are all different types of rain Gardens that we have um we do a lot with kids in schools uh not because we're trying to educate them because we think of them as free labor and they're short closer to the ground so it's easier for them to plant so it's really nice so and then we try to do stuff like in the center it's a corporate center and we got people coming out of the office on a Friday to help us build stuff so a lot of the stuff is done with volunteers you've been hearing volunteer firemen uh we heard volunteers earlier today but a lot of this stuff is done with volunteers next slide uh this is one of my Landscape Architects in this case we built this Garden but we didn't want to get rid of the dirt because it's cost money to ha that stuff away so we mounted it up in the back gave this a little contour and it looks beautiful right next slide another one at a library you can see all the pl PL in there pollinator plants beautiful plants attracting butterflies um a nice multi stem River Birch but it's managing all the runoff from that parking lot next slide this is one that was built in Hillsboro at the municipal building uh Hillsboro did not want a rainard at the municipal building uh we had gotten a grant uh to put one there and then we told them that well if you don't want it we're going to give your money to the next town their rival town and all of a sudden they wanted it there so um so we built this and now every time they send out a calendar this is on the front page of the calendar so something they didn't want they really kind of take credit for it now but it's beautiful because in in Halloween they put scarecrows in here uh this is the minicipal building the library uh there's benches here now where people can actually sit and read uh at Christmas they put Christmas lights in this and they put Santa Claus here at the end of the path and and people want Meander through the rain Gard go go ask Santa for Christmas gifts next slide um the other thing we do a lot of is perable pavement so I was driving around here before I got here there's a lot of parking lots uh the pavement we have now is design so water can't go through it it runs off if water goes through the pavement sits right below it freezes expands contraction your pop holes well we're using now Porsche asphalt so we're letting water go through that surface but we have a stone layer underneath where it goes into and it slowly percolates into the ground next slide and you can see the stone layer so for every 2 and2 gallons of stone I can store a gallon of water into that parking lot okay and because the water passes through that surface very quickly we don't get that freezing and we don't get those pot we don't get those potholes the only difference between perious pavement and and regular and and a traditional pavement is that this doesn't stain when it rains cuz water doesn't sit on the surface it always looks like it's new uh so it's really it's a really a great tool we should be use this in every parking lot in New Jersey next slide so this is a parking lot we did in Clark New Jersey you can see the cartway here is regular uh asphalt and the side here is is pable or porous asphalt so the water runs off of that and goes right into the ground and right into the stone layer next slide we also use these graphs pavers a lot of for overflow parking like I'm a devout Catholic so I go to church twice a year Christmas and Easter and I always had to park in that back lot that's beautifully paved lot nobody ever parks there and you can put this stuff there and it's great cuz the water goes right through this goes into the ground it's great for storm waterer management next slide okay so we looked at the town of uh the burough of Madison we try to figure out you know where the impervious surfaces were uh there's four Weds in Madison you guys are kind of like a top of the hill uh I don't know why you have two rivers named Black River or Black Brook it's really very weird have Black Brook that goes to whiy Black Brook that goes to B uh you guys supposed to like that name and then there's the upper Bic River and uh L laka is that how you saying lanica Lan lanica yeah you probably the proper name is probably lanaka but we all say lanica okay got it next slide please um so what I did was I actually calculate the amount of perious cover and you can see for each of the different water say you have an impervious cover but on the whole the the burrow Mass has about 35% impervious cover so impervious cover is any surface that doesn't pass through so it should be the roof of my building in environmental science building at Ruckers but at least like a SI so that doesn't count but usually it's roof of your house parking lots driveways sidewalks so we know that from from literature from research that once you get Beyond 10% in per cover your water weights start to become impaired once you get Beyond 25% of per cover your water weights are not supportive very degraded and we're here at 35% now you don't really have a lot of w directly in town but you're feeding a lot of waterways into the headat so that's a that's a big issue that we want to try to address next slide now this is in your handouts I'm not going to go through this but we actually went ahead and calculated the volume of water that runs off the imperious cover for different storms so we looked at the inch and a quarter rain we looked at 50 in of rain which is your annual rainfall in Morris County average and then 2E 10 year 100e storm so the 2-year storm the 10e storm 100e storm those numbers are what D predicts for the year 2100 so those are climate change numbers that the 100e storm doesn't come once every hundred years the chance of getting that this year is one in 100 so that's where the 100 comes from okay but you can see these wat these are in millions of gallons okay it's a lot of water next slide so we went ahead and um the young ladies over here gave me uh 65 uh properties uh that are misly owned in Madison for us to look at now we only usually do 20 or 30 but they said no you're doing 65 for Madison so I said okay and they bought me pizza and okay that's fine we can do that so so we went we saw all these sites um and we actually found 18 of them were really great for putting in green infrastructure um so those are the ones that we actually have in the plan you go next slide for each site we have a sheet like this which kind of talks a little bit about the site I know this has a this has a different name what's what's is this a different different name for this right it's a something with Dodge some some Dodge person was that's that's correct that's right that's right okay got that okay so that's okay so anyway so um so we look at the approv cover here and here we're recommending bio retention systems are rainu so we always have a sheet like this and next slide we'll show you what we really show so we're showing you where the rain Gardens go right and then we actually uh the little green spots going to take the road run off uh the next slide will actually show you a rendering that we've done so we have our Landscape Architects take the photograph and then put the pretty picture on of what it's going to look like now for our Landscape Architects every flower blooms the same exact time for this picture which really doesn't happen right but it gives you an idea of what it could look like right um so this is more of a natural look uh more of a wildflower look we've also done these as very manicured Gardens where you have mols between them the plants and and they look more like a traditional Garden so next slide we looked at the public works department lots of opportunities here you go to the next slide you can see there's rain Gardens we could put in um there's uh actually a place for a sistern in here and then for the next slide we have rendered in a sister turn the before pitcher and the after pitcher that little box next to the next to the building will hold 530 gallons of water so we thought that the public works department could take that fill their water truck use it to water plants uh pretty easy to do right the problems with sisters is they don't work unless you use them between storms and they don't really do anything wow losing my mind okay next slide um so we went ahead in the Madison Library we looked at too now we got a porest Pavement in the corner and then there's a big spot for a rain Garden here um at the bottom and that's something we really want to want to get into so next slide so what's happened here is um this is called a green infrastructure action plan and this could get submitted to sustainable Jersey get sustainable Jersey points um the town actually has what's called an ms4 permit the m stands for municipal the 4S is stand for separate storm Source system this is a permit that requires you to do street sweeping Clean Catch basins all those kind of things every town in New Jersey has one of those permits the permit's a 5-year permit this is the second year the permit just started last month um by the end of the fifth year you have to submit to DP a watershed Improvement plan the Watershed Improvement plan what it does is it requires you to go through your town and identify where you can retr property with projects which is exactly what I've given you here so this is really a great foundation for that plan you'll be able to give this to your engineer he or he or she won't be able to charge you $100,000 now for the plan because you have a lot of it done already so so this is kind of one thing that we're trying to help people get to understand now on Saturday I'm going to be here Saturday morning from 9: to noon I think and then they're going to feed me I hope um so we're going to do some training going to train people on how to go out and identify more sites and then add more sites cuz the next plan we're going to do is called the Strategic plan and that's going to be kind of more longterm bigger vision and that'll be that'll accompany what we're doing here so you can see the final slide we have some information about some of this stuff uh what's nice about this is we'll put all this stuff online on a website and then when you have a Boy Scout who wants to Eagle project you know you can say hey go look at the website maybe there's a rainard you could build right I know I'm on my environmental commission the Scouts have me all the time Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts so so it's a great place to kind of direct them to to think about it um and you know the other thing is uh we have something here about storm mod utilities we're not recommending mass and starter utility but that's always an option um storm utility basically like we have a water utility we pay water bills for water we use storm utility you pay U annual a monthly fee or an annual fee uh based on your impervious cover right so this way for a single family homeowner you may pay $60 a year here and that goes into a pot that helps fix all the storm water problems in town but if you're a big business big Warehouse you have lots of parking you pay a much higher fee and the idea with the fee is it's a fee not a tax because a fee you don't have to pay so if you're a homeowner you don't want to pay $60 a year you could put in a rainar you could do something different and reduce the amount of imperious cover you have or the effect of that imperious cover and your fee goes down so this gets private property owners to actually invest their own money into dealing with sofware management so it's another way of doing that um it's allowed in New Jersey we yet to have a town or County uh do this although there's a lot looking into about 35 of them are exploring this option so it could be something you guys might want to think about that's it that's all I have next slide I done there I'm done is that 10 minutes 10 [Applause] minutes any questions excellent you were a little over the 10 but you were we're very you were very entertaining so we'll we'll okay that's good all right I think it's very informative and I know this is just the beginning one quick question that always comes up is that in imp uh perious payment surfaces right need maintenance or they lose their yeah I mean so um porest asphalt will actually infiltrate at 1,000 in hour through that surface now if we get a rain that's 1,000 in per hour well we better putting animals on Arc 2 by two right that's that's really crazy but so even if 90% of it clogs you're still getting 100 Ines per hour in there right so what you have to do with the porest asphalt is you have to vacuum it like twice a year um which it's not really a big deal but it's important you know so uh we've actually my team has actually clogged a course asphalt parking spaces uh we had a dump truck on there it were loading dirt on Got Dirt all over and we came in with a power washer in 4 hours we cleaned the whole spaces out and it worked fine after that so so even it does get clocked you can fix it right now remember everything needs maintenances especially these rain Gardens right but we maintain everything our our driveways need to be sealed our roofs need to be maintained so we don't let maintenance scare us especially when it's these natural systems because if you go out once a month you do a little bit of weeding it's not a big deal but if you wait to the end of the year you do it once a year then it's a big deal right so um and the other option too is that when we build these things with communities we'll come out the first year and help them take care of the first year um so they understand how to do it so we'll help organize volunteers you got a very young uh sustainable Madison team here so they I'm sure they'd love to get out there and do a lot of that maintenance so anything else good thank any other questions or comments yes sir okay so I'm I'm uh with Cooper extension service so my my job is to extend the noge university out to the state and help them solve their problems I have eight full-time staff who work for me profession I have a professional engineer professional landscape architect on staff some people have been with me eight years uh in the summer we hire anywhere between 10 to 20 full-time undergrad students and we bring them all over the state and teach them how to do this stuff so so we do have a lot of students um a lot of times you have to teach them which end of the shovel goes in the ground a lot of them don't know that but it's it's a lot of fun uh to work with them uh it makes me feel young sometimes uh you know so but yeah we do we do have a full staff yeah so you're actually sanctioned by the D also able to touch waterways or some well anything I do I still have to get permits for projects this stuff doesn't really require permit CU we're out of the flood plane we're out of the wetlands you don't want to put a ringard in the Wetland so you want to infiltrate Wetlands don't infiltrate so so we're really careful about what we do we are starting to do more Lake projects now we do Shoreline restoration we have to get permits for that so we do we'll help people get permits too uh we don't like doing that but we we do that sometimes so that's great thank you so much Co all right Rachel I just want to thank you for the presentation and especially thank the sustainable Madison advisory committee members who are here who worked really hard to win this $20,000 Grant Thank you Pam thank you Kathy uh and bring Chris to us because this has been really eye openening and uh I'm so glad that we were able to benefit from your knowledge and this excellent survey and Report thanks to our hardworking volunteers so thank you smack well now what's interesting is cwell did the same thing they got a $20,000 Grant and they did the same thing then they just got an $80,000 Grant to build more rain Gardens based on the plan that we had done so there's money out there to do more of this so I know these guys are going to keep writing grants and not going to have that's our specialty in Madison got a great team so great work and uh after your 9 to 12 on Saturday you've you've earned a great Madison lunch so make sure they uh all right thank you sir this was great we could just we if we go to this website what will we see professor's that if we go to your website what are we going to see um we'll share thank you all right thank you very much we now move on to our budget hearing budget uh draft budget discussion and fund balance 10 minutes I can go fast I can go super fast don't no worries thank you mayor uh and thank you all councilwoman ER explained uh what we're doing here this evening this is the proposed budget hearing schedule which you've seen before we'll go to the next slide this summarizes goals I'm not going to talk to this except to say that this is kind of our annual goals to limit the tax increase maintain Services U maintain funding for Capital programs and then to ask important questions every year uh what what costs are going up are there abnormal decreases in revenues are there any outstanding issues next slide these are some of the important points um with this particular document as Council erck explain this is a draft document the numbers absolutely will change so please uh keep that in mind I'm open and happy to discuss with any of you individually some of the um information Behind These numbers as Kyle mentioned the services are are are part of this and what he's done is unbelievable is going to be about $419,000 we believe um for uh this year for funding for the EMT Services we will have revenues uh to offset that um Municipal revenues as a general rule are finally back up to pre-pandemic levels we'll talk about that in a minute fund balance um fund balance did very well um this year driven partially by increased interest interest income and then uh we're we're looking to increase funding for General Capital maybe even more than what we have in this document here because a we're we're a little bit behind on some funding and B we uh we things are more expensive things everything's more expensive so the next slide is just a cover slide for revenues and then we'll go to the next slide so budget of Municipal revenues this shows what we actually had in the state budget document from 2020 to 2024 you can see the precipitous drop during the pandemic um this is highlighted in the budget document in line B to we show that in a minute this includes revenues all over the place from licenses for the health department licenses for the clerk um fire prevention Health police Revenue we get from planning um annual parking fees daily parking fees court fees interest on taxes interest on investments tax exemp sewer fees construction fees which are significant all of those together that shows the budgeted uh Municipal revenues that are that are in the that have been in the budget document in the past years and 2024 is what we have been for this year next slide um we talked for a couple years about summarizing some of the um items in Revenue that have been impacted by the pandemic uh Court absolutely was impacted by the pandemic you can see it went from 173,000 down to less and half it still hasn't come back um some of that honestly is driven by rules within the court that um are there there's not enough enforcement mechanisms um that have been put back into place so um people just aren't responding to um the fines and and and things like that there's nothing that that kind of motivates people to to close that Loop so in any event parking um obviously has come back not quite to pre pandemic levels that's the daily parking working revenue and then interest income was uh obviously something that we had anticipated going up and but we weren't sure at the time last year and it certainly clearly went up this year um we're continuing to earn interest income but you hear is the Fed going to start to to you reduce interest rates is our interest rates going to go down no they're going to hold things up so you know it's always a challenge to anticipate the interest income um and and the revenue from that so if we go to the next slide um this is the municipal fund balance it's the best picture of uh the small picture of the municipal Financial strength and it talks about what gener we have what generates fund balance which is um non-t taxable revenues Delinquent Tax collections current year taxes cancellation of PRI year Appropriations miscellaneous revenue and um then we have the use of that fund balance within the budget and if you go down to the bottom where we have the box you can see that we had a very alarming significant drop in fund balance uh in 2020 we are we are kind of finally back up to where we were in 2018 and 2019 in terms of the fund balance at year end um so we're generating uh fund balance a lot of that was the interest income that uh that would far exceeded what we had budgeted if I if we budget $200,000 in the budget for interest income and we get $900,000 or $800,000 that difference is what is goes into fund balance and so that's so $600,000 of the increase in fund balance was strictly from interest income so uh in any event I also want to talk about fund balance and uh two very significant grants that we received this year one was for $4 million from the heartley Dodge trustees to help fund the revenue of this building and the other was a million doll Grant to purchase the Madison Masonic Lodge both of those are grants as you may recall that get paid out over multiple years and so we don't have that money right now but we're going to be starting construction soon we have purchased the Masonic Lodge already so uh there's a $4 million hotley Dodge trustee Grant of which uh 3.2 million is still due there was a $1 million um Grant from Martin heler to purchase the Masonic lodge and none of that money has come in yet we know it will soon but those two receivables those two Grant items represent $4.2 million the fact that we had fund balance um allowed us to manage that cash flow and manage the fact that well this money's coming but we're going to go and buy the Masonic Lodge right now and we're going to go and move forward with the heartley Dodge um renovation now so if you look at what's called free balance which is we take what we had in fund balance at year end and we subtract out what we're assuming we're going to use in this year's Municipal budget there's just 4.7 4,772 th000 left 4.2 million of that is kind of already spoken for in um in terms of cash flows so but you know not to be alarmed but we're just it's just a good it's a good thing that we had this fund balance to be able to manage what would have been a cash flow crunch if we didn't have it so uh next slide we're going to talk for a few minutes about the rable base and Equalization um we've talked about some of this but we had an interesting thing that happened this is the map that shows Jal the Farms um I lived in town my whole life I've said this multiple times I didn't know what was what in there you just never got inside unless you ran the 5K so that shows the different buildings um the bottom corner is uh the corner of Woodland Road and lanica that triangular building that is quite visible um and then the far end uh I think most people know where quest diagnosis is that's opposite Bailey Ard you go to the next slide and don't ask about how they came up with a numbering system oh it's crazy yeah let's go back to that go back think 725 I don't understand that how that happened mayor so anyway so um um if we go to the next slide it's the seven largest taxpayers in 2023 and we've talked about the concerns and and we still have concerns about appeals and so we put a little more information in here about the appeals um geralda 5 is the ABV building it's actually the building at the bottom image there they pay $1.4 million in property taxes in 2023 um but they had a successful reduction in their property taxes and paid $110,000 less than what they had previously um Realogy has one year of tax appeals they're the second largest gvr um Rose Hall and and Madison Place that's the development over by the old Green Village Road school they cannot appeal their property taxes or their land taxes that number there does include all the payments including land taxes and administration fees but they continue to be the third largest rable if you will and we talked about that years ago and it's still holding true jalda 7 is that v-shaped angular building they have tax appeals going about 1 2 3 4 six years worth of tax appeals um Merc um the draw the two building no appeals outstanding Jal the one is a multi-tenant office building that has one two three four years worth of tax appeals and look at the Quest Diagnostics building currently vacant has been vacant for a number of years because it's vacant and because it gets valued at look at bob L because he deals this every day um but because it gets valued at the revenue that's brought in um as as opposed to someone's home they're able to Su they were able to successfully appeal the taxes and their taxes went down from $349,000 to $164,000 as soon as that gets repurposed in some way or tenants go in we'll be able to increase the taxes back up just shows the exposure that we have with some of these larges we have about $850,000 in our tax appeal Reserve so we're in okay shape in that regard but something to to keep in mind next slide Michael um in the budget document you'll see the revenue from new ratables we have talked in the past about the Colleyville illustration where there's free houses and an empty lot and that empty lot of house gets built on it um how that impacts is impacts taxes hard to say um how that has an effect on taxes um property taxes so uh we have uh the real estate market was soft and um the pandemic was impacting us but this year we had a number of new ratables that um were a a net positive benefit to us and as a result that line in the budget which you'll see in a minute um has uh increased by $27,000 with uh with new ratables we'll go to the next slide um shifting gears here but we're still talking about the valuation and property taxes and everything Equalization is the proc process where um the total assess value um in town gets converted to what might be called a True Value um in layman's terms you may have a house that is worth $800,000 but if you look at your taxes it's it will say it's assessed at $600,000 or $550,000 and the assessment of $550,000 is done purely so we can fairly um and equitably have everyone pay their appropriate share of taxes someone has a assess house that's assessed at $550,000 will pay half as much as someone that has a house that's assessed at $1.1 million but the assessed value doesn't equate to the actual value of an equalization brings it back into line and every year the state determines an equal Equalization ratio based on property sales for the last 2 years the county uses these this ratio to more equitably spread County tax imagine if you had a house in Madison that was worth $800,000 it was assessed at550 you paid taxes based on $550 if your friend had a house in chaden that was worth $800,000 they recently did an assessment and it's assessed it's $750,000 you would both Pro we both probably be paying similar in taxes $800,000 home $800,000 home but the equalization would unfairly give Madison a break on the county tax so they equalize things get everybody on an equal playing field and the county uses that to charge County taxes I hope it's that's that's the best I can do for explaining it it's lot lot of yeah the you kind of back the equalization puts everyone on equal ground and and if we were only collecting taxes for Madison it it really and everyone was at 80% it doesn't matter everyone's on fair ground but it's one you're doing countywide and now you have one town that's at 100% where some is 80 so it's just a way of uh handicapping in a way good excellent excellent explanation mayor thank you so the ratio um the equalization ratio Dr and there's a strong real estate market and homes are being actually bid up um sale prices as we said for the last 2 years are used to determine an equalization ratio and sale prices for homes in Madison um were you know significant and were you know was a very strong housing market in 2022 and 2023 as a result you see the ratio dropping um the ratio dropped for most towns in the county because the state kind of did a little bit of a different process however our ours dropped a little more so we're probably going to pay a little more in um in County tax this year as a whole as compared to other towns the most important thing to realize here is that the lower our ratio gets the more likely the county tax board will start to ask us to do a reevaluation and we're actually already in conversations with them about that but it was it was a real kind of surprise and it has an impact in other ways which we'll talk about in a minute let's go to the next slide Michael this is a a slide you've seen before in largest Department Appropriations police Public Works fire garbage library and sewage treatment um and just keep in mind the LI the uh police and the fire R 247 365 operations we go to the next slide I'm not going to talk to it but it's a good graphic representation of the different departments um and the major major departments and uh how they how they kind of Stack up if we go to the next slide you've seen this before it's a slide on pension costs it explains why police fire pensions are so much more expensive we pay more for 37 employees in the police and fire pension system than we do for 90 employees in the regular pension system I'm not going to go into the explanation the slide is self-explanatory if we go to the draft budget um uh a lot of numbers again I apologize but um when you have a quiet moment you can look at them um I wanted to show a number of years of the budget and then the change from 2022 to 2023 if we go to the next slide I kind of took away a bunch a few of the columns to make it a little easier to process and then we can start to highlight some of the items um on the slide in terms of Revenue as we talked about fund balance um did well that was the previous slide as a result we're going to take more in fund balance than we ever have um and use that as a revenue in the budget $6 m215 th000 is what our draft placehold number is at the moment B2 is the municipal Revenue sources we talked about that a minute ago that is up significantly and um that's helping because we've got other expenses on the other side and then B4 is the new ratables that we talked about that's the third uh yellow highlighted line and then if we go to the Appropriations or the spending side there's two a couple of items to note um some are highlighted I'm going to go over a couple of others state statute mandates that public libraries receive onethird of a mill of on each dollar of equalized assessed property and so our um our town library receives that um because of the drop in the equalization ratio the amount of money that the library is set to get based on this algebra um was significantly higher and uh in fact we talked to the folks at the library because we actually gave them additional dollars above and beyond this mill rate for um supporting utilities we did that a number of years ago because we used to not build them for electric and then we said well we're going to bill you but we'll give you some money and um we've talked to them and they've agreed to not take that um utility subsidy this year but even with that if you look at line b 29 the public library alone is going up um well over $100,000 7% increase if you jump back up to the top property taxes on existing ratables um it's going from 16 million uh 66,000 to 16, 387 so about $320,000 for 2% tax increase the library represents fully onethird of the property tax increase this year because of that mill rate and that was with them giving us the concession on the utilities so I just wanted to point that out um b32 that line um is the capital Improvement fund and years about four or five years ago we were at um $3.5 million and we're trying to get back to that number so we can more fully fund the capital programs that we need to fund and I think that is a number that may even change or go up depending on future conversations but uh all of those together um are um creating a 2.7% increase in total Appropriations and um so with that I just want to go to the last slide which kind of talks about what we've seen many times before which is the average assess home pays about $3,000 in Municipal property taxes and they get all these tremendous benefits that you don't honestly get at every town whether it's sewage treatment some you you might live in a town in ch Township where on septic or uh garbage pick up um some towns charge extra or bag um some of our neighboring towns or um some of the other services that we provide that other towns don't provide or I think that we provide better if I can be I guess think we do so paid fire department ENT Services you've heard all of that so so um the 2% um property tax increase um represents a $514 per month increase um in property taxes for this average assessed home so um with that I wanted to take questions I I do want to preface it by reminding everyone that this is this is draft there are some numbers Michael let me go back a couple slides to the Appropriations I want to point out a couple of others oh sorry Michael you to the budget I apologize um I want to point out a couple of other lines um here that that I'm I know stuck out because some you asked about them one is Madison Chon joint meeting which is the appropriation line that's for our sewage treatment um at the plant line b28 it's only going up by $10,000 Jim how is that possible we know that you all know that our our share is going to go up this year based on the um the the way we allocate um between the two based on metering and you know the budget's going to go up um we always had some extra in that line in case we had to pay a true up and we've had to pay a trup in the past of 50 60 70 $80,000 so we're choosing to not increase that line which will do two things um it makes it tighter a tighter budget and therefore will generate less fund balance because we're trying to manage and not overgeneral and um I I do want to say that it's a placeholder because we don't have the Madison Chad joint meeting budget so that's one of those numbers that's a placeholder or might look you might look at it and say that's interesting um health insurance which is line B8 um only going up by less than a percent that's that's it went up by over 5% we just had um uh enough appropriation in that line that we were able to to make to make it a little to increase it a little less um we'll have to look at that because we do have new hires with the 14th firefighter with um other employees a full an additional full-time person in a court but um but I think we're going to be okay there so some of these Appropriations seem like teach them how you doing that well we're trying to generate less fund balance because I think there needs to be um I I I think we're at that point where we're where we're operating well and um so that that is something that we're looking at and we're also quite frankly pushing up against um the Appropriations Gap because of other things going up I don't want to get in it's a very long discussion on that it's just I wanted to point that out so we're looking to be um uh tighten up and be conservative on the um appropriation lines and with that I'll stop talking and I will take questions start with Eric and then uh Bob thanks Jim uh very informative um as always uh just want to make sure that uh it's reinforced a couple of things so you just uh confirm some of my assumptions here um the budget for the last several years we've had the Electric dividend program so I know we're talking about reducing fund balance um but the $2 million that serves that program and the targeted electric rebates those programs remain intact with correct what we're doing here correct yes thank you for bringing that up and you know you mentioned it and we mentioned it with Kyle's presentation but I think it's worth uh reiterating that um in this draft budget we are fully funding the new EMS program um which is uh an expense we didn't have a year ago um and that is not a uh that is not an inexpensive Endeavor it is certainly one that we should fund and is worth every nickel we give it um but it is as you said the 14th full-time firefighter a dozen or so per Dam EMTs the additional um there'll be some minor salary stuff with uh the additional Captain's position uh which is not an increase in headcount but an increase in responsibility for someone um so I think it's really important that we recognize kind of the value that we're getting out of this budget even if there is um a tax increase that comes along with it um and Kyle sort of had it on his presentation around um the fire truck uh and where that lays out in our Capital spending plan uh which is $300,000 over the course of the next couple of years but I know there's been some discussions where we might be able to do something with that so all of that said I think this is a very judicious budget um to start out with and I know we'll be sharpening our pencils between now and March correct and and that $ $19,000 that I reported on the em on the EM Services is is almost a new department that was created for EMP Services um the 14th firefighter is still in the fire department line and some of the other expens are still in the fire department line if you add all that together that's the property tax increase for the year so there was a 2% property tax increase for the year but we have gone from a a very good EMT service that we have with the volunteers but was having problems and unstable and not able to set be always there on the call and have some delays to now having a highly professional um uh guaranteed service ENT so if we look at it that way I think that's a really good way of looking at what the property tax increase is going to that's sure and Bob yeah Jim I tell you this is one of the best budgets I've seen I mean it's you did a really nice job with there one and I know we probably going to go over this later on the whole issue of with the fund balance going into funding the budget so to speak I remember when I was Brandy Dandy Newan Council that was always a big mcgilla um but right now I'm going to guess that it's probably within the Strategic guidelin numbers that we came up with a long time ago I think we're pretty safe with that so I'm very comfortable with that and also um as far as the exposures on appeals without going back through that whole chart of the properties it looks like you big Heavy Hitters you don't have a whole lot of exposure there you know you got some back years but it's not terrible compared like you settled a bunch of them already so I think the money you have that just might get us through it we're always going to put set aside every year in the budget money to in put back into the tax appeal Reserve um I actually ratcheted that number back into the budget you don't see it it went from $150,000 to $100,000 um of money that goes into that tax appeal Reserve um because money goes out every year when we have the appeals um I thought those numbers were pretty scary um the number of appeals that we have outstanding but you deal with it every day so maybe it's less scary for New York City but for Madison it's scary no but I think the key there is and you kind of touched on this as those properties get repurposed that money comes back in so the trick there is a good strategic plan to repurpose those properties going forward into the resolution for uh that was discussed this even about jalo Tom sure thanks Jim your whiz you definitely got over my head a few times and I actually read it before today but until some of was so technical which is good and some of the lingo that you have to use for like a mill what's a third of a million should I say that the third of a million dollars no no I'll I'll I'll show you the math later you don't need to just saying so the it might be on the final exam so you might I'm going to fail better cheat so but some of the good uh things that you pointed out Jim um you have a very resilient obviously you know our tax revenues in general seem to be very resilient even though you have some some of your uh reassessments in the B but it looks like the taxpayers have been very good as far as residential the commercial where it's more could be fluctuated but it's the it's the massive properties that that could happen with and we can project even though I know you can't you build your budget around that like Bob said some of these commercial properties hopefully repurposed or reutilized again in the future and we we actually bring some of that back and that that would help the Bro dramatically that'll really change things yeah I think that'll really change what's going on in the town in multiple ways but financially um it'll you know it's it's been weighing on us for a number yeah yeah yeah I see that but luckily there's been some development and those properties are going to come and there's some more that are going to come online this year you can estimate a few of the projects Madison mall apartments and the movie theater building and a few more that are going to help us too right so you showed that our tax revenue or interest revenue is $834,000 but it seems like it should be a lot more because in 20 19 we probably not even earning 1% on whatever cash we have in the bank so I'm just wondering is there I know there was some money that we earned an interest on electric utility maybe doesn't show up here no it doesn't electric utility so there's three separate entities right so if there's money in the water utility that interest income stays with the water utility there's money in your electric utility that that income stays with the electric utility so this is just so who presents that budget who says oh well the electric utility this year because they have $10 million in the bank they earn $500,000 in interest that they're going to obviously you're going to appropriate oversee all of that y so that's part of um the revenues and part of the um information that was given at the last um meeting that had utilities it's it's just labeled miscellaneous revenues and it's antic and that's um in here yeah uh no um we're just talking Municipal budget tonight so we'll bring back in the utilities um back in March and we'll kind of try to fold it all together we'll have a good conversation with the department heads at the next meeting you'll get an understanding of what their Capital needs are and then we'll have a follow-up conversation that kind of pulls it all together you'll had a conversation on Capital conversation with the Department as a conversation on utilities conversation on Municipal budget and then we kind of have all the ingredients to bake a cake right so but the 834 is from the cash that you're holding from the community just in in your Municipal budget it's hard to understand cuz like you have $2 million that we're holding for uncollected taxes so at 5% that's $100,000 which is great that you're earning some money from that so that's all coming from from where you're collecting our money and then before you give it to the schools you here I making interest every month or every quarter all all the accounts that we have for that are with the current fund right absolutely that's the interest income that's earned from all of those different accounts right so you can't count on that because your your Revenue bumped up like $500,000 from last year over what you're yeah if it and and we're going to anticipate more of that Revenue this year which means it will have less of an impact on uh less of a positive impact on the fund balance because if we anticipate more of it then there'll be less extra it's the extra that impacts the fund balance so um but I'm kind of getting off topic here in terms of the $800,000 just looking at that as the interest income it's hard to sit here and say oh we're going to get $800,000 next year we just don't know what the interest what what what the Market's going to be like so we have to be careful with something like that so what I'm leading into a little bit since this is going to be a big impact year for for the community in an increase in property taxes because of the schools we send the bill out but the impact is going to be because of the schools referendum the new capital campaign that they did $79 million we don't know how they going to fund it but it could be a big impact so maybe you're very good usually at maneuvering you might be able to lessen the Burrow's tax increase after some more collaboration and review it could be minimal but it could be something that will just we're we certainly have to refine a lot of these numbers and where it ends up going and it may be that we could do a little something this year and then come next year we have a better better sense of the interest income of all the other things and and say oh you know what next year we can be even a little little little tighter on that but for now um I I really also do want to get an understanding of the capital you know Kyle was talking D he's like and I'm like Kyle you know we did pretty well on fund balance a conversation last week maybe we we'll do is we'll bump up Capital Improvement line here this line right here and maybe we could pre fund that fir TR and order it now because he's saying if I put the order in now it's going to take three years to get it I'm like well okay then we'll we'll get it in three years and we'll have the price locked in before prices go up and he comes in and I fell out of my chair what's the matter is it's not a workers's com claim is it no no no I just fell out of my chair because of the uh the price it's it's literally 25 35% more it's 1.2 million like oh okay so you know I was talking to uh councilman range and Council er a little bit about maybe it's we fund the 900,000 this year and then next year like we do with the road program we say we feel good the money's there January boom appropriate to the firet truck and put the order in in early January I I I want to I I want to have some more conversations with you and refine some of these numbers a little more um and and really figure out what we're going to do with capital there's other projects that are floating out there that people have been talking about out and um you know there's only so much money we need to figure out how best to to deal with it can the can the gbr pilot does that ever go up or that just stays oh no no it goes it start out less than that oh yeah yeah it was much less than that when we first finished it yep it's 10% of rent it's 10% of rent so as their rents go up oh 10% that works okay yeah so and that's just part of it they do pay land taxes so there's here's what you owe but you subtract out your land taxes so the land tax taxes are are a big portion of it and land taxes go up because the tax rate is going up so so they do have that so thanks Jim great job other comments or questions very good thank you thanks Jim just a little over 10 minutes so you did a lot of information I'm always very good job we can't can't cut that short no we now move on to ordinance for hearing will the clerk please read State um ordinances scheduled for hearing we introduced by title and passed on the first reading at the regular meeting of the council held on January the 22nd 2024 they were posted and filed according to law and copies were made available to the general public requesting same I call B for second reading ask the clerk to read sen orang by title we will be doing ordinances 2 three and four and six Al together in single hearing so I'll ask the clerk to read those three that's 2 three and four and six which are all related to General Capital please read those by title ordinance 2 2024 ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $650,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for the 2024 cook Avenue parking lot reconstruction project rebit ordinance 3 2024 are we yeah ordinance of the bur of Madison appropriating $600,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for the 2024 million overlay projects ordinance 4 2024 is ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $235,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund the 2024 sanitary sewer improvements program and ordinance 6 2024 is the ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $100,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for additional security equipment so I now open the hearing for ordinances 2 3 4 and six already General capital and anyone in the public wishing to comment on these ordinance please step forward you may comment on all at once or any particular ordinance seeing none I close the hearing on these ordinances we now I'll ask for a motion for ordinance 2224 which is the $650,000 for the cook Avenue parking lot mayor I move ordinance 22024 second any csil discussion and these are all part of the capital um budget and as presented prior and this is also additional as unlike the others this is additional funding for Cook to cover the increased costs okay roll call vote Please Mr ER yes Mr Landen yes Mr range yes Mr har and pis yes Mr Hanahan yes Mr for yes I declare ordinance 22024 adop and finally pass and ask the clerk to publish notice thereof a newspaper F the ordance accordance of the law and now ask for a motion on ordinance 3224 which is a $600,000 for the million and overlay projects mayor I move ordinance 3- 2024 second any c discussion roll call vote Please Mr ear yes Mr landrian yes Mr R yes Mr har and pudus yes Hanahan yes 14 yes I declare ordinance 32024 adopted and finally pass I ask the cler to publish notice n newspaper and finally ordinance accordance to the law we will now make a motion on ordinance 42024 which is appropriating $235,000 for the sanitary sewer improvements program mayor I move ordinance 4- 2024 second any Council discussion roll call vote please M erck yes Mr landri yes Mr range yes yes Mr Harin pis yes M Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes I declare ordinance 42024 adopted and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish notice there newspaper F the ordance accordance with the law I now we'll ask for motion for ordinance 6224 appropria $100,000 from General capital for additional security equipment mayor I moove ordinance 62024 second any Council discussion yes time did we already get this money from the federal government for this security thing wasn't that part of that Grant we put on uh we have the resolution which is uh noting that some of this be funded through ART but this is a appropriation from General Capital oh so we did when they gave us that our money went into our general fund and we get to use it or is it work differently that's this is just what we're using from General Capital there's we're pulling from multiple multiple pockets for this one got okay roll call vote please M erck yes Mr L yes Mr range yes Mr harus yes Hanahan yes Mr for yes I declare ordinance 6-22 24 adopt and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish notice their newspaper following or for accordance of law I now call up ordinance 52024 to be read by title ordinance of the bur of Madison appropriating $390,000 from the water Capital Improvement fund for the portable water well improvements projects I open the hearing on Orange 5 anyone wish comment please step forward being none I close the hearing mayor I move ordinance 52024 second any Council discussion roll call vote please M yes mrri yes Mr R yes Mr Harold Fus yes Hanahan yes Mr for yes I declare ordinance 5224 adopted and finally pass and ask the clerk to publish notice there of newspaper finally ordinance accordance of law ordinance 7224 ordinance of the bur of Madison appropriating $250,000 from the municipal open space Recreation and histor preservation trust fund for the Memorial Park Trail improvements phase three I open hearing for 7 anyone wishing to comment please step forward seeing none I close the hearing mayor I move ordinance 7-2 24 second any c discussion roll call vote Please Mr yes Mr land yes Mr range yes Mr har buas yesan yes yes I declare ordinance 72024 adopted and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish notice there of newspaper finally ordinance according to the law ordinance 8- 2024 ordinance of the bur of Madison amending chapter 18 of the code of the Bur of Madison entitled fire department establishing promotional procedures for review of the ranking of candidates for the position of Fire Chief and Captain I open hearing ordance 8 anyone wishing to comment please step forward seeing none I close the hearing mayor I move ordinance 82024 second C discussion roll call vote Please Mr yes Mr land yes Mr range yes Mr har pus yes San yes Mr Forte yes I declare ordinance 8-22 24 adopted and finally pass and ask the cler to publish notice there of newspaper follow the ordinance of Courts of the law and now we're on to our second invitation for public comment this may when you may comment on any topic as always we ask you try to keep your comments to three minutes but give you a one minute grace period welome again Claire hi Clare wicom 12 herward Road I know this is why you all been staying up just waiting so that you can have the comment period um I'm here on behalf of the friends of the Drew fars I hope you all got Valentine's mayor there's been some problem with yours Tom Harold of a pist perined them somehow they ended up in front of me I wrapped them with a rear bear and a fern and there's a whole pack from all of us at Friends of the Drew farest individually signed with a great deal of organization and um I'm going to no no I don't know what happened but Tom thanks for yeah I pointed it out I didn't want to keep them if I'm not deser I just want to tell you we had really great Valentines this year they're designed by Bethania VI uh Drew class of 2017 who's been doing our social media Valentine don't leave me lonely take a walk with me in the Drew Forest um this is Valentine let's grow all together we sent this um to the president of Drew we sent this to um bis and trustees on the theory that Madison and Drew want to get Groll together it's been 150 years already you know we're in it for the the old growth trees Valentine stay wild which I think some of you got Valentine I'm rooting for our love um Valentine let's sing a Love Song of the Drew forest and there's one I don't have it's about um it's a to know you yes there there you go Eric so um we decided that you know we're in our third year doing this that we this we had gotten so much support from environment New Jersey seror Club of New Jersey that we decided to send these Valentine's out to all the people who are wondering if the forest has been saved um just to say hello thank you it takes a long time to do a conservation sale so um uh Drew's students were really enthusiastic about that and we had a large shipment scheduled to be handed out tomorrow but Drew is going to be remote so I don't know what's going to happen with that but thank you for all your support and consistent um harest appreciation um R Cody and Jim Bernett got and Liz got their Valentine's earlier um so thank you everybody thank you very much thank you clire always good to get Valentine's especially for the Drew Forest so thank you very much anyone else wish to comment please step forward seeing that I close this part of the meeting and we now move on to introdu your ordinances will the clerk please read the statement the ordinance schedule for first reading we'll have a hearing date set for February the 26 2024 will be posted in the Mad Sagle posted on the bulletin board and made available to members of the public requesting copies I call up ordinance 9- 2024 for first reading ask the clerk to read said ordinance by title ordinance of the buau of Madison amending and supplementing chapter 195 of the burrow code entitled Land Development regarding storm water management mayor I move ordinance 9224 second comments Eric H Rachel I I'm was just gonna uh I think it would be interesting to know what um inspired this update is it based on the the new uh New Jersey law requiring us to update our star management um I think sharing a little background uh next week at the hearing would be helpful to share some of that oh my God what a set up you ask and that you shall receive um so yes this uh this came before the planning board um and first at the land use Committee of the planning board and then later to the full board in our last meeting but yes um much of this work was done um in response to the new D regulations um requiring towns to update their storm waterer management ordinances by to July um so we are in the PIP line to do that um in time we also um took uh feedback from several organizations the environmental commission sustainable Jersey um and many of our other green uh groups in town where we're actually in some cases exceeding um the D requirements as as well so um this is sort of a comprehensive look um at all of this and Dennis Harrington did Yan's job in kind of cobbling together all of the state requirements all of the feedback from other groups to get us in a really good place to make sure that we didn't run a foul of the D regulations well that was great thank you and this was uh approved by the planning board and recommended to be approved tonight there you go any other comments or questions all call vote please M erck yes andrean yes Mr range yes Mr Mr har and pus yesan yes Mr for yes we now move on to consent agenda resolutions will the clerk please reach statement consent agenda resolutions will be enacted with a single motion any resolution requiring expenditure is supported by a certification of availability of funds any resolution requiring discussion will be removed from the consent agenda all resolutions will be reflected in full in the minute may I move the consent agenda of resolutions 6 -224 through 91 d224 second popular demand I'll read each each you any discussion or anything that need to be pulled yes great I just I would like to give a little background on resolution 79- 2024 this is the um resolution endorsing the adoption of Green Building practices for Civic commercial and residential buildings the idea with this policy which is based on a model resolution from sustainable Jersey is that it states that the town the burough is adopting a policy that we will consider opportunities to incorporate Green Building Energy Efficiency electrification and green infrastructure measures into the design construction operation and maintenance of municipal buildings so the idea is that we should always consider those when we look at um Municipal projects and furthermore the policy will encourage green design for commercial and residential buildings through the current uh options that we have whether they're voluntary or um educational Outreach as well as future measures that are outlined in the resolution that may be adopted um in years to come so um I am interested to know if anyone has any questions or comments on this but I think it's a policy that is um meant to encourage and guide and uh I think we're already well in our way to um exploring a lot of these options in our Municipal projects any other discussion well can I just I want to pck you back on that you've done such a great job with your committee Rachel everybody's so thorough and everything they present to us but we're only focusing now on the municipal side even though you did mention how we're trying to encourage residentially or private development to do the same so I ask j a couple times that if there's a way to maybe consider incentivizing the community so that they do instead of voluntarily because you might get 2% of the people voluntarily to change from a gas water heater to an electric water heater or contractors to build out a house in a different manner that will benefit the homeowner in the long run but they don't think about it like that so that's just another part of the equation to make it the burrow very green we have 16,000 residents so if we can get them to actually follow what you're proposing it's going to be fantastic for all of us yeah and uh as we know because Madison doesn't pay into societal benefits charges we are not currently eligible to receive um funding from jcpnl for instance to upgrade to high efficiency heat pump uh hot water heaters or building heating um so yes I think this is something that we're going to talk about uh real soon hopefully and um see how we can um compete or be equivalent to uh the invest their own utilities and and how we can encourage that but I just want to say this policy which in considers opportunities for municipal projects and encourages opportunities for all others is about more than just um equipment it's about the whole range of Sustainable Building practices which some of which are outlined in the resolution so I think it's a great step that we're taking this because it kind of codifies that this is the the bur's policy and um The Next Step will be to distribute the resolution to all the department heads and and help the whole buau understand that this is uh the approach we want to take bde she's getting a an Eevee or a hybrid yeah well uh I don't want to say anything it's too late to to get into EES right now but yeah the idea the idea is when we when we make it a policy that we always want to consider opportunities whenever we have an opportunity to to build or um do a maintenance policy or improve uh an existing building this should be part of the discussion thank you any else roll call vote please M ear yes Mr Lan yes range yes Mr harn pis yes Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes there is no unfinished business approval of vouchers will the clerk please read the voucher totals from the current fund $857,500 from the general Capital fund $250,500 $347 42 even from the water Capital fund $27,800 N3 and from the trust 23733 one29 the total is 17198 180111 motion mayor I move approval of the vors second discussion roll call vote Please Mr yes Mr Lin yes Mr rain yes Mr har and pus yes Hanahan yes Mr for yes right new business like to uh announce the following appointments that are not subject to council confirmation this is just uh cleaning up some of the appointments from our reorganization environmental commission three-year terms for December 31st 2024 we in uh Bowen regular member and for a two-year term through December 31st 2025 Steven stalker alternate member two and I'd like to uh make the following appointment requesting Council confirmation to sustainable madis advisor committee Letta Davidson regular member unexpired three-year term through December 31st 2025 here I move approval of the forging appointment second all in favor I and will entertain a motion for ajour here I move to a Jour all in favor all all right be careful out there tomorrow