##VIDEO ID:uVhtZB1DfX0## e e e e e e e e e e e e we've reconvened with members president the mayor joined us for executive session and uh is excused for the rest of the meeting uh please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and Justice all almost 23 years ago our nation was forever changed Ed as we lost nearly 3,000 souls in a series of devastating Terror attacks at the World Trade Center the Pentagon and Shanksville Pennsylvania among those killed were six members of our Madison Community James L Crawford Timothy R Hughes Patrick Maguire Donald Peterson Jean Peterson and Peter West as we stand here today we honor their memory we reflect on the lives that they led the contributions they made and the loved ones who contined to feel their absence every day these six individuals our friends our neighbors and our family never returned home that day their absence is felt deeply in our hearts and in our community tonight we also mourn the four lives tragically taken at the recent appalache high school shooting in Georgia including two students and two teachers the profane the profound pain and loss felt by their friends families and communities weigh heavy on us all these four individuals whose lives were cut far too short deserve our utmost respect and Remembrance since the tragic events of September 11th 2001 our nation has faced nearly 400 school shootings each one has left behind a trail of headache and grief impacting countless lives the frequency of these tragedies serve as a painful reminder of the urgent need for compassion understanding and most importantly change including Common Sense gun control reforms at the national level in the honor of those lost 23 years ago as well as those taken from us just last week let us now observe a moment of silence and as we do let us renew our vow to never forget those whose lives have been lost let let this moment serve as a powerful reminder of the preciousness of Life the strength of our community and the unwavering Spirit of unity and resilience that binds us together thank you may SE we have no minutes for approval this evening so welcome everyone and as we kick off The Unofficial start to fall here after Labor Day I hope everyone's getting back into their uh non-summer routines while summer is uh in Madison is great as are all of the other Seasons there's always a fresh spark in the air when the students uh and our teachers return to our schools in Madison and to the campuses of Drew fdu and s e we welcome them all to their new academic years and wish them a successful year ahead tonight like to acknowledge a couple of employment anniversaries here in the burough uh a couple of days ago on the 7th uh police captain Joseph Longo celebrated his 25th anniversary and coming up in a few days we have another 25y year anniversary our Utility Billing supervisor Donna Carey will be celebrating her anniversary on the 13th the the employee of the month for September is assistant burough uh engineer uh Dennis Harrington since Bob fogle's retirement in January Dennis has been overseeing several large capital projects in the burough including the cook Avenue parking lot the Dodge field playground and others this is all in addition to his regular responsibilities as assistant engineer and Zoning officer so we thank Dennis for continuing to go above and beyond also tonight we have an update on the Burrow's efforts to save the Drew forest in July more than after more than two years of negotiations the buau of Madison made a final offer valued at more than $65 million to Drew unfortunately Drew has not yet accepted that offer the burrow employees implores uh Drew University leadership and its Board of Trustees to accept this offer without delay while the offer remains on the table upcoming deadlines for court filings and the potential expiration of Grant funds secured for the purchase of the forest will mean that the offer will be withdrawn as Madison will not fund lost grants with taxpayer dollars or debt Burrow's comprehensive proposal includes acquiring and preserving approximately 51 acres of forested land including the zakar bitum the heern woods and properties along Glenn wild and Green Village roads Additionally the offer allows for residential development on other parts of the Drew campus consisting of both affordable and market rate Apartments Madison has collaborated with various stakeholders including federal state and County officials the friends of the Drew Forest potential private donors the fair share housing center all to support the forest's purchase over these last two years the buau continues to negotiate in good faith as evident by our current offer that is in fact 30% more than a previous offer made in 2023 in March the bureau extends our gratitude to the Friends of the Drew Forest the 15,000 plus community members who have signed the change.org petition environmental Advocates the various government officials including Senator Booker congresswoman Cher New Jersey state senators buo and mcken the Morris County Commissioners members of the Morris County open space committee all who have continued to support our efforts and the burough reaffirms tonight our commitment to protecting the Drew forest and we urge all members of the public to remain engaged in this important cause reports from committees flow right into the public safety report from from the police department tonight uh a reminder that school is back in session and while we should always be mindful of pedestrian safety back to school time is a great time to reaffirm our commitment to slowing down stopping for pedestrians and crosswalks sharing the road with cyclists obeying the directions of the crossing guards and of course being extra vigilant in and around school zones during the week of September 2nd the police department personnel met with Vincent UC of Adriana's Angels a nonprofit organization based out of East Hover New Jersey the organization was established to help spread Autism Awareness Mr Uchi donated autism info sheets for First Responders to the Madison police department the sheets will keep each officer will be kept in each officer's Patrol vehicle and alerts officers on signs triggers and tips for interacting with a child or other person with autism for more information on this organization please visit Ariana angels.com this week the police department uh had two Madison High School students begin their internships with the Department both Katie and Iris are Madison High School seniors and have aspirations to study in the public safety and law Fields After High School we welcome both those students to our Madison police department family and hope they will enjoy their time learning with the Department from the fire department tonight uh for the month of August the fire department has responded to 269 calls this includes 172 fire calls and 97 EMS calls where 71 people were transported to the hospital during the month of August there were two significant storms the First on August 6th uh required 51 emergency responses and a second storm on the 18th resulted in 52 basement flooded remains uh a common problem so now is the time to make sure that uh you find ways to prevent basement flooding or to mitigate that in other ways this can be done through some pumps with battery backups uh Basement Waterproofing and yard grading and drainage there were 23 home sale smoke detector Co inspections performed in the month of August including uh in addition 36 fire prevention inspections were performed Med as well the fire prevention Bureau is also getting ready for the update to the 2018 edition of the new New Jersey state fire code that'll be rolling out next month we've also begun scheduling School visits for the start of fire prevention month which is in October each year the fire department recently accepted a grant for $55,000 from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs which will be used to purchase firefighter person personel personal protection equipment and on our volunteer front we've got three new volunteer firefighters who are going to be starting firefighter one uh at Morris County Fire Academy in the coming weeks and one uh firefighter will be going to firefighter 2 so we're really excited for those volunteers to complete their training at the economy and that is all from Public Safety tonight uh finance and borrow clerk Miss erck okay the taxle sorry the tax collector reports that the advertisement for the tax sale has been posted in the Madison eagle and was first published in last week's newspaper publishing this ad is one of the steps that's taken before a property owner's delinquency is resolved through a tax sale a tax sale is the enforcement of collections against the property by placing a lean against the property for outstanding Municipal charges that were due on or before December 31st of the prior year most of the notices in the ad were for unpaid utility bills this year's tax sale is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Thursday October 3rd however outstanding amounts are typically resolved before the actual tax sale the state requires an annual tax sale to ensure municipalities do not have outstanding charges from prior years the finance department is highlighting a couple of the larger or more important payments that appear on tonight's voucher register there is a payment of $261,100 from the open space trust fund which is for the MRC land and turf debt 145,000 of that payment is principal on the land portion of the MRC and 85,000 is principal on the turf field the remaining $31,100 67 $1,724 67 which is the monthly payment to the board of education for their share of the property taxes collected by the burrow that payment was made on August 15th so we will not be approving that tonight I guess we already made that payment in any case the next monthly payment will be made in 7even days on Monday September 16th and finally on August 15th the burrow paid $2 million 825,000 $825 760 to the county of Morris that's the third quarter payment of County taxes that was collected by the Bureau of Madison and our property tax bills the council receives the voucher register known as the bill list ahead of every council meeting the list is compiled by the accounts payable department and includes all the payments that were processed as well as upcoming checks that are set to be issued thank you that's all uh Public Works and Engineering Mr Landry thank you uh from the engineering department will be facility improvements project is nearing completion the well production of drinking water has been restored utility building roof the contract with Joseph D company construction commenced March 22nd the main roof is complete Helen Rubin Architects is reviewing submittals and progress payments project is nearing completion anary items such as louvers and finishes are to be completed the library interior with dascal LLC the architect is reviewing submittals and invoicing construction work is approximately 98% complete furnishings and restacking of the library materials will take some time anticipate reopening this fall milling and overlay for 2024 project has been completed with the exception of replacement of line striping the engineering department is coordinating the line striping with the contract to complete this as soon as possible the cook Avenue Park parking lot project phase one of the project is nearly complete phase two will commence this week with a survey layout the Telecom Communications companies have relocated their wires underground for the phase one of proh Madison Electric will be transferring services to the new underground wiring work will take place at night to minimize disruption to the businesses and residents notices will be provided Dodge field playground the project is nearing completion the equipment installation is complete with the exception of some final elements the rubber playground surfacing is scheduled to commence this week and will take approximately 3 weeks the MRC solar carport project has been awarded to Bullet electric of North Arlington in the amount of $1,998 500 contracts and required paperwork have been submitted uh and a preconstruction meeting will be set up short L okay from the Department of Public Works DPW is grinding has hired a grinding company to take care of the tree debris from the past storms and Hauling it out to be reused this is being done now to make room for the leaves coming in the coming Leaf season which need to be picked up on tonight's agenda is a hybrid truck that will replace a traditional gas engine truck DPW assisted engineering with all the paving projects and worked with the electric department on cook Avenue parking lot to get underground conduits in Place full sports are underway and DPW is working with Recreation to line and clean all fields for the upcoming events DPW is painting all crosswalks and Par no parking areas in the school zones and finally from the Madison environmental Commission the M MEC is holding its sixth annual Echo Garden Tour on September 21st from 12:00 p.m. to 4 p.m. tickets are $10 a piece and can be purchased online or in person at the nature of reading book the nature of reading Bookshop on Main Street the self-guided tour is a great way to peig into your neighbor yards and see how their lawns are being reduced organic uh vegetables are being grown and create and PLL and creating pollinator habitats the tour includes a native plant sale with toad shade will will toad shade Wildflower Farm ticket sales will fund the nature lover SC speaker series co-hosted by the nature of reading thank you uh that was a tonk twister utilities Mr Hen pus all right mine's not as extensive as that councilman landan all right from the thank you uh substitute mayor Mr President of the council uh from the water utility department uh they're busy with contractors and new construction but on the well updates that uh Bob touched on the storm of August 6th caused some damage within the wells and the generator at John Avenue site has been down we lost power to the garage Water and Light plant due to the damaged service line but it was repaired quickly by our electric department but further damage was caused to the generate itself and there's a scheduled repair slated uh BW reconstruction is finally on track as the new motor and wel casings have been set and energized the preliminary testing is showing great Improvement back to our original gallons per minute flow rate an extended test run is scheduled for this week the sighted improvements around the well a little bit slower but being observed by our engineering department and the head of DPW Ken O'Brien D well is running as our primary well but it's awaiting further electrical function controls for the vfd I don't know what that acur SS for sorry at Cook Avenue Plaza lot we are waiting for the switch over to the other half construction the water department has dug two curb boxes they dug and replaced as well as new fire hydrants to replace the older existing fire Hy behind alfreds and a couple of other locations in addition six curve boxes have been dug around and repaired uh bunch of old continued service is being done in the burrow uh they replace the hydrant behind Staples parking lot with and there's another one slated to be done this year meters continue to be replaced by the contractor metertech and the water department is also assisting that's all from the water department from the electric utility department the standby crew was called to James Park substation for a Transformer malfunction alarm was a blown control fuse thank goodness the standby crew was called to 317 wooden Road for low hanging wires the standby crew was called to a half power outage there was squirrel outages a few of these happened around the bur uh the storm on August 6 caused extensive damage to equipment on Central Avenue the electric department is still working on the final repairs to some of the poles and equipment in that area so there's a plan there was a planned power outage at the cook Avenue Plaza as they were going to turn over the old service to the new service I think they were going to have to turn off some of the power to those buildings which feeds from the street to the buildings but the storm actually took place on August 19th the same day as that turnover which would happen at night so they are rescheduling now and Advising all of the merchants and residents there when the next power outage will be it'll be very short and quick hopefully uh the the electric department is working on setting a new Poll for the Kings Road electric upgrade that they're doing during their uh renovation at the school and the electric Department continues to perform maintenance repair service installs demolition disconnects Branch cutting street light repairs markouts and they're responding to Residents concerns throughout the bur that's all thank Tom community fairs thank you uh the Downtown Development commission uh wants to remind everyone bottle Hill day is scheduled for October 5th sponsorship applications and other information are on rosenet the farmers and Artis Market will continue through December 14th in the Prospect Street parking lot from 9 to noon or sorry 9: to2 and the Downtown Development commission will uh meeting will be held on September 19th at 7:15 it's open to the public the Chamber of Commerce wants to share that the chamber and the Madison PBA are hosting the 29th Madison car show on Saturday October 5th along with the bottle Hill day and Madison TI and auto as a sponsor that will be held in Prospect Street parking lot the 2024 Halloween parade and magic show will be from 12:30 to 3: on October 26 six the chamber and the Downtown Development commission are presenting a new event called Rose City dog day and parade uh November 2nd from 11: to 2 more information can be found um through the chamber or Lisa Ellis and the Madison Community Art Center um 2025 already has 850 scheduled events um there are 30 paintings by Madison resident Nino seratelli and they are being shown until September 29th Gallery hours are available on the mcac website and on September 15th from 1: to 5: the nationally celebrated Shakespearean actor Randall Duke and his wife Annie oio Gro will be working with a company of professional actors on a project called encountering Lear it's a free event you can find out more information on M cc.org you and Health Mr Forte thank you uh the health department is offering on-site vaccination clinics for those 19 and over on September 16th and 20th for residents who are non-insured or underinsured please call the health department for more information at 9735932415 sprayed over the weekend uh mosquito season can last through October and residents should still take precautions which would include wearing an EPA registered insect repellent avoiding the outdoors during Dusk and Dawn hours wearing long sleeves and pants when possible eliminating standing water from your property and ensuring that all window screens are in good repair September is National preparedness month and the health department encourages all residents to plan ahead for emergencies such as hurricanes more information on preparedness can be found at ready.gov thank you thank you sir any Communications or petitions uh none received thank you going to uh go into our first uh public comment section at this time uh you can ask questions or make comments on any discussion items that are on the agenda or the resolutions uh on the agenda for this evening there will be another invitation for discussion later in the meeting for any other subject uh so those agenda discussions this evening are um the pre-qualification for restoration of the Madison heler Center which is formerly the Masonic Lodge as well as a presentation on electric utility capacity pricing and the resolutions that you may comment on this evening are as follows resolution 241 a resolution of the B of Madison appointing Robert Dietrich the position of class three special law enforcement officer in the Madison police department resolution 242 resolution of the burough of Madison authorizing salary increase for the police chief resolution 243 uh authorizing salary increase for police captain Joseph Longo excluded from Union collective bargaining agreement resolution 244 resolution adopting the pre-qualification regulations for the restoration of the heler center resolution 245 resolution of the B of Madison authorizing purchase of a pickup truck and accessories for the Department of Public Works through the New Jersey Cooperative pricing system resolution 246 supporting the Madison environmental commission Eco House and Garden Tour resolution 247 resolution approving a special event permit to allow the use of Memorial Park parking area for the Madison High School annual forment of the bands on October 6th 2024 resolution 248 uh approving renewal application for Livery owners license for travelers taxi and limousine LLC for 2024 resolution 249 resolution uh renewing the application for Livery driers permit for oh that's on here twice for travelers tax and Lim limousine LLC for 2024 resolution 250 resolution of the Bureau of Madison appointing Melissa alzate to the position of perdm Public Safety telecommunications officer resolution 251 resolution of the burough of Madison appointing Thomas R hunt to the position of perdm Public Safety telecommunications officer resolution 252 resolution appointing school crossing guards for the 2024 2025 School Year resolution 253 resolution resending resolution 121-123 approving the issuance of a plenary retail consumption license theater exception resolution 254 resolution of the burough of Madison awarding a new theater exception plenary retail consumption liquor license pursuant to njsa 33 uh 1-1 12.2 resolution 255 resolution of the buau of Madison authorizing a 2024 stipend of 3, for Bonnie mccul for assuming additional duties to implement and enforce the tree protection permit process resolution 256 approving a raffle license application submitted by the Madison High School uh parent ptso resolution 257 authorizing the execution of a historic preservation easement agreement with the county of Morris for Block 200 1 lot 17 the heler center in the burough of Madison resolution 258 requesting the director of local government services to approve the insertion of an item of Revenue in the budget for the year 2024 resolution 259 uh authorizing the execution of an agreement between the burough of Madison and the Madison hous housing authority to be the administrative agent for affordable housing units in the Bureau of Madison resolution 260 resolution of the B of Madison accepting the irrevocable retirement of electric utility superintendent James matina effective November 1st 2024 resolution 261 resolution of the bu of Madison approving a raffle license application submitted by Grace Episcopal church and resolution 262 a resolution authorizing change order and partial payment to sellan son General Contracting Inc for curb replacement improvements and that's what happens when you only have one meeting in August you have a lot of resolutions the next time so at this time uh if there's anyone who would like to speak please step up to the uh lecturn state your name and address for the record seeing none I close this portion of the meeting agenda discussions pre-qualifications for the restoration of the heler center I'm going to present this from uh my seat here to pull up my copy so tonight's presentation is um basically a requirement for the process through which the renovation will be the contract will be awarded that we advertise uh here and adopt certain pre-qualification requirements ments for eligible contractors to do this work so a little bit a few slides in we'll step through the timeline of this process and see where we are um this is to fulfill the statuto requirement that we adopt the uh these requirements uh and um uh go through the division of local government services process uh in order to receive the historic trust Grant but we also decided to use this opportunity to just give a brief um reintroduction and overview of the work in progress at the heler center next slide so this map just locates us the heler center formerly known as the Masonic Lodge you can see it here on the map uh near the Junior School off of Main Street next slide so this is a really special building in Madison it was built in 1825 as the Presbyterian Church of chadam Township and it has been here in Madison for coming up on 200 years it was acquired by the Masons in 1930 and it served as the Masonic Lodge until 202 23 when they put the building up on the market for sale and out of concern uh for potential uh development or what we would call unsympathetic development of the site and demolition of the historic building U Madison stepped in to purchase the structure and now we are working with a preservation architect to retrofit rehabilitate it for a new use in the burrow here's an image of the lower level um the first floor meeting room will accommodate programming primarily for the senior center as part of the heler center uh program offerings in order to make it accessible uh and sound there will be some repairs required for structure the structure of the floor there'll be new lighting and all electric high efficiency hbac systems uh installed this multi-purpose room here that you see uh will be adjacent to a new kitchenet and there will be a new accessible restroom a new elevator that provides access to the floor which means that we can uh remove the uh fire escape from the exterior of the building next slide here's a view of the upstairs uh room the second floor meeting room can also accommodate additional programming and events for the burrow um the Grant from the New Jersey uh historic trust and from the county has required that we maintain many of these features as part of the historic nature of the building um but uh so as you can see some of these really special features will stay a part of this room so it unfortunately we can't open up the windows to the outside because that was done back in the in the 30s and now it's considered historic that the windows have been closed up however this room could still have a lot of nice uses for functions for lectures and you know other events and with the new access by elevator and a new accessible bathroom at this level it will certainly be available uh be accessible to all members MERS of the public including uh use by the senior center or any other function that the burough would like to host here there's a couple of photos here showing some of the work that needs to be done as I mentioned there'll be a new elevator and a stair addition at the rear you can see in the upper right hand photo there's a small one-story kind of bump out at the back of the building that will be extended up to the second floor to accommodate the new egress there and the new elevator the exterior needs to be uh repaired with repointing ceiling and some um brick replacement where uh older elements of the building that are either disused or in a state of disrepair will be removed or replaced and the windows will be restored okay so this is the timeline I mentioned so the architect Clark Kon hint C CCH has created the pre-qualification package for contractors the buau has reviewed and approved that package and it was then sent on to the division of local government services uh as the architect explained to us this is a courtesy review to confirm that the package meets with the state requirements um there were no comments from dgs and so we moved to advertise this package so a 20-day advertisement before this public meeting um was placed that we will be adopting the pre-qualification package and that brings us to tonight we will uh vote to adopt the pre-qual package and then submit that paperwork to the division of local government services for final approval by Statute dgs has 30 days to approve likely this will go more quickly than that because they had a chance to preview the package before it was made public and then once the bur receives approval from the state the RFQ package for qualified contractors can be issued this is about a 3-we process so it'll be issued in November sorry October and returned in November we'll receive pre qualification packages from interested and qualified contractors um and then together with the architect the burough will review the submissions and send them to the New Jersey historic trust for review and comment we'll notify qualified vendors issue the drawings and specifications for a construction bid likely in early December so here's where we're at now CCH the architect has submitted 75% complete construction documents as of the end of August to the borrow for feedback um we've had uh frequent meetings with the architect to review plans and and provide feedback and fune the scope the architect has met with NJ historic trust to review the project they've done walkthroughs on site to look at the proposed design and uh the historic trust did provide feedback such as the fact that the um many of the changes made by the Masons need to be preserved uh by Under the terms of the Department of the Interior standards for preserving landmarked buildings um Morris County historic trust will also weigh in um on the proposed exterior work for the building and then finally the construction documents will be completed for bidding likely in December uh to tie in with the uh pre-qualification package that we outlined on the previous slide so uh the idea is that this construction would go forward in 2025 um when we have a construction schedule we can we can share that um but the provision of some of the elements in the restoration and retrofit such as the new elevator the new HVAC equipment a new Transformer that we need to bring to add additional service to the building or along lead items and so this will uh likely be a I would say uh 9 to 12 month or longer construction process we have a couple slides showing the proposed work so here's a a plan of the ground floor you can see on the right hand side there there's a dotted line dashed in around the new accessible bathroom uh on the right side at the left side you see the new elevator uh there's a new egress St above that that's at square shape in the upper left hand corner and a small kitchenet like a pantry to serve the meeting room on the ground floor and then going upstairs you can see the elevator and the stair continue up on the left side the the Shaded portion of the bump out uh is the extension the new second Flor floor level of uh the service portion of the building at the back you can see here's where the elevator and the stair will bring people up uh new accessible bathroom at this level and then the meeting room will remain largely as is um under the historic preservation guidelines that we have there's another slide of elevations so here you see a side view and the rear view of the building the image on the right shows the back of the building and how the uh that bump out I mentioned will be extended up it'll it'll stop short of the cornice and uh it'll have a parit to screen the additional the the elevator overrun and the additional HVAC equipment up there so I think it's a pretty sensitive um way to incorporate these new um accessible and hbac elements um and certainly is in keeping with the overall look of the building and uh the great news about this is that it'll make the whole building accessible to all members of the public for uses that we couldn't have before so it's kind of a whirlwind overview I know most people are familiar with the project um but the main goal tonight is to adopt that pre-qualification pre-qualification package so that we can keep the process moving with uh for selection of a contractor by the end of the year are there any questions thank you questions from or comments from the council okay yeah seeing none there is an opportunity here U for members of the public to either make a statement or um ask a question because this is a hearing um that is required by that pre-qualification process so if there's any members of the public who would like to uh step up and comment you can do so now same rules would apply keep your comments to three minutes seeing none I close this hearing and this is listed on the consent agenda as resolution 244 we'll vote on it then Mr Bernett electric utility capacity pricing thank you council president range I appreciate the opportunity to present this it's an important topic we've talked about this over the years but now we need to talk about the cost of capacity because prices have gone up significantly so next slide please Michael pjm Pennsylvania Jersey Maryland it's our regional Grid it's a called a regional transmission organization it's a quasi government entity that manages and makes sure we have reliable um Electric in our area um they have uh created a capacity Market called the reliability pricing model and it ensures long-term grid reliability by procuring the amount of power supply resources needed to meet the predicted or estimated energy demand in the future and that's really on the hottest days of the year the most highest capacity days of the year where we're obviously worried about making sure we have enough energy resources or generation capacity represents a contractual obligation between the generator and uh pjm and says you have to be there and deliver in case of an emergency by um to contradict or to to show a different angle to this Tech Tas does not have this capacity Market they don't pay the generators a dollar amount and sign these contracts to have guaranteed capacity to be there and that's why they had a big fail one of the reasons why they had a big failure in um and uh you know major grid almost you know meltdown when it was severely cold in the winter because they did not have they don't have this type of model in Texas they also only deal in Texas where we're dealing with a mult um State entity that where generation can trans um can be transported and utilized from various areas all the way out to Ohio even though pjm stands for Pennsylvania Jersey Maryland there's resources in Ohio that are part of pjm so uh these uh spaces are these generators are there when needed but they may not be used all year round capacity as it relates to electricity means that there's adequate generation on the grid so uh flip to the next slide Michael please please uh pjm's capacity Market uh changes um and the charge is based on two factors the price for capacity and the peak load Factor the peak load factor is the average of the five hot highest non-coincident peak load days in the prior year what does that mean PGM looks back to last year and says when were the hottest the the the highest consuming times of the year and then they'll pick five non-coincident days so it can't be um an hour on July 28th and then a second hour on July 28th and a third hour on July 28th it has to be non-coincident days so um you can see here that um in 2023 the peak days were on July 5th hour ending 18 which is the hour ending at 6:00 p.m. so the peak time um in J in 2023 was July 5th 5 to 6:00 p.m. July 27th 5 to 6 p.m. 28th 5 to 6 p.m. September 5th and September 6th hour ending um 5:00 p.m. so 4: to 5: p.m. and um so uh our load has been actually higher this year it's been hotter I think it's don't you feel like it's been hotter um this year than last year so you can see our our total load our average instead of being 33.5 621 is a little bit higher and it gives you an indication of what days we've experienced those uh Peaks probably done with the Peaks now I don't think is going to be hot this week but I don't think it's going to be hot enough to generate um uh a a peak there is a little link there that goes to a uh page in roset that talks more about capacity markets so pjm runs a um an auction and says okay if you're a generator are you willing to be part of this market and if so what's your price and uh they um have a clearing price that's expressed in megawatts per day and it's applicable from June 1st to May 30th so um I'm here to say that and you'll see it more in a little bit that our prices are going to go up significantly in the cost of capacity starting next June 1st and running for a year from June 1st to May 30 The Following year each load serving entity like Madison is assigned a capacity obligation that coincides with this June 1st to May 31st period and we get build based on it based on the number of peak hours and based on the cost that the auction generated next slide please Michael so this past auction pjm's latest capacity auction hit record highs the spike in capacity was driven by fossil um fuel power uh Power Plant retirements increased load Supply and an imbalance in the market rules and I'll explain that a little bit um the recent auction um highlights the need for new investment in generation that we need to have more generation for it to be reliable I'll also say and hopefully this doesn't get picked up by the major news outlets that um the uh generators have been really upset they feel like they are not getting paid nearly enough so you're going to hear that they got some rules changed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that triggered all of this so if we go to the next slide this shows the historic capacity prices and you can see that back in 201819 we were up there but we have kind of been in an awesome time these last few years quite frankly this is why we've been able to give the utility dividend um the electric utility dividend because our capacity prices have been so much lower well as you can see they really shot up so we go to the next slide this talks about new pjm rules which are really generated by FK Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that derated or reduced what a generator can bid into the market so if you look at this if you had 100 megawatts of onshore wind you could only bid in 35 megaw or 35% of that um onshore wind if you had a Coal Power Plant of 100 megawatt you could only bid in 84 megaw they derated they reduced that they say you may not be able to to produce when we want you to produce at 100% so we're only going to pay you for 84 megawatts times this new auction amount so um that that really caused um a supply and demand inflection if we go to the next slide we're going to see this that um in uh the First Column is 2022 and 2023 you see that there was a total of 75 ,4 17545 megawatt of capacity offered into the market that was the supply the demand was 150 so great hey the supply was greater than the demand so prices were really low FK goes and changes the rules and now all of a sudden the supply drops from 1 175 to 136 the demand goes up because demand has been going up and construction and everything so all of a sudden you have a situation where the demand is higher than the supply basic microeconomics that I learned from Mr chimura in Madison High School says that uh that's going to cause a problem with pricing and and that is really it so you can and we're going to spend a moment on this because Rachel and I were talking about this really just a few minutes ago um some of the solar has been derated and some of the um other Hydro has been derated but it was really a combination of coal power plant shutting down and natural gas power plant shutting down and natural gas and coal being derated or reduced in terms of the amount that they could bid in that caused this huge change right from 45 to 30 from 85 to 66 those two big numbers had a tremendous impact on the supply and have caused this so I know this is very profesor but I wanted to kind of explain how this Market Works um so let's go to the next slide Michael this is where the um the CFO or financial rubber hits the road um these are what we have paid or and what we are going to pay in capacity costs um so it has been uh eight years ago we were paying over $3 million the last few years we've been paying less than a million we have had increased transmission costs and other increased costs but now we're going to see a significant increase in prices next year so we're going to that's going to be something we're going to have to resolve and work with and I will work with Council on how we're going to financially manage that but the next question I think you're going to ask is going to pop up on the next slide which is what can we do to reduce our Peaks and we've all been talking about this a long time right probably a dozen years we've been talking about this and fortunately we have Smart Meters in place fortunately we're in a better place than most of our um smaller Utilities in New Jersey um but there are U multiple strategies we can use time of use rates we are working on that right now to try to offer the pilot program for time of use rates which basically says hey can you shift your consumption and not have it be hour ending 5: to 6: PM because that's really the busy the the peak time for us and if you can just shift it to 2 PM or to 9900 p.m. that's really going to help us um a peer unit is a unit that would be a generation unit that would be in U Madison and we'd actually turn it on and so instead of us consuming 35 megawatts of energy during that time we'd say boy it's it's going to be a peak generation time for the B for uh pjm let's turn it on and we can knock our Peak down 5 megawatts from 35 to 30 we can do the math and we knocked our Peak down by 15% we knocked our $4 million char down by 15% we saved $600,000 so we can actually calculate the savings and figure out was it worth it to do that um battery storage is another thing where we have a significantly large battery that would be connected to our grid and it would be turned on and drained and pushing energy into our system so we're not pulling As Much from the grid same as the peer unit we reduce the amount that we're drawing from the grid we can save uh money there um burrow owned solar like the MRC solar carport will reduce our our capacity it takes a lot of solar to you know it's going to take more than a parking lot to have a significant Dent um but every every bit of solar will help whether it's burrow owned or even residential so encouraging residential and then um voluntary demand response so Rachel said Jim do one of these charts that has the xaxis and the Y AIS and make it imp you know which one has the more impact and which one's harder and of course the ones that have the most impact are the hardest ones to to do um but this gives you a kind of a graphic interpretation of uh where um where we can go with this a peer plant and a battery storage unit are going to have a significant impact five megawatts 10 megawatts could shed could shed 25% of our total load could save 20 could save a million dollars but a little harder than um the time of use rates so we're going to be working Administration and my office um and staff from my office are going to be working on these various strategies I already met with a battery company and going to be having a second meeting with them South River installed the battery um and I think we all know that um our friends down in Seaside Heights installed a peer unit so there's examples right here in New Jersey of our friends that had implemented into some of these um some of these strategies some of these actual uh solutions that can reduce our Peak um and with that I will uh take any questions first of all this is a great presentation it was an eyeopener number one but I just have one observation I may be off thee wall Al together the chart we had all the percentages it seemed to me that the higher percentages which would be what that or organ yeah keep going back Michael that to that one Bob it seems like the higher percentages kind of lean in favor of the old and more traditional uh ways to generate energy like the more Progressive cleaner ways are rated lower the notion is that we don't know if it's going to be cloudy or sunny this is what they're saying it's not what I'm saying um they don't know whether it's going to be cloudy or sunny they don't know whether it's going to be windy or calm during those times and so you can't control that part of the Generation Um so that's part of it but it's a very astute observation you're correct and then the other kind of question I had was so does the hot summer that we just had which I hated I can't stand the heat um well that seems to be pushing what the charge is going to be for next year so next year God willing if it's a more reasonable summer if it's a little cooler would that Poss possibly reduce the charges for the following year it could however they basically add up the peak and then divide it by everybody so if everybody consumed less you know we're all in the same boat whether it's us or jcpnl or psng or Seaside Heights Little Municipal electric utility or viny and's pretty big electric utility we're all in the same boat where it's probably going to be cool cooler so they're just going to take the numerator which is us and the denominator and say you're responsible for. 25% so it would have to be notably notably cooler for the larger region to really drop those numbers down or more importantly we want to reduce our consumption just and imagine Michael if you go back to the DAT the couple slides back that show the PJ capacity market and uh it shows the hours mhm um this one here we we only have to reduce our consumption five hours a year and we can reduce our costs one of the problems is we don't know what those five hours are right so we're probably going to guess 15 or 20 hours where we run these peer generator units or the batteries or 30 or 40 hours where we dispatch these resources but it's only those few times where if we can get um you know reduce our consumption that we will have a meaningful impact and that's where probably the smart meters and the way that you monitor electric use could probably help yes absolutely it's going to allow us to do time of use and if it works well for the little residential maybe we can turn around and offer it to a large commercial or something we didn't talk about demand response hey uh Stop and Shop if you can show on your meter that you reduced consumption just for three hours we will pay you X we can see it on the meter now we couldn't see it on the meter before but we can see their increment consumption during those during those times and and potentially go into a uh an agreement with them to uh to do that and then we split the savings let's say hey we saved $50,000 we'll give you 25 and we'll keep 25 other questions or comments from the council Mr Forte just a quick question so regardless of what the weather is going to be Jim it would seem to me that we're going to run into an issue because we've got continuous development going on in town whether it be large apartment complexes or uh te Downs where a small home gets replaced by a very large home and is consuming more so my question is really do we need to brace ourselves for the fact that regardless of what we try to do there's probably a new reality that we're faced with based on uh change in the Way Madison looks and how that impacts our our grid in our buying I actually think we have to brace for the new reality because of what FK did and what the generators did so they could make $4 million off Madison instead of a million dollars off Madison don't put that in the paper um uh in reality surprisingly our electric consumption Now versus 20 years ago is very similar and I wouldn't have thought that right I would have thought oh it's it's it's got of gone up we have all this new consumption we have all this new um Office Buildings and things like that but it's the um the Energy Efficiency that has come about with new air conditioning and lighting and stuff like that that's you know we haven't grown that much that fortunately that uh the conservation has kind of offset the increase in customers Tom Tom is your microphone on sorry Jim so are we kind of contradicting our goals now where we want the burrow to be more electrified right with the burrow services with the residents we want we want everybody to have more electric options in their homes and their Lifestyles and our commercial development but then it's going to potentially raise our cost to bring electricity potential all of our Peaks yes are happening in the summer right people are going to have air conditioners whether they have gas heat or whether they have electric heat um and uh so um asking people to heat with electric um through a heat pump or other other option geothermal whatever it is will not have an impact on our on our it should not have an impact on our summer Peak as a matter of fact arguably if someone's sitting there with a a natural gas or an oil burning furnace and they've got a bunch of old Air conditioning units in the windows if they turn around and install central air conditioning um with a new heat pump um their electric consumption could be less in the summer and then we would also get the benefit of them being an electric customer of ours in the winter so the next thing I was going to lead into is that we talked I think Rachel said it in her last presentation we're finally going to offer incentives to people to Electrify to more efficient maybe batteries maybe we tell people okay you get a battery and off peak you fill your battery up so that the next day you can run part of your house with the battery but we have to incentivize them and it will save us money in the long term really really good point the time of use will automatically incentivize someone to buy a battery yeah think about it if we're saying hey you voluntarily um uh choose time of use consumption uh rate rate structure what are you going to do well I could buy a battery and charge it overnight and then dispat at at for 12 cents a kill you use illustrative numbers but 12 cents a kilowatt hour and then I can turn around and sell that energy back to Madison at 35 cents a kilowatt hour through our net metering um tariff uh that that funds I guarantee you as soon as we do time of use Frank Curran from uh what's his name of his company green Frank Curran from Greenhouse solar Greenhouse solar Frank K from Greenhouse is going to be like okay you know I'm going to talk to my customers and see if I can get some of them to buy battery and by the way there's there's currently inflation reduction act incentives and whatnot great go for it that that that's something you're only going to get four people out of the whole Community who are really going to look at it that way because the battery cost $3,000 well and so that's why we need to look at a 5 megawatt or a 10 megawatt battery for the burrow sure but you want to incentivize people too yes yes so Tomy V would do that so time of use oh you want Financial incentives well we what we should do is work with Frank on the numbers we should work with Frank on the numbers and say hey if we do this is this going to be enough I know David Cohen's like I'm doing it if if you if you do that time of use I want to do that so but we'll see um but ultimately um you know the little itty bitty not the the small residential solar installations um we're better off having a big Municipal solar installation the small battery they help but but the big battery helps more but the bottom line is Michael goes back to that last slide it's I'm taking Eric's line because we're talking about it it's not a it's not one solution that's going to that's going to um work we're going to have to have more why do you say that it's estimated in 25 26 where did you get this capacity cost says es now because there's still a possibility of having a peak day um tomorrow or the next day so we we that Peak factor that we have on the third page Thomas at 3481 834 we think we look we looked at our numbers and we think that's going to be it so we we did math gotcha back of the envelope math it's not going to get better it's not going to change by a lot no right thanks J that was very informed questions you guys sorry other questions or comments from Council thank you Jim we uh look forward to more information and hopefully some solutions down the road we have no ordinances for hearing this evening um so at this time uh I'll invite members of the public who want to comment on any topic to step up to the Le turn and sayate your name and address and keep your comments to three minutes we'll give you a one minute grace hello again um I'm Lydia chambers co-chair of friends of the Drew forest and I live at 87 milbrook Road in um Harding right top and well tonight I'd like to start by responding to the announcement that I heard and um the friends of the Drew Forest would like to acknowledge the tireless work that the burough counsel and the mayor and the Administration has put in to trying to reach um an agreement and come and pull together an offer to um to do two things to preserve the forest and to support the university so this sounds to us like a win-win um which is what the friends of the Drew Forest have been working towards for three and a half years um so we urge Drew University to accept this offer right away um you know the forest is um critically important valuable resource for Drew and for Madison and for Morris County and Beyond and it's worth fighting for so I'll move on to my comment that I prepared for tonight which um over the years you've heard from us many many times about the ecological restoration of the Drew forest and how it's been transformative but the forest um is now once again a place of significant crit um value for birds for um bats for bugs and other wild life because of the critical native habitat that's been restored you undoubtedly know that the Drew Forest continues to perform other important roles for us such as Aqua for recharge and climate resilience as it always has but it's doing even more than all that tonight I'm going to share a story about how the forest impacted one particular person and what that teaches us Haley Weber only spent a year and a half at Drew University but she accomplished a lot she conducted research on the effect of the deer fencing on vegetation in the Drew Forest as part of her coursework at Drew she compared plots inside and outside the deer fence at the Zuck AR burum and then at the hepn Woods um using I naturalist so at the Zuck Arboretum she found that 76% of the plants just outside of the deer exposure exclosure were invasive invasive means they're alien plants that are detrimental to the ecosystem and they suppress biodiversity so things like garlic mustard Oriental Bittersweet and Norway Maples are three that she observed inside the exclosure she found only 19% % of the plants were invasive so her study clearly demonstrates The Beneficial impact of deer fencing for restoration of native plant understory in a forested area these results can be used to justify plant conservation using deer exclusion in new areas where deer are abundant this is valuable information for conservation organizations across our region so interestingly Haley began her career at Raritan Community College where she earned an associate degree in the spring of 2022 she then transferred to Drew in the fall of 2022 um and graduated F Beta Kappa in December of 2023 with a major in environmental science Haley is now at the University uh or the Miami University pursuing a M's in botany so as you can see the Drew Forest Drew Haley in it provided a living laboratory where she could Excel and investigate learn how to investigate sign ific scientific questions and it prepared her for important graduate work and a future career in science so Haley is yet another example of how the Drew Forest has been transformative in students lives finally this story reminds us of the unbelievable power of volunteer communities which collaborated in the restoration of the Zuck arborium and the heurn woods in the first place so that students like Haley could Thrive there as part of our broad volunteer community we ask you to continue to do your best to preserve the Drew forest for future students like Haley you thank you so much and again to reiterate our thanks to our partners at saved the Drew forest for all of your work as well over the last several years hi Amy Reed from the Museum of Early Trades and crafts um I actually live at 10 Midwood drive in Thor parks um just a quick note about ordinance 29 2024 um we just wanted to thank the Madison Town Council for appropriating funds from the municipal open space Recreation and historic preservation fund for repairs to the Museum of Early Trades and crafts clock along with funding from the Morris County historic preservation fund this project will allow the clock to run again including an hourly chime of the Bell as it used to do in Madison for so many years the project will also restore the clock face and hands to its original Gold Leaf finish the bur of Madison has always been very generous to mec's projects to maintain and restore the James Library building and we are thankful to continue to work with them again on this project thank you thank you so much anyone else wishing to be heard at this time um Steve Sherman um six Myrtle Avenue um first of all I want to say um the Ariana Angels thing is fantastic that's really a great thing that you guys are doing that as a with a with a child who has learning disabilities on the autism spectrum that's really fantastic there needs to be that kind of training that's really good um but I didn't come here to talk to about that I'm uh few weeks ago uh me and my wife are crossing uh the street from Madison Honda across to the um the lot right in front of seaman we pressed the button we waited for the traffic we got the white guy we started across truck that was on Seaman made a left hand turn at the same time didn't see us right away and if I didn't wave my arms I wouldn't be talking to you my wife wouldn't be talking to you um he didn't see us he looked white as a ghost as well he told us that the column of his truck and the big mirror on his truck um was blocking his vision it was also a public works truck from Madison um the police were called uh I want to shout out uh officer dandro fantastic was very calming we had our EMS people come in uh and the fire department was called just to go through the precautionary thing of making sure my wife wasn't injured you know some Cuts some bruises very scared saw our lives Flash before our eyes but what we noticed when we left after all of the things when we were all checked out is that when you are making a left off seen onto that road when you well I watched it twice when one person actually from Honda didn't press the button I'm not naming names it doesn't do anything at all you make a left and you're supposed to stop there but when you press the button and it was two elderly people and this is the same Corner that Miss Giordano helps children across the street to Kings Road that's where she's stationed she's fantastic by the way she always does the high school too it goes white at the same time so you're basically telling a truck to make a left at the same time now if they he that person saw this person me and my wife there wouldn't have been a problem there needs to be more time especially if you're following the rules and pressing the button you should have a couple seconds to get into the middle of that intersection and give them more time to cross that's it that's all I have to say I'm you know other than that it's it's it's it's I think it's been solved unwaver but I think that's this is a you know and with the kids going back to school I think it's quite important problem to uh to get across thank you thank you for your time thanks for bringing that to our attention and we'll make sure to follow up with uh the police department and other stakeholders that need to be involved in that uh conversation to make sure that that intersection is safe as it can be thank you anyone else wishing to be heard at this time seeing none I close this portion of the meeting and we'll move on to introduction of ordinances will the clerk please read the statement ordinance is scheduled for first hearing have a hearing date set for September the 23rd 2024 all will be published in the Madison Eagle posted on the bulletin board and made available to members of the public requesting copies call up ordinance 28-22 24 and ask the clerk to read it by title ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $60,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for the purchase of a new Jeep vehicle and accessories I move ordinance 28-22 24 second any B discussion see none roll call vote please miss erck yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pis yes tahan yes Mr Forte yes ordinance 29-22 24 ordinance of the Bureau of Madison appropriating $3,820 from the municipal open space Recreation and historic preservation trust fund for repairs to the Museum of Early Trades and crafts clock I move ordinance 29 2024 second any Council discussion we heard from our friends at the Mec already seeing none roll call vote please miss erlick yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pus yes Miss h my hand yes Mr Forte yes ordinance 30- 2024 ordinance of the burrow of Madison appropriating $1,400,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for the purchase of one new Cyclone compressed air foam system fire engine I'll move ordinance 30- 2024 second and just uh a couple of extra comments here on this ordinance so this ordinance will fund a new E1 Cyclone 2 pumper engine uh that will replace an engine of a similar configuration model that Madison first put into service in 1998 uh so at nearly 27 years old the existing engine is exceeded its useful life and it's making uh it's increasingly difficult to maintain and get parts and all that sort of thing the capital spending plan that we've been looking at over the last couple of years uh indicated retiring this current engine in 20127 uh but given the current lead times of 26 to 30 months for this type of Fire Equipment the ever escalating costs and we talked a little bit about this during the budget hearings um when we hoped to forward this later this year um those escalating costs every time we ask the the supplier what's you know can you get us a new quote it goes up 10 15% um so by prefunding this now ahead of schedule uh we'll be able to lock in and have some certainty on the pricing that we're angling for plus we'll actually have the truck in 2027 when we actually need it to to roll into service and not be out into 2029 or 30 so uh that being said any other comments or questions from discussion from the top oh two qu two questions like you just said we probably won't have this unit for two years I think I read that some more in the updates there and this might not matter but it does matter a little bit are we going to pay some we giving them a deposit now or are we giving them $1.4 million Jim brette up front you know the question Jim is if we encumber this money now or we paying the whole thing before we get the truck no no no we don't pay anything until we get the truck we just need to have the money in place right so we can actually order the truck right so the money stays in our banking account we still ear a little interest yeah yeah yeah exactly that's a good thing exactly yes and then when we retire the one that's there now it doesn't get retired we sell it it's part of the trade in I believe oh is that how it works4 million yes oh okay got it okay thank you well I know we need it so thanks Eric for putting such a good deal together only 1.4 million Chief Wickman did all the heavy lifting on working with the vendor and that it was specified to to to the needs of the department so um any other Council discussion seeing none roll call vote please M erck yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr Harland P yes M Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes moving on to our consent agenda will the clerk read the 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 minutes okay I move consent agenda r241 2024 through r R 262 2024 second any discussion or any that need to be pulled roll call a vote please miss erck yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pus yes Mr Hanahan yes M my apologies Mr Forte yes there is no unfinished business uh will the clerk please read the voucher total from the current fund 7,653 6715 from the general Capital fund $352,500 from the electric operating fund $354,950 from the Electric Capital fund $1 133,134 from the water operating fund $2,695 4 5 and the water Capital fund $2,263 76 the trust uh 31,35 358 the total is 8,976 4351 I'll move approval of the vouchers second roll call vote please M erlick yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr har and pis yes yes M Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes there's no new business this meeting Mr Forte Mr council president I move to adjourn right favor