##VIDEO ID:A_4bcFOMtsM## e yes good evening this is a council meeting a council conference meeting of the township of Montclair and is being broadcast live on Channel 34 it's streaming live on the montcl tv34 YouTube channel it's available on demand and can and will be rebroadcasts this meeting is called pursuant to the provisions of the open public public meeting act the meeting was included in the revised annual notice of the meeting schedule as set forth in resolution r24 174 adopted by Township council at its regular meeting on July 17 2024 and transmitted to the official newspaper on July 24th 24 posted on the bulletin boards outside the municipal building and has remained continuously posted in addition a copy of the revised annual notice is and has been available to the public and is on file in the office of the Township Clerk please would everyone stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing we have two amazing guests with us who are sophomores at Mont CLE High School Elana and Talia CTI and they will grace us uh with a with a beautiful blessing after we've done the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Aliana and Talia Talia twins I believe the children are future teach them well and let them lead the way show them all the beauty they possess inside give them a sense of Pride to make it easier let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be everybody searching for a hero people need someone to look up to I never found any one who fulfilled my needs a lonely place to be and so I learn to depend on me I decided long ago never to walk in anyone Shadows if I fail if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe no matter what they'll take from me they can't take away my dignity because the Greatest Love of All is happening to me I found the Greatest Love of All inside of me The Greatest Love of All is easy to achieve learning to love s is The Greatest Love of All I believe the children are future teach them well and let them lead the way show them all the beauty they possess inside give them a sense of Pride to make it easier let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be I decided long ago go never to walk in anyone Shadow if I fail if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe no matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity because the Greatest Love of All is happening to me I found the greatest Love of All inside of me The Greatest Love of All is easy to achieve Learning To Love Yourself is The Greatest Love of All and if by chance that special place that you've been dreaming of leads you to a lonely Place find your strength in in love thank you woohoo ladies can you just tell us a little bit about yourselves your name your school you did a wonderful job and thank you so much I think part of what we do here we want to set examples and try to help people find that love especially our young people so thank you for coming here and setting the tone for us this evening hi my name is elen cyy I'm 15 years old and I'm a sophomore at mler high school all right my name is and my name is Talia Cy I'm also 15 I'm a sophomore at monair high school as well thank you thank you very much did we get um did anyone receive the minutes from the last meeting I didn't see mine immediately so okay no mayor all right thank you so at this point in time we're going to move down to the presentation um 2023 audit report for the township of Montclair excuse me Madam mayor I have a question maybe the clerk or Mr Lola can answer this the audit report the um packet that was delivered to us it said it would be discussed at De September 24th meeting I was asked to have them here for the tonight's meeting and we need to take the roll call okay thank you um Madam clerk would you please do the Roll Call Paul Deputy Mayor Anderson here councilor Birmingham here councelor damato here councelor lochman here councelor Toler pres councelor Williams here mayor Baskerville present uh mayor um I'm sorry just to help us next time um can I maybe suggest that we divide up uh uh um reviewing the minutes I've already started on the 11th um at some time ago and I will finish that one I mean I don't know what the process is we all have to vote on it but I think it would be useful if if one of us each of us could attest to having you know looked at it closely and maybe reviewed the video is that a good solution I don't know what your what Your ask is or what you're suggesting what's preventing us from approving the minutes she said the clerk the clerk said she did send them to us and and I know that I think we are sitting on June 11th May I mayor yes uh yes the June 11 minutes had already been tabled from uh they were first provided and listed on the 17th of July if my memory serves me to allow the governing body members an opportunity enough time to review the video right uh when I sent them a second time I included a link to the video uh so all the minutes that are listed on this agenda have been provided to you in addition Bond council is looking for a copy of those approved minutes from June 11 and I said correct so we approved those you were you wer in here no I thought we did on no you didn't because you would not you were you you were not on you were not seated then so you deferred it you tabled it and we brought up again and you said no so it's never been approved on the for the 11th thought let's just approve them again we did so so so we can be clear at at this point in time then you're waiting for us to approve the June 11th minutes yes mayor in addition to July 30 and August 13 so just a question would those July 30th and August 13th included in this today's packet yes ma'am no they weren't I didn't get them okay if you would like for me to re uh resend the email I can but I assure you all of the minutes listed here were provided to you not in today's packet it's okay and we we'll hold this for now and we'll move on and um we will before the meeting is over we'll make a suggestion either that we table that until the next meeting or if people want to look up the email if it's very helpful the manager said for the June 11th uh minutes which is before our time right I have looked at some of those I don't believe I completed it it was a while ago I looked at him and uh I think so yeah and some of us were here some of us were at that meeting myself the mayor you were there yeah and you so cuz I watched the video and you were in it so but I thought we came back in August and approved it which is what we remember and I don't think you were here which is but but we can always approve them again if we have we we did we we did approve them mayor may may yes sir so why don't we just approve them now June 11 no again yes okay no problem so that were 100% sure cuz I will have to go back and watch the video of the other two meetings to see which one we I know it was brought up again I just don't remember what the vote count was okay so so at this point in time we're going to um I move that we vote to approve the minutes from the June 11 2024 meeting second I second roll call vote please M clerk Deputy Mayor Anderson yes councilor Birmingham yes councel damato yes councel lochman yes councelor Toler yes councilor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes and so at this point in time we're going to move on to the presentation um the audit report the tal may may ask you a question shall we um if we have a question during his presentation should we ask it or do you want us to wait until he's all done and then ask questions I'm going to let him introduce right I'm going to allow him to introduce himself and let us know what he's going to do and then at that time I will ask him what his preference is and I'd like to adhere to whatever your preference is either way fine um my name is Greg cser with Supply cloning company and I'm here to present the 2023 audit report um there's three sections of the audit that I'd like to go over the first one's the financial section the second one is our single audit section and the third section is our comments and recommendations the first section the um Financial section um do you do you the the mayor and Council have um copies of the report yes okay so if you were to turn to page one you'll see our opinion on the financials the um purpose of our audit is to give an opinion and there are one of a few um opinions we can give during the audit and what the township is striving for is an unmodified opinion based on other comprehensive bases of accounting which we Callo it's the initials and um the township has achieved an unmodified opinion based on the financial statement which is the best uh opinion we can give of the various so I'd like to thank the finance and um Administration for um providing help to us and they're keeping the records in um a form that allows us to uh give an opinion of them unmodified opinion can I just ask a question sure an opinion about what on the financial statement about what to about the financials official op about what though that they that they all are you know tell me what exactly you're looking for that what we do you want to help out here U so our opinion is based on uh our audit is are financial statements materially misstated or not and after we do all of our procedures we render opinion that the financial statements are um free of material Mist statement or they're not in this case you have you have the best opinion in our opinion they're free of material Mist statement so the financial statements are fairly stated so they're free of mistakes in other words uh yeah uh material material mistak thank you anything else at this time well there will be okay that's fine just thing yeah um if you turn to page it says um Township of Monclair it's the current fund balance sheets the these are um your uh analysis of surplus and at this point you're in a a good healthy fiscal shape going into the 24 year the financials are as of 23 um you're maintaining your surpluses for your current fund your trust funds your water utility sewer and parking utility so as of December 31st the um financials uh statements are and the amounts are in good fiscal uh shape at this point so I have a question about that sheet one okay what you're just looking at um um I think you have an incorrect reference under the C grants receivable you have a15 as your reference and I think it should be a26 so um I would be more comfortable if you just went back and double checked all your references since I immediately found one that didn't seem to be correct I if you want to if there's a list of something besides that that you want to give us we can definitely go back I'm not looking at everything I mean I just happen to pick this out and I hope that you will just make sure that this is corrected we'll and that there's any other Corrections that may need to be done we'll do I got it I don't know yeah I'm looking at mine and mine agrees to what's in my so I I mean if you would if you'd like to sit down in the future I don't have no problem with you going over things so it says a15 and my a15 is something else I'm happy to return my book to you so you can see what I've asked okay y all right very good is there anything else on that page or so I do have another question about your first page when you're talking about the independent auditor report is this done at arms length from the CFO like you go and you ask for things or or do you work with that person uh mean we said we work with them we we ask they they provide us the financial statements and then we do our order procedures on those financial statements on your own there's no guidance or anything uh we say we we require follow audit guidance and we also follow the requirements of audit which is the basis of accounting this is done on yeah but it's independent yes and are you a specialist in Municipal auditing uh I would say we are yes okay how many municipalities do you represent do uh a little over 60 60 municipalities and this is the first time you're doing mon Clair's correct uh yes y okay I'm going to jump just a question did you review the prior audit the 2022 did you cursorily review that at all or yes we did you have to yeah okay um if you have any more questions on the fin please ask because I'm going to jump to the single audit section well I do have a question on A1 I just want to understand this I mean accounting wasn't my favorite subject in school um is excess revenue is that also our Surplus or what is that well your Surplus is made up of any excess revenues then if you lap you also laps your Appropriations those are the two biggest factors that create Surplus for you okay so our Surplus used to be we used to try for a $10 million surplus is that correct that we like to have that on our balance sheet I thought that was something that came up during the budget process and we we had to reduce that because of the payment of our it wasn't 10 Mill it wasn't 10 million before that I would think 8 something actually n it wasn't 10 for in 21 the balance was 14 million yeah in 22 it was 187 and at 23 it was 18.25 225 okay yeah fiscally you're you're in good shape thank you if councilman do you have any any because I'm going to jump to the sing wall so if you have any other questions within the financials please oh I do can I keep going yeah yeah yeah keep going okay so on page 8 A2 those are your revenues what your revenues you're looking at I am looking at yes um revenues so I believe the American Rescue plan that's the Biden rescue plan right we got $2 million correct something like that 2 million 2 million 18 what was that spent on it was used to offset salaries so if we hadn't received that money we'd been we would have been in the hole for $2 million well you would have had to raise the money at it from a different from tax so that effectiv tax Surplus yeah oh our Surplus yeah yeah yeah so that effectively went into our general funds it wasn't set aside for anything special to do with Co relief correct do did other towns do that uh yes I would say majority of towns used police Sal police salaries correct right used Sal police salaries was was the main what we saw amongst most of our municipalities some some places did Capital infrastructure uh but for the most part it was it was salaries and wages so if we hadn't the $2 million those salaries and wages would have remained flat or they would have come out of some other pocket some other pocket from somewhere else yeah I think initially it was used the first year or two was used for parking because there was no revenues and then and then it was used for salaries in the last year me to in sure yeah yes you might want to stay there I certainly will allow you to step forward and address that thank thank you thank you for allowing me thank you um we received $4 million 4,1 18,000 approximately and that is for two years uh we divided it uh up into two years first year half of it is first year out of the half the first year $800,000 is given to parking utility because right after covid parking utility was the most hurt of all there were no revenues to manage their operations so we used that for the parking utility in the first year after covid we also lost some revenues so we to replace kind of a replacement of that revenues we used this other 1.2 million and last year here we use the rest of it what happens is either you can do it um either you can set aside to do any Capital project or you can use it as part of your your operations uh as the federal government allowed it allowed it to use it as offsetting revenues um so we use it for Revenue loss uh if it was not used if it was not used um we have to go into the regular operating revenues either tax revenues or non- tax revenues uh this is kind of you used it like non- tax revenues we use that so any leftover of additional revenues that we collect that becomes fund balance any addition did you have to apply for it and say what it was for you did yes okay thank you just very quickly on that the parking utilities councel deato Sor is a as a self- liquidating entity yes could that be considered a loan yes we can take it back from the parking if you are thinking of that yes and just to be clear the 2024 budget the co money was already gone so that was part of the struggle this year so before this ARP money there was a cares act funding that was also federal government gave it is right after covid that money is clearly completely it is for covid related activities but this American Rescue plan man they did not put that kind of a restriction it is basically because all towns are losing revenues because there was a big lag so they allowed us to use as a revenue loss thank you thank you thank you did did you have a a planned format for how you were going to do this presentation or this is how we were just going to do it in in your mind when you were coming here is this the format letting everybody just answer questions or were you going to go through C the plan was to finish an then answer and question but I have no problem okay then no I would like if you're going to do that um for you to finish your presentation and then we can all ask questions at the end of the presentation you prefer that way that's yes thank you you're welcome thank you um so getting on the second uh section is the single audit section when a municipality expends funds in over $750,000 in Federal State funds we have to do extra work and it's called a single audit based and the single audit is um grant money that you spend during the year so in the township Monclair um there was the art funds that you spent and you had um Section 8 funds that you spend that are in excess of the in total so we tested those two grants as part of our single audit testing and as part of the single audit we give two opinions one is our uniform guidance and and similar to the financials the um opinion on the uniform guidance based on our testing of compliance and uh internal controls uh we were able to issue an unmodified opinion and the same with the second uh opinion is called our government auditing standards and B that's based on uh test of compliance and in controls and we were able to give an modified with some exceptions which are our findings and qu our our comments and recommendations which are the third section of the report so our comments and recommendations are found on page 72 I just like to go over there are five of them the first one is that all vendors over the bid thres shall be approved by the council per the our conversation with the purch agent the situation is the process being corrected during 20 four so I believe that the uh issue is being resolved as we speak the second recommendation is that the court dispersements be made to the appropriate Agency on a timely basis as required by the administrative office of the Court the courts have to disperse monies by the 15th of the subsequent period and of the 12 months there were four um instances where they were not so we um put a a recommendation and about that the third one is that the court and the police department coordinate a procedure to return unassigned traffic tickets in order to keep better track of the tickets as of our audit date there was over I believe let me see hold excuse me 9 there was over 950 tickets that were assigned and not issued at the time so there's all these tickets out there that need to be coordinated between the police and return so that the tickets are issued in a timely manner the fourth recommendation is that cash receipts for the fire police and planning zone and be turned over to finance department within 48 as required by State Statute when we did our testing of deposits we noted that these three departments were late in turning over their money to finance so we have a recommendation in some cases it was as small as 5 days and in some case it was up to 3 weeks so we put the comment and the last one is that um different individuals perform different tasks in order to segregation of Duties and functions you don't want to see the same person doing the same thing in in the Departments you want to um segregate the duties that so someone will do the ordering someone will do the um verification of what they ordered and paid and uh that's all I have so a little bit about your test case and also I think this was the first time we tested with the public or members of the public got letters about uncertain and their dealings with the town Etc with the um with the confirmation process right um one of our audit processes we send out confirmations to the taxpayers for regular taxes delinquent taxes water taxes water delinquent taxes so SE taxes and Sewer delinquent taxes and one of the taxpayers received a letter saying that they they owed money and when they um confronted Finance we we got together and they were they were thinking that they owed money on Tax and it turns out they owed water uh water tax and when we discussed it with the citizen and we explained what had happened they agreed with us and they were they they thanked me for getting back to them I guess is good way to say it and we had a good communication with the public so it worked out well the the process how many of those did you do we did 125 I believe I mean just they're a little more of a problem nowadays cuz we we sent them out to the public we it's it's good ordered evidence for us to get back but everybody in the public nowadays is kind of thinking everything's a scam so we don't get as many responses as we get them back so when we actually do get a response we're actually kind of excited people think it's some people will call and say is this a scam because they don't know because they don't realize the letter and I believe they called your office once or twice and it's legitimate and they we we emailed the CL the one individual citizen who actually um emailed us we actually got back and talked to them and they thanked us for explaining things to them so it worked out well and and how many employees do you use in your test uh how many people do we send them out to no no you're Municipal Employees oh you testing the salary right we tested uh 25 um employees for what we do is we go through this whole process we look at um the taxes and if they're paying their GTL and uh employee benefit contrib benefit contributions the pensions so we go through this whole uh list of test and make sure that there's no overpayments to people now we we do a sample so we don't pick up everyone but the ones we do we bring to the uh attention of the finance and go through things and clear things up so okay are you um does that complete your presentation and you're ready for questions at this time okay at this time um Council will entertain any questions and I will um recognize you and call on you and then that's how we'll decide who's going to ask the question next is anybody prepared at this time and have a question councelor Toller thank you um I'm looking at your B13 the township of Monclair trust fund did your firm do an audit on the affordable housing trust fund or is that included in this that's all included that is it included and you agree that everything is up to dat and correct matches okay thank you you're welcome anyone else yes coun demato if you might elaborate a little bit on your first recommendation first of all the language is confusing for me um so so basically what we'll do is we'll we'll get a vendor history and we'll we'll pick anybody over over the bid threshold and we want to make sure that you know it's being awarded properly through by the by the council uh and I think in our testing we noted that there was uh you guys did State contracts and Co-op bids uh that were not formally approved by you guys in the minutes now sometimes we R into problems where we go through the vendor history and there's vendors being paid over the bid threshold and they don't have a state contract or they don't have Co-op contract they were just incorrectly they should have been bid or that you guys did State contract you did a co-op you just didn't do a formal resolution and we believe you should be doing a formal resolution when you're paying somebody over the bid threshold we weren't here in 202 apologize for that uh is there do you know the rough aggregate amount that was overbid there were seven items that of the 25 we tested and do we know the delt do we know the amount o over I don't have it take a guess I won't hold you to it excuse me just a ballpark guess well if the bid thresholds are over 44 I mean you're talking at seven at the minimum so at least $300,000 can I just follow on on that councelor lochman that's not what this says though this says your recommendation is that not all vendors over the bid threshold be approved that's not what I think you want to say yeah you're right I am right yes so you need to change that language yes it will we I cross it's been fixed I just got to get you the math kids are usually not the English kids it's not the yeah vocabulary is not our expertise I apologize I'm sorry but the the uh the uh purchasing the the the the qpa has been working on this and the remaining contracts are not in compliance or just multi-year contracts but as they come up or they're renewed or we rebid we're solving this problem and that number's that number is going down that's a historic thing so manager Lola did you wish to um extrapolate do you have anything else that you'd like to share with us at this point in time um regarding this no mayor okay anyone else yes go ahead I counselor Birmingham um so in terms of the cyber security you have a comment here on where you just say we suggest this is Page 71 uh we suggest management continue to assess risks related do you see gaps or I mean I don't want to put it out there to the universe but that was not as part of their recommendations that was manager Leola sorry I'm sorry mayor uh that was inserted here at the request of the CFO okay there was an issue last year as you were aware yes okay we are seeing it in some of our other towns so we just it's a comment it's not really a recommendation but we just want you to to be aware that there's a potential out there okay so you didn't do an assessment you're just not not a separate just like I said just overall we've seen it's just to make you aware I know you weren't here at the time okay more of aware councelor Toler did you have another question I just want to follow excuse me excuse me councelor Toler did you wish to ask a question because I know you had one at the I did but I wanted you I do but I wanted to ensure that councelor Birmingham finished her questions are you do you have more of a question have one more question okay um so this really crazy you have a comment on page 69 where you say um this is related to the bidding about um records do not provide for an accumulation of payments for categories for the performance of any work or the Furnishing or hiring so just to be clear in terms of um when you're doing this audit it's not within your scope of work to see if anybody to to figure out if people have underbid contracts is it that's not within that's kind of like a standard language in every order report you've ever seen because no computer system that we've come across will kind of track okay well how much do you spend on all just cars it you know everybody just kind of has a vendor history so the accounting Gods kind of make us put that out there say listen just to let you know we're not we can't check all that so it's more of just a for warning that you know we don't have the ability to to do that okay thank you I'm good for now anyone else wish to ask a question at this time um councelor Toller thank you um my question is a three-part question so hopefully I can get it all out the first question is uh what would zoning submit a cash receipt for the second question is if you can just uh I guess educate the Council on what the state law is for vendors and contracts regarding thresholds or if you can't do it tonight perhaps Supply us with an email with the breakdown of what you know the threshold would be if it's over X number of dollars what we're allowed to go over if at all and then the third thing is you said seven of the 25 which is about $300,000 um can you give us a breakdown of those vendors where you saw repeat if you will um overage and paying or do you know that off the top of your head I don't know off the top of my head but I can send it to the clerk show forward to you that work that's fine all right and with in regards to the uh uh thresholds um 7 5 is the if you don't have a qpa qualified purchasing agent anything over 175 you'd have to bid uh 4 44,000 is a the usual limit if you have a qpa that you know the the Town Council has to set that limit you're allowed to go up to 44 most of our towns go up to the 44 because just it's more it's more prudent to get along with the purchasing but those are the thresholds and then I said if you're you can go in between there if you wanted I we only really see either 175 or 44 right so again if if a vendor submit something for 44 the state allows them to go either over 10 or 20% if something should arise on their end um no you're supposed to bid that no I'm saying if they submit their invoice what does the state allow a vendor to go over the threshold is there a state law that says X well no it it would kind of go to the whole you know bidding where if you if you were to contract somebody for you know for $42,000 and then you all of a sudden you know he up to you know another 10 you know $10,000 or $5,000 would have B threshold you're technically to not pay him that you're supposed to go out and bid that and they said those are cold like window contracts and sometimes it happens where in the beginning of the year you may buy $42,000 worth of tires and you think you're you're done for the year then November comes around you're really technically supposed to go out and you know bid the bid that extra extra portion and it does happen once in a while thank you for your clarification I look forward to your email responses thank you Deputy Mayor thank you Deputy Mayor Shen Anderson thank you mayor um I just have two questions um and maybe um some of the questions can be answered by Mr Lola um just in terms of the recommendations um that really have to do with procedures I was just wondering what the status is of the Sops that were recommended um the procedural you know gaps that that you found well I wouldn't know Michel oh okay we we have to develop a corrective action plan on those points and everyone who was mentioned there I have the report from the uh Municipal Court we talked about um some of the the uh cross approvals Etc so by the time you vote on the next one you will have the plan to consider we will have the plan before we okay thank you and I just have one other question um so I was just wondering if you know um what actual impact um these findings had on like the the finances or if if any for 2023 uh they were more compliance in nature so there was no missing money no money post it to the wrong spot this is more New Jersey compliance okay thank you with the statutes yes thank you thank you anyone else Council technical question just um on the balance sheet um deferred charges to Future taxation if you could explain that and the decline in the funded are you looking at the general Capital yeah the general Capital fund yeah sorry sheet c um off pie basically those two numbers are you know talking about your your your Capital ordinances as to you know what you funded and what you've not funded yet you know so you when you pass the capital ordinance you know you may pass the capital ordinance for $100,000 5,000 of it maybe money you have on hand from the capital Improvement fund and 95,000 may be un unfunded so that kind of tracks how much you guys have funded your your Capital project so far so you're unfunded you're going to have to raise at some point so if you look you have 80 $6 million in in in the balance what that's made up of below the general serial bonds of 43 million the school serial bonds 42 the environmental infrastructure of 55 and the Green Acres loan of 276 so basic add those that that's that's a breakout between what you guys have either funded yourself or have bonded and that the unfunded portion is money that you have not Bond not fully bonded yet I'm sorry can you ref the look at uh this is the uh ex c exibit c c what 15 no just the c c okay in the front all right and I apologize for you know these Pages aren't numbered in the front this is following the requirements of audit that the state makes us follow and they don't number the pages for whatever reason why I don't know maybe jumping a l man's term that's the the easiest way to explain because I used to teach in rer so this is how I explained so different charges to Future taxation funded where you see this $86 million that should be equal to on the bottom no I am not with you so show me where I'm supposed to be I'm I'm on C sheet c yeah yeah sheet C right here yeah $86 million funded so that's made up at least two if you add the market they add 86 right and unfunded is the 26 is the down okay and it's in the okay and so I I just had an other question for you if you go to um c16 you see school funding the 42 million yes okay is that in addition to the 188 bond that they just floated for the school or what is that that's this is not on our bound sheet at all that's this is our our retiring running down uh type one school debt which we extinguishing I got you yeah thank you you guys were broke away from being a type one yeah so that that was my terrible idea okay thank you I got you but the 42 million you're retiring the debt that we had so the change in these numbers also reflects the extinguishing of some of that debt correct okay yes so coming back to what is defer charges future taxation funded all that jargon means that should be equal to that $86 million should be equal at the bottom to the amount of bonds or loans with a strict schedules attached already B that should equal to that differ charges to Future taxation unfunded should equal to it's gone should equal to the um notes temporary notes one year debt anything we call it bonds and notes uh Bond anticipation notes called which the township did not have so yeah we don't have it in this case but we used to have it okay and that's one plus the any unissued debt that means we have the ordinances approved by all of you like Clary Anderson for example yes exact correct perfect there's a detail that's we have the ordinance approved but we did not go out and issue the debt yet we didn't sell the bonds yet for that yes councelor Williams so I have a question but it's not really a financial related question it's a process and audit process you said you have you audited 60 municipalities in any of those municipalities do they have a position that is maybe an auditing function not a financial auditing function but to look at process processes that make sure that departments are doing or following procedures and stuff in according to a usually is the terms of internal auditor and the only one I've ever seen over my my career is uh a county a County May a big County may have an internal auditor but for for most part for the towns that we deal with there's not an internal order they just don't have the staff for it can I follow on on that question yes councelor L do does the county ever have an internal auditor that would also look at municipalities within the County no I mean they they they may if they gave you a grant on something they may they may they may look into that but for the most part they're they're too busy auditing themselves so yeah unfortunately that's not not really an option okay yes Council Burmingham um I just have a question on um and this is a very basic question I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly in the discussion of Municipal debt and at when the individual bonds are retiring you have in some cases years group together like 2029 to 2033 and then you have one sum that that total needs to be paid out in those four years and because the amount of principle and the interest rates are same for those years we just keep the years together so wait so if you have like 24 through 26 it's each year would be the million act the percent or whatever if the interest rate he's or going categorizing on the basis of the interest rate and the dollar amount so these are all coupons right these are like let's say we issue $10 million debt after $10 million each one is a a separate coupon they call it a $1,000 coupon all these coupons combined some are like 4% interest some are 3% interest some are 2% interest so when he is setting this up if you see um and they are the same interest rate he combined it into one and also usually in the Top Line actually the next year what is due and the year after what is due and then again at the bottom they combine the rest but okay so can you just walk me through on page 24 then just the the school Deb the yesp exhibit is it a c 16 in the oh you're looking in I'm in the looking I'm looking in the um I'll get there the note section the sorry got be a better way it's really um let me just see what page you're looking at I'm looking right here at 24 24 and it's in the the you have a long discussion yeah it's in the note section kind of the middle yeah notes to financial statements just for 1 2 3 yeah so so the the accounting Gods uh when you're putting the put these putting these things in the notes they want you to list out five years separate and then after that you're supposed to put in fiveyear increments so that's that's why that's why we presented that way so in 29 through 31 it's going to be a total of 7,755 in principal that's what I just want to check so it's so because the bottom adds up yes so that for those four years you have to pay a total of $7 million exactly exactly but not each year right so next year you'll see 25 6 7 8 9 and 30 and 31 Loop together that's just the way the accounting Gods want to have it presented not very helpful but I'm going to ask a question okay but but just so I'm clear we won't be paying for each year that much money it's the total toal if you look at the bottom of the column it's 42 million if you look at the previous page it's the same amount yeah yeah I just wanted to no that's quite all right be clear on this can I ask councilman yeah related related to um what e was saying do you I mean at different times there's the interest rates fluctuate do you refinance the school debt as well as Municipal debt when the interest rate seems appropriate uh yeah schools would do that you do yeah we have done that we are doing it we are doing it's not a constant okay thank you on the same topic yes councelor deato thank you um what are the so first of all this is a pass through account we are we are receiving money from the school district correct for these to retire this debt yes it is so this is for us this is actually a you you know there's nothing here this is not our our Levy it is it is it's part of their tax levy this is not part of our tax levy added to the school but it's still a tax being paid by by people inair taxpayers however it is not it is not really it's not on our pnl right and but at a certain point we do want to extinguish this line from our p&l correct just for efficiency sake so we would want to refinance if there was some great offer but at the same time yes we are doing it actually next mon we're in the process of doing it now and then going back out the market for longer term debt longer I mean it would extend the life of this debt on when you refinance you have to refinance with within within that period okay excellent thank you I understand not allowed to extend it not meaning like you can't kick the can down the road yeah cuz you have here there's 5% interest you're paying so presumably you might be able to do better according to the state rules the statute the the the saving should be big enough for us to refinance we can't do if it is not achieving a certain percentage of savings can you explain um for me please I notice some municipalities are opting to do forensic audits can you explain to me um when a municipality might want to do that and what information we might get that we haven't gotten in this type of audit um it rarely happens I I don't think we've ever actually done a forensic audit it's if you if you if you knew something was going on if you uncovered something that you thought was wrong and you thought it may be deeper than what you guys could F out on your own then you would hire a forensic accountant to do a deep dive in we're not sampling things we were diving into the entire you know whether it's the department or whatever May debt or whatever you may be if you thought there was something wrong you couldn't really prove out yourself then you may hire forensic orders to say listen dive in we we we're 99% sure there's a problem here I'd like you to dive in deeper on this and there wouldn't there wouldn't really be sampling being done you you would dive in and probably look at everything and they're quite costly so that's why they don't they're not done too often about roughly what what what does that cost depend on the project I think I'm one of the municipalities that I saw recently um was about 300,000 or so is that or you just don't know cuz I saw no no we we had one of our one of our board beds that we don't do anymore they were thinking about doing a forensic audit also and then they saw the cost of it and they decided it wasn't worth wasn't worth their time thank you yes Council damato um this is not this is for the uh uh purpose of just educating the town this question which is that um note six includes I guess a proor description of the expected rate of return and the different asset classes the allocations of our Pension funds the states yeah should should we say that these are on acknowledge that those are unrealistic it has nothing to do with your audit or our practices but that we that that in looking at these These are probably State accepted figures you know but the long-term rate of return of of almost 10% yeah so so so the state of New Jersey they hire an actuary to come up with these amounts and then they the state then hires KPMG to audit these amounts so it's the best guess of of an actuary you know certified by New Jersey and it's also ordered by KPMG so this is and once again we're this we don't get involved with this this is we just put these in notes but I would say this is their best guess I I'm I'm not a I'm not an actuary I'm not a I'm not a forecaster but that's that's why it's in the way it is and we definitely don't decide whether that's uh realistic and this is the only place that appears it doesn't appear in the financials you know on the balance sheets in the school boards they did they follow different account this accoun Municipal accounting process in New Jersey is really really unique we don't even identify those obligations as real liabilities all right mayor I have a question yes may um just something that popped out at me on page 38 under compensated absences Note 7 it says it's estimated that the 11 that um there's 11,846 um$ 6453 computed internally um at salary 2023 salary rates that would be payable um to officials and employees of the township ship as of December 31st 2023 for accumulated sick and vacation days um unverified by the audit um but that we had a reserve of um uh almost three billion um as of uh December 31st so I guess um this might be a silly question but um is that typical um to have as a reserve and is there any risk of it being exhausted because of retirements and so forth and yeah yes because of see this 11 I 1884 is technically if everybody retires on that today that's what we owe but generally people retire year by year and the older population they have better benefits I should say and they were able to accumulate more sick vacation and uh it compensated absences but slowly because of the changes in laws in 2010 uh the these accumulations the amount of accumul ations are going down we are not allowed to accumulate those many anymore uh so that that is going down um year by year we pay like about we have been paying like um recently the higher number of people police and fire retired the more we end up paying it's like a uh less than a million dollars we pay we have been her employee or no no who oh per year per year per year you mean is per year or right right and some years there is hardly any usually the public employees um not police ire non civilian employees don't have that many accumulated manager Lola I I just want to mention that the law changed in 2010 so if you were hired before I think it's April 10 2010 or something you you if you're H before that you can receive these large amounts after that you're cap at $115,000 so that's the difference so we are still we're right in the midpoint I think I think we may have topped half of our employees are now hired after that okay but it's just a matter of time as they phase out but that's that's the differential so if you were and if they use that uh days if they go get sick or if they go on vacation use that and we don't need to pay you know yes cancellor just one more for me about that what you were just describing for the employees paid hired before 2010 they could accumulate essentially unlimited prior to 2010 but since 2010 they they canate 13 but they don't get okay you can accumulate all your sick and go out if you're sick but you won't when you retire you're cap and just to clarify prior to 2010 is not unlimited there was also 130 day cap to and that that gets paid out at their current like when they leave at 130 it goes they go at their current rate so even it used to be mayor if I may used to be uh accumulate they used to do um terminal leave also so where you would go on a leave of absence and you would still get your salary for a certain period of time uh that has also been eliminated by state law as well and was eliminated by state law was eliminated by us eliminated by us last fall thanks for the classication 14 years but it was eliminated anyone else have any questions no no okay thank you very much we appreciate you being feel free to thank you thank you thank you guys so at this point in time we're going to move on to public comment and um sign I got a request from at least um from our Deputy Mayor to um change the public comment from agenda items only to both do any the other council members do you wish to aine regarding the public comment I would second that that they can talk about any topic yeah okay um yes we put forth an ordinance I mean I'm sorry a resolution no I just wanted to know about the the motion for this moment to um change the public comment from agenda items only so if that seems to be the will of the council I'll make a motion to change the public comment to agenda items and other items any items you wish to come and discuss with us is there a second I second okay all those in favor say I I I I any opposed just one point of clarification mayor is it for three minutes I I think we were proposing three minutes and another point that clarification mayor if I may is are we uh eliminating the second public comment at the end of the agenda yes so I will that they're making a motion just for this for this agenda only amend the motion to include the elimination of the public comment at the end of the meeting and to notify that we will have a three minute maximum on the um time that you speak before us um can I just suggest for this meeting because it was on the agenda like people who are coming and they may have come late could we just include it for tonight if anyone happens to come in for the at the end and then going forward that works well in fact that was a suggestion that I had earlier so thank you I'll amend it to include the three minutes and then for tonight if people are here and you want to speak now please feel free to do so and um for anyone that's at home and may be trying to get here know that you will be um able to have an opportunity at the end of the meeting um before we adjourn for executive session to also have public comment and IO move and all in favor I I please will the first person please come forward and state your name for the record have you signed in already hi good good evening good to see you my name is Janet Hubert I live at five W place in Montclair um I am coming I actually don't know how this works um I attended a meeting on uh September 4th I am coming in regards to the 400 orange road development project meeting what where on the zoning board it a zoning Board of adjustment meeting yes I'm coming to add additional information that cannot be uh submitted unless it is submitted publicly and it is against the um company doing business as Simon Kelner 400 Orange Road company is called called Sky bnz LLC um upon doing some research I found uh a lawsuit against Mr Kelner that I would like to present these lawsuits are currently active um against Mr Simon Kelner and his company one in Miami date County and the other in Hudson County New Jersey I live across the street from 400 Orange Road and perhaps Monclair zoning doesn't seem to care about the strength of character when I called and asked Miss Tally's office what was your vetting process she informed me that it was only looking at financials um I do believe that Montclair zoning does not care about the strength of character but I do your ethics and your abilities are key to building a safe structure and your financial honesty is also something that I feel you should care about as well the security and safety of potential homeowners of these developments will fall right back onto montclair's inability to vet the Shady developers when they do shatty work and risk the lives of homeowners and devalue my home as well with their deceit I would like to present these lawsuits to you copies of them I have made copies of them if I may yes may I yes um I believe if you give them to our clerk please she will make sure we get them thank you mayor may I yes councelor Toler um thank you Miss Hubert did you was that the end of your statement Miss Hubert or did you have something else no to include just in closing um I ask that you look at exhibit a in specific specifically where the major allegations begin it also continues throughout Until the End um and in saying that I know that the expression is whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but what happens in Miami Dade also comes to New Jersey and it is important thank you Miss um M Hubert just one more question you have a a meeting coming up um in November is that what is that the 6 of uh we have November 6th for the final meeting so people that are watching at home or people that are here wish to learn more information or come out then they can come on the 6th at what time is that I hope they do at uh 7 I believe it's it starts in the um main fire headquarters yes and I have hired a civil engineer it's 23 September we're doing a meeting with the neighborhood on the 23rd of no of September okay to talk about what we would like to possibly have there okay um we're having the last zoning meeting September uh on November November 6 okay I hired a civil engineer as well as my attorney it's costing me $20,000 to take care and try to fight this so it's very important to me that this developer be vetted and that you read this this lawsuit against him it is very damning thank you very much I appreciate your time thank you next please good evening uh Eric Payne 70 South flon Avenue just once again uh coming before you about the Cannabis issue I've uh counselor uh dealo has been helping us move that forward and inform the rest of you there uh to just want to encourage you I understand you're probably going to address it second meeting of this month just to encourage you to move forward with it you know uh this first initial role out of cannabis in the state is is really kind of a working period you know we bring new things to Market as you obviously as you all obviously know it takes time for The Growing Pains to go through so that's what we found us uh at nightow Kush found that out and the other award is found out there's in the growing process we need to develop and move forward that's why we suggested an amendment to allow us to change locations because uh it wasn't uncommon across the state for for difficulties in getting the location so a lot of people were having that that request in other communities from other uh networking events that I've gone to so just want to encourage you guys to to move forward with that hopefully we can get it past maybe the beginning of October the second reading and uh appreciate your support on I thank you very much as I shared the uh engineering Report with with Council deato about the previous location why that made it even more difficult for us to maintain in that so thank you for your support again and just to encourage you expediency and also we'll have an opportunity to uh uh to bring our our our business to Market and also to help with the revenue the bottom revenue of the town I personally was raised to uh to when you can have a business that also uh supports the community and helps the community as well that's a good thing so thanks for your time appreciate it thank you yes Council damato yeah just thanks for coming up uh we are and I'll thank now our town attorney for uh really helping uh move this along and it's looking pretty good you know so we're working yeah great thank you so have a great night thank you knew I liked you and it wasn't just your name so next please Sarah Avery Monclair resident I met with the mayor and four other people last month and in this meeting the mayor agreed that I would perform a certain scope of work that included translating the data I collected exposing cgph pricing practices into a PowerPoint presentation for tonight's meeting on the basis of the mayor's commitment I invested significant time and effort to write up my findings as a report then as a PowerPoint plus met with different groups to run through the slides for timing and content the mayor's failure to assure the presentation appeared as an agenda item while multiple agenda items were switched around at the last minute demonstrates a lack of respect for community members Time by not firing Leola the council continues to enable the pattern of Fraud and corruption in this community I am pursuing multiple Avenues to expose the cgph scam a really serious problem Statewide because it involves wasteful spending of municipalities affordable housing trust funds I may be able to get the AG's office to investigate cgp's pricing strategy as antirust Consumer complaint or even corruption the pricing strategy has characteristics that could qualify for any of those options cgph is a licensed professional plan man and I can file a complaint with the state licensing board for their failure to seek a benefit to the community as a whole in its conduct as an agent representing the township of Montclair approving invoices on the bill list to be paid from the affordable housing trust fund implicates the council as aiding and abetting with persons known to purpose ful fail to comply with the municipality's rules regulations policies and procedures I have prepared a list of failures to provide adequate oversight for affordable housing trust funds that demonstrates the severity of the problem and they can be passed out are you finished just waiting to pass out the papers okay thank you I I'll take one thank you you can give us a I'm going to um respond to that because um there's information that um was was given out that is not accurate and I'm very happy that I see um one of the members here that was in there and it also recalls at that that meeting first of all I um specifically wanted to be a part of that meeting because I did understand that you had information that would be very helpful and at that meeting Miss Toller was there Mr Haron was there you were there Mr Scott was there and I was there and um you did provide information and I was very grateful for the information at at that time at the end of the meeting Mr Haron asked me what would next steps be for me and I said to him that I wish to begin to further get information and possibly do a forensic audit that was my response to him and at no time did I tell you that I was putting you on an agenda to speak before this body at that time and so where that's coming from that I I hope members of the council will address this uh I hope you would let the mayor finish speaking thank you so at that time that's the only thing that I committed to and there's a process and so I know that I wouldn't tell you to come in fact the first time that I heard that you were even trying to come to this particular meeting was when councelor told her ask me about it and I told her then that I would need to hear in fact she was the person that suggested that we see the presentation before you come to council and I said well I would take a look at it and see what we had and I never saw anything that time and it was not committing to doing anything at that time rather than seeing because I it was compelling information to bad that you that you wasn't taped but frankly you know uh you know that you're lying because Dave Heron was there William Smith was there dearra Malloy was there Amina Toler there and I was there right so it didn't happen you want to waste the council's time arguing over this when there are you're the person I listen to you when you finished and I was not finished speaking go ahead knock yourself out and yes I apologize for did Malloy being excluded because she was there and I appreciate her she's always welcome and I invited specifically de Malloy and Mr Scott to be present and so at that point in time we were not making whatever this is that you thought we were making you come into this Council there's a process and the process would have included if we agreed on this but we did not would have been something like coming for the finance committee to share what you had and after that the three people that make up the finance committee could have decided together if we thought that there was information that needed to be pursued and then we would move that information forward to the appropriate whatever appropriate group so that they can evaluate that and see where we were now just so know it really doesn't matter I've already stated I don't have the authority just to tell somebody to come on in here if any one of the people here at this Council or one two people here at this point in time wanted to do that it it could have happened and I know that there were other people that were involved too but I wouldn't do it and I'd be very reluctant to do it for a lot of reasons something happened at the last council meeting and it was very offensive someone put someone one of our staff members in a position that was uncomfortable it was demeaning it was was humiliating and nobody in these Chambers should have to go through that I signed up for it and I've been through it and I'm still here but I want I want our employees to understand they don't have to be afraid to come in here so many employees said they didn't want to come in here anymore after what happened at the last council meeting for fear that they're going to be humiliated and intimidated there are ways that we can get the information that have anything to do everything to do with ites there are ways that we can get the information that you have that I told you I was very interested in and do it in a procedure that is correct and not offensive to people when we took our oath we we took an oath to protect the people of the community that includes everybody in this building and I want them to know they can come in here and they don't have to be humiliated intimidated threatened and harassed and worse and so at any point in time before I invite people to come here and it's not just for you other people people wanted to come the seniors wanted to come the same thing it is part of the response that I have to come to me we'll sit down and I want to see what it is that you're going to present before the council so it's that simple and I'm sorry that you decided to say that I committed to something but that never happened thank you for coming next mayor if I may yes counselor deato Miss Avery we do have we do have the complaint for the list of allegations I've looked at it um I don't know that everything on it is true but I think it's as somebody who has dealt with investigations and worked as a journalist in many places it's credible enough that it should be investigated so I'm not even sure what the process is but um this is not you know this is not red string on the wall but I mean I think we should just end it would try not to to take you know the the heat down a notch and I know it's frustrating you know when people don't feel like they're being listened to and sometimes people can get carried away but what I'm looking at here is something that is you know it's worth looking at it's worth looking at and Tak taking seriously and let's just do that instead of squabbling about stuff like this I think so just at attor Burr so first and foremost if there are items that are being brought before the council or anyone in the township that requires an investigation one I would urge the counsel advice of counsel to you to you guys to uh present that information to the town manager present that information to the township attorney and that it becomes privileged and is done an executive session of it's with the entire Council to protect the interest of the township to protect your own interest from liability from anybody who if the information is wrong or not factual or improperly accused that you're not putting yourself in liability as a council and putting the Township in liability so I would say with regard to a process councelor deato that we handle it internally first have an investigation completed notify the appropriate authorities if it is a um criminal matter that would go to the Essex County prosecutor's office the Attorney General's office the Division of Community Affairs and let them handle that matter directly what we don't want to do is expose any the township to any liability by making false accusations about an employee a vendor another company a third party without having it properly vetted that sounds if if if uh the residents or the constituents are going to uh bring complaints to you that's how I believe it should be handled otherwise I would also say to the constituents to miss Avery you certainly do have your recourse to go to the Attorney General's office to the County prosecutor's office and file a complaint with them to see if they're to to do an investigation you certainly have that right to do that um so that's that would be the course that I would advise the council to go on thank you councelor Toler yes thank you um to just kind of piggyback on what uh councelor damato stated um how do we request if we wanted to do a hearing to look at these in this investigative report and before you answer that yes I was present at the meeting there was a discussion um and it seems to be very serious I'm no forensic auditor I'm not an investigator but just seems to me that um our affordable housing trust fund is being depleted and we need to take a serious look at some stuff we really really do um so I appreciate Miss Avery thank you for submitting the documents that you did did you email the council the no I brought cop that can distributed okay but you you said there was a PowerPoint presentation did you submit that via email or bring that tonight okay so I just want to make sure that if we can get a hearing in place for this at some point in the near future to make sure that everything isostatic is that possible something we can move well first and foremost I think uh one of those those matters should be discussed in executive session uh to point out a comment that the mayor had made I think um if this council is going to have any type of presentation done uh before it should be voted on by member by a majority of the members it should should be done by two uh as we you know we move agenda items on resolutions on to the agenda by by a move in and a second but as bringing up a presentation by the that the council's request I think you should have a majority vote super majority right what's the difference in majority majority majority is a majority right four right four of the of the seven um and or or a majority of a quarum if it's a quarum city okay I'm sorry I think it would be that a majority would decide what the process is not that a majority would have to decide if there was going to be a hearing or not and first of all any counselor could have a hearing anywhere out of the curb if they wanted to uh but it would be this is a question of process and that would be done as a resolution were you finished councelor bar I mean I'm sorry attorney coun councelor deato I I I would not um advise this Council to have an investigative hearing before for it uh without making sure it was the information that was being provided was thoroughly vetted and discussed and if it was potential criminal liability or I think that's totally fine but I'm asking something different which is if we agree as a majority to have a rule about how a a a hearing happens uh whether or not it's you know we're just basically would be adding a presentation is all we're talking about I'm not talking about this particular one and the circumstances around it I'm saying as a generic thing we would decide as a body by majority how that works you could do that fine thank you correct that's all good mayor may I just say something very quickly mayor um so I don't know if she's Miss Avery oh she's here okay sorry um so I want to just thank you for bringing this up um and just anybody who wants to bring information forward I did not see um the report um but I also want I want to be mindful um as well um to just kind of um follow what what Mr Burr is advising because part of our job is I mean yes we have to our job is to protect um the interests of the people of Monclair and that includes um not exposing this Township to uh potential liability so um I want to I would just want to um be very cautious if there is um a serious problem with a program or something um um the way something's administered of of course I want to know about it um and and um and we can you know uh initiate an investigation internally and we absolutely should do that but um to you know um have a public hearing with um that could expose us to um liability if we're putting out false information in public I think that is a very serious thing and um and open us up to litigation so um thank you for providing that guidance today yes manager Leola uh thank you mayor I just want to make it clear for the record that whatever conversations we had with Miss Avery were done without my knowledge nor should any employee participate in such a meeting or answer even a question without my knowledge I strongly suggest if that were the case if anyone were present it probably would be grounds for dismissal because they know better but this should not be happening in a shadow atmosphere where these people are involved in providing information attending meetings Etc the present there were no employees present I want to I want to um that's not what better understand um sir what you're talking about in terms of not having a meeting one of our council members uh called a meeting of those and so what which part of not meeting with constituents is is I'm not talking about the constituents I'm talking the participation of Municipal Employees non-elected officials in these parts just want to make it clear I I was not involved I just want to make it maybe I didn't make it clear the the people that that were present at that time were all the people that I um included and and certainly um Miss Malloy was was there as well but the people that I include the only people there were no Municipal Employees at the time and that was it so okay and and the second part of this is I despite the fact that I'm an attorney and a former first assistant prosecutor if there's any allegations of wrongdoing I strong Ling suggest that this information can be given to the attorney general to the prosecutor's office to the US attorney Etc it is not for us internally to decide if someone is breaking the law and I this is not the first time this person has made this allegation and I've given this advice but if they think that someone has broken the law go to law enforcement officials because we are not staff cannot make a determination that someone is breaking the law I'm sure there's numbers they can call make an appointment um but that's you know that's that's just what it should be we can't you can take information and do with what you will I'm just saying is as staff we cannot make that determination that should be made by law enforcement officials you want to review housing policies and programs that's all your right to do and you can do that I'm talking about specific allegations of wrongdoing and with all due respect I'm not passing judgment with the that does this in 70 municipalities for over 30 years does Federal programming deals with AFF courts and affordable housing so perhaps somebody after all of these municipalities dealing with this company and all these over all these years someone here has found some pervasive wrongdoing not for me to decide but I strongly suggest if that's what they say exists they should go to Y York to to see the prosecutor to trans the Attorney General us attorney wherever they want to go can I say something thank you councelor lochman I mean just for clarity we're no longer using this firm correct they they're here until the end of the year yes till the end of the year and then that's it thank you yes Council Toller um yes thank you manager leis so again just to clarify there was no Municipal Employee present at that meeting there's no accusation from my understanding against an employee here it has to do with the payments that are being made for to the administrative agent and the amount of payments and how often the payments are made so that's what this is about just to clear that up and be on the record thank you thank you councelor Toler anyone else Miss Bogle hi Bonnie Fogle um as an aside you know I was here for the last meeting but I left before it was completely over but I'm going to have to go home this weekend and watch the tape because I have no idea what you're speaking about the only thing that took place that forced me to leave was I was spoken of and looked at in a very threatening manner by other people who were here who didn't like what I had to say and I very frankly was concerned so I don't know what went on but that that was the only thing I experienced but anyway um I'm here because I I I don't know the law uh I know that other people do and been around but I was looking through uh this whole bidding process and this situation with deweer Roofing and your process you got four bids and three of them were eliminated for different reasons and you got a bid for something like 279 for debt wer and then they gave a revised bid for $888,000 and you're giving them a contract but it can't but it can't be the same job it's got to be a completely different description of the job so it's my understanding that that means that it has to go out for another bid because you're just giving a bid to somebody for who did not bid on the job the $888,000 job so I think that um there might be something going on that's really not Kosher there that that should be looked at um I'm not going to ask anybody here to explain it because very frankly some of the explanations really don't make sense to me um and the only thing I want to say and I want to say this in a way that's not conveying any hostility but it's just based on my life experience in a lot of different Avenues where I've worked and engaged whether they're educational and medical and and and all kinds of retail everything is that there's a shared belief in the world of employment that when people know that they're leaving a job they're they're often psychologically something happens where there's some kind of like element of sabotage and their investment is different and um I remember going through this in offices when I thought I was being kind and giving a month's notice instead of two weeks and I was cautioned by someone at a very prominent company you know we really unless it's a person at the highest level there can always be problems when people know they've got one foot out the door and that's all I want to say so have a good night everybody thank you and Miss Fogle it had absolutely nothing to do with anything that you said at the last meeting just for clarification oh okay I thought you said I thought you made a reference at the last yeah but it had nothing to do with something you said it was coming from somewhere else no but I didn't hear anything while I was here I was here until the end all right thank you for coming next please we I'm not next oh so miss miss vogle yes uh just so you know and just to turn the script a little bit here that I also looked at that same resolution and was uncomfortable with it and the process in the form and I mentioned it to the manager and the manager immediately did said we should pull it oh good so just so you know that this you know on some level three versions of the right but when when people raised what he immediately was responsive and said we'll take it and look at it again that's right this afternoon so people should thank him may I just say something too in terms of the agenda the other item that was pulled was this defense and indemnification agreement oh good and that was pulled because there were some last minute changes and the final did not get in until the last minute so we'd prefer that you have time look at it thank you very much yeah good evening hi uh my name is Jim Maxwell I live at uh George Street Monclair New Jersey um there was just something that uh uh stood out to me um with the accounting and that was 960 tickets that were unaccounted for um I I would like to know more about that and they said they did audits to 16 other towns i' like to know if that's un usual that they have that many tickets outstanding you always see in these shows like you know with the that once you start writing a ticket you can't you can't you know rip it up or it can't stop so I I would like to know why you know there's 960 some odd outstanding tickets and uh someone would get back to me on that I I I um manager Lola I can answer that thank you the overwhelming majority of tickets are generated each car is equipped with a mo mobile data terminal so they enter the information they run the plate whatever you know whatever they have to find out and so and then that ticket is printed through that terminal what they're talking about now are the old-fashioned tickets so they're supposed to turn them in I think it's quarterly and get a new book and they have been remiss in turning those oldfashioned written tickets in which are very rarely used so that's that's what that is and that's now been corrected in terms of those being you know the oldfashioned book of tickets but right now virtually everything goes to the mobile data terminal so that's why and they're they're if you get a ticket now it looks like it's printed this is about those old-fashioned books of tickets where they still use areas are those they're in use and they will now be turning them in it on the uh appropriate basis so but that's that's what they are they're not still 960 well you have 50 police officers each have a book we're not talking about yeah they don't have to be written tickets are just uh tickets un unused right yeah all right thank you yeah just unused that's what this is thank you next please good evening good evening my name is Iris oladapo um I live um in Monclair New Jersey um at Hilltop Place um so um I've been a resident in Montclair 20 years now I've raised three children here my husband and I um my husband is traveling for work this evening that's why he's not here with me um on August 23rd there was a Breakin at my home uh my husband and I were in the house 4:30 in the morning our cars were parked in the driveway and we were awakened by um three individuals we had cameras at the home um breaking down my they threw a huge Rock through my glass door then there was another guy uh that had a crowbar and um I don't even know what the third guy was planning to do so from what the police have told um my husband and I um there are a number of break-ins in the community and they're looking to get the luxury vehicles um I had my husband's G wagon Mercedes um SUV my my SUV Alexis SUV parked in the driveway but um you know the police responded after everything happened my husband ran down the stairs thank God he was home and I wasn't there alone my children are away I have twins in college and um thank God my my children weren't there they weren't traumatized um my husband could have lost his life that evening that's all I I continuously think about and um my husband is traveling now I'm scared to to stay in my own home I've been here 20 years the taxes that we pay I don't understand you know how um residents are going to continue to stay I'm on the verge of leaving and moving out of my home um I didn't even know the police did not inform me that my neighbor in December someone broke into their home two doors away no one my husband and I were traveling that weekend no one informed us the police didn't inform us maybe I would have been on high alert if I knew something like this had happened um I I'm just here wondering what could be done um there must be something that more that the police could do um the the best idea I've heard from the police is purchase a dog and have a dog in your home um this this is crazy um in December and you'll hear one of my neighbors speak to this um his home was broken in him and his wife were upstairs and they broke into their home stole the key fobs and then they drove their two cars off the premises two doors down and this is just a few months ago and here we are again with another Breakin so I just wanted to bring this to you know your attention and wonder I'm wondering if anyone could give me an idea what the police could do about this councelor Toller thank you um first thank you for coming tonight and um I know that we have a meeting with you guys next week myself and Deputy young um so I'm aware of the issues um I'm glad that you're here to put it on record um I'm going to have to rely on our Police Department to guide and advise us on what can be done for safety for residents um one of the things that I can ask for the township to do is I know that side Hilltop is Town property that we keep that area cut the the Shrubbery and the bushes there um I've also emailed manager laola about talking to public service to get another light installed on the Block do we have an answer or any information the lighting is horrible on that block so if we can expedite that for these residents here Hilltop Pleasant way they are very dark streets so I understand I have family that lives around the corner from you um but again we'll talk some more again thank you for coming out I'm very sorry about what happened in your home to you and your family and when Deputy young and I come and meet with you guys we'll hopefully have some more answers for you I'd also like to um extend the fact that I am um very sorry for what happened also I was not aware of that I usually am aware of things but I'm I'm also a little bit surprised that you told me there was a Breakin two doors away from your house before that in DEC and and you were were not not informed because I know Hilltop very well I know a lot of the residents and I know them as people that come together for block parties and other things they have a neighborhood watch going on there where they call each other or send emails or text the neighborhood in light of everything that has happened recently the neighborhood watch has started okay uh but how long can residents keep that up people have jobs to go to in the morning you know and we have thank goodness the men on our block you know care and are trying to help but how long that's not sustainable how long are they going to you know be able to do a a neighborhood watch well neighborhood watches I understand it and I know um um the um Lieutenant Tyrone Williams does a great great um um neighborhood watch meeting with with residents especially in a nice Street such as Hilltop but and I know that there's um an officer that that lives um on your street that is incredible and can help you with those things so it's not some something that requires much of anything other than see something say something and there should be no reason in this world that somebody to doors away from you their house was broken in and whole block and around the area should not know it so it's nothing that is difficult to sustain of course this is not the end all I mean we need to look at all of the things this is just a small portion of it and it may have assisted or may have helped people just knowing that something two days ago happened or you know before so this is just one component I know we're going to be doing a lot of things I certainly would like to come to the meeting and see how I can assist in any way but just as a small Port that works I know we have one down in the South IND area near Canary Park and other people of Madison AV and and it really works can I ask how many people are part of the neighborhood watch cuz I've only heard of two men from my block so who else is you know how many people are actually you can go through door too or you can ask um one of the officers if they would help you with that and get the the the best way probably do to get the email or um text messages or whatever the group have a meeting and I'm I'm sure um councelor Toller can can help with that just in terms of having a meeting organizing Neighbors come together and deciding together what is the best way to communicate this because I'm sure everybody in and around that area at this point in time wants to know you know what can do and they might all decide look this is the best way if you see something hear something text me somebody might say well you know no I want to email you guys work that out and it's very simple and people will be grateful for it and and it does work okay yeah um councelor Birmingham um first I just want to say how sorry I am that just sounds really scary um and I'm really sorry that happen and um this is really a question for you manager laola you know this is clearly a countywide and really even much larger problem but but um can you and I don't know if you're in the position to do this so I'm not tonight but I don't want to so I don't want to put you on the spot but just to me this really seems like we should maybe be getting more from the county in terms of um coordination of response and notification of you know where where the hotpots are you know just it there should be a coordinated effort in my mind throughout the county and I'm just wondering what the status of that is the county is much yeah it would just be really helpful cuz the county is much more resource than I we are we pay a lot of money to the county the county has a large law enforcement um division so again I'm just this is obviously not for you and again I really do I'm sorry that that happened but I do think we should maybe be looking at the coordinated effort but thank you for coming and thank you thank you good evening mayor councelor Toller fellow council members my name is Roland Hayes Robinson I am miss Iris neighbor so please let me perfect my comments by saying let us not minimize neighbors sharing my wife was traumatized my house was the first house on Hilltop that was broken into a violent home invasion by four youth one was apprehended 16 years old Essence County to this day has corresponded with my family one time so please don't blame me as a neighbor that's Monclair PD that's young men coming from other communities to victimize my family and my neighbor so don't stigmatize me as a bad neighbor my wife to this day struggles to sleep I have a two-year daughter they both were here and they left I am I'm I rate you are more concerned about me as a neighbor not telling my neighbor if my house was broken into vly my wife to this day is afraid to sleep so I don't want your pity or your empathy I don't need it but please don't please don't bize me as a neighbor how dare you I spent 13 years in Boston working with the most ous youth in Boston gang members dope dealers I know the I grew up in best St in Brooklyn it's not just the neighbors I ref cops in Boston the courts I have friends who are Judges don't tell me just the neighbors it's the school it's the parents it is the community it's not just me as a neighbor how dare you how dare you councel do your job law enforcement and I want to commend law enforcement so let me not bastardize Monclair police they were responsive they were compassionate Lieutenant ing ing who I believe retired I went to the Pres look at him for about an hour his team they were thoughtful they r on time but please do not minimize you have two homes we know this family we are we are we are becoming closer as a result of our shared trauma so don't tell don't that's trauma I pray that your home is safe I pray no one at 4:00 a.m. in in the morning with a dog a dog really it's called a 9 millimeter get the biggest dog you want let me come in your home with a 9 mm and see who wins yeah we are also getting a dog and I'm doing other things too to protect my family absolutely but the owners is not only on me we pay we pay taxes here we vote and pay taxes it's not just on on me I'm part of that watch 4M 400 a.m. in the morning this man here whose home was not burglarized I got H sorry he started a watch three weeks ago not his home it was my home I didn't do it he did it but guess what I join him I join him most nights he's been doing this every night this man right here every night so don't tell me what neighbors are not doing how dare thank you very much sir um I I thank you but I please humbly beg your forgiveness if you heard what I was saying in any way accusing you of not doing something or anyone else because that truly truly was not I certainly understand what you've gone through and I understand um you know what the after effect is and so I was just suggesting if there was not one moving forward but I definitely was in no way suggesting that you did any thing in any way wrong or anything like that there is no wrong you were traumatized your wife your family and I and I get that man I get that and so please if that's what you heard from me please accept my apologies I in no way meant to say that I was sitting here and I am distraught knowing that my neighbors are going through this and knowing what they're going through I didn't experience anything that is to the depth of what you had to go through but I did experience one night someone coming through my front door and I was able to locate the police in time and they came down and that in itself is traumatizing so trust me I have some sense I don't understand it but I have some sense of what that trauma might be of how people may not even be able to stay in their home as a result of that so please please accept my humblest apologies because that was nowhere near I was just trying to offer something in a situation where I feel helpless Madam mayor thank you thank you yes um councelor toer thank you George I forgot the last name um yes I forgot your last Robson Robinson that's right um thank you for being here tonight um as as I stated to your neighbor we've been in email communication we do have a meeting schedule for next week so I'm very I'm really looking forward to meeting with you guys in person with Deputy young and let's put our heads together and figure out what we need to do and again again for the record I'm going to ask manager Lola if he could please expedite the lighting situation and see what public service can do to ensure that there's some additional lighting I don't know if you've ever been on Hilltop Street Hilltop in Pleasant over there it's very very dark very very dark and again the Shrubbery on the left side if we can get our town officials or maintenance guys to go and cut some of that trimming back the Shrubbery that would help it's not going to solve anything but I just want to make sure that something is being done this week if possible so thank you for being in here sorry about your troubles thank you good evening good evening good evening mayor council manager clerk Town attorney uh John Fiero Monclair fire department I'm just here to extend an invitation to everybody uh on October 5th we'll be having a fire prevention kickoff block party at nishaan Park I've been working on with couple with Council Toler and mayor Baskerville has also mentioned that there's some other events going on on a Community Day a wathon for mesh is also on that day so we had reached out to mesh and we're going to do a coordinated effort to have everybody in attendance and we'll have a special area at our uh function for mesh as well for donations and then we're going to work together on that so again I'm here to remind everybody October is fire prevention month mon Clair's Fire Prevention Week starts October the 6th we'll be out all the schools and communities uh we'll be having a barbecue freefor all uh funded by the mon CL firefighters Foundation we'll have uh face painting for the children balloon art as well as training Evolution some live demonstrations and some of our apparatus and personnel there to meet and greet okay so thank you very much and I'm so grateful of all of the things that you all continuously do like this above and beyond and it really helps our community and so I just want to thank you so much for this thank you we appreciate all you okay welcome back from summer break thank thank you hello everyone good evening um make this short and sweet I'm a resident and a homeowner on Maple a um I'm looking for support for overnight parking on Maple a which you guys probably have heard someone already seen me hand out some paperwork um I've collected signatures from for support from my neighbors uh police engineering parking they don't see why they would disagree to the on street parking since the street is wide enough and as long as obviously we follow all the rules whatever other the rules like maybe can't park on the street for snow or whatever it is uh as of right now um as of right now so I'm allowed to park every night if I pay $5 a night so I got to process the payment every single night I forget one night they get tickets $35 $5 for the whole month every day is like $150 and so you guys know it'll get expensive and uh let's see so I'm asking why not allow me to get a monthly permit to park overnight on Maple app if everyone's okay with it so just asking for your support because ultimately it comes down to you guys the council members the mayor and yeah that's all thank you guys sorry mayor I just Mr is it Mr Dominguez right ra Mr Raphael Dominguez okay thank you thank you guys excuse me Mr Dominguez may I did you have something you can go no I just wanted to say that we have passed we have a subcommittee called Mobility that deals with parking and that subcommittee will be looking at your request okay great when would they is there like a certain time that will hold a meeting for that so I can show show face over there too so the committee members are myself councelor damato and councelor Birmingham and we are in the process of um scheduling our first meeting and this is one of the um items that we were going to discuss because we've not only gotten requests on the same topic from you but um in U from residents in other areas of town so we're just we're going to talk about it and figure out you know how to best address them as a whole not going to be a public thing though pardon me uh first is going to be among you guys and then yes exactly maybe public okay I I'm signed up for all the emails and text so if something is public I'll probably receive a message on it so all right anything else guys thank you thank you councelor Toller yes thank you for being here um if you could email all of us and just do a count for me I know the count but perhaps the people in the mobility committee may need it um I live on Woodland so I understand your frustration on M it's been rough I paid a lot ofs get I get it I get it I understand uh many of the homes on map don't have a driveway correct uh just like on Woodland there's many without a driveway um so I just I'm saying this out loud so that those on the mobility committee understand that your issues that you're bringing to us is very different than issues in other parts of the fourth ward where homes have driveways yes um just as a side note um I've been in conversation with our County Commissioner who lives here in town uh we haven't had a meeting yet uh cuz he had covid but we're having a meeting hopefully in the next week or two because I want to talk to him about using Glenfield uh Wally Choice overnight for some residents now I don't know what the mobility committee is going to bring back but whatever I bring back from commissioner Gil okay I'll share with them and let them Implement what they think is best but I thank you for your letter and your petition what thing you want me to email to them exactly I'm sorry the number of homes without driveway number of homes without driveways okay thank you let me write that down thank you guys M thank you have a good night next hi good evening my name is Michael Zimbalist I've in Monclair for 30 years I'm here tonight to advocate for rank Choice voting I'm hoping that we can add Montclair to the growing list of New Jersey towns who have adopted resolutions supporting rank Choice voting in local elections most of you I assume are familiar with rank Choice voting already it's also called instant runoff voting in which voters rank each candidate in order of preference rather than selecting a single candidate ranking all the candidates gives our gives our voters more power it eliminates the all to Common situations where voters feel that their vote would be wasted if it's cast for a candidate who has no chance of winning and because every candidate seeks to rank highly it minimizes negative campaigning which can alienate the electorate outcomes of rank Choice elections favor moderation over extremism and are more Equitable because the winner always reflects the majority um rank Choice voting will become an option for local elections in New Jersey once Trenton passes a bill called the municipal and Schoolboard voting options act which is sponsored by state senator Andrew wicker Hoboken Jersey City Red Bank Princeton and Maplewood have all passed resolutions committing to a referendum on rank Choice voting upon passage of the zwicker bill by the legislature and I'm hoping we can add Montclair to that list and I thank you all for considering this thank you um if I can real quick do you know the um bill number I can get that for you I can send it you send that Mr Zim thank you very very much uh he's exceedingly modest uh he has done a lot of work on this uh and has helped uh me to uh make a a model resolution based on the other towns uh which will answer that and and I will pass it around I did circulate to all of to all of you earlier uh last month uh a desire to to take a look at this and this is Happy stuff this is the good stuff that we get to do that that is is good so I'll pass this around if you want it and we can look at this for coun toer and then uh Council lochman thank you um so thank you for your comment uh I'm happy to review this um but my question is and I don't know if you have the answer to this uh this rank Choice voting it eliminates local representation on some level is that correct no no no I mean it could how do how do you mean I mean I think that well we're local representation so if you do rank Choice voting well but each each each Ward I as I understand the way it would work each Ward would have a list to rank from and then there'd be a list for at large okay just just a question I believe I believe that's how it work we have to go through the mechanics but I think thank you counil lman yeah I just wanted to say you know I'm active in the League of Women Voters and the League of Women Voters supports rank Choice voting nationally Statewide and municipalities thank you great thank you next please uh greetings peace and blessings to you Kalia sweat native born raised state in Monclair uh I first wanted to say um since I was here last meeting on August 13th I requested for this Township to finally for the first time in the history of Monclair that celebrates its diversity to include the cultural symbolism specifically that pertains to all black people uh which is the red black and green black liberation flag it is our panafrican flag that encompasses all people of African descent I'm very appreciative that you guys agreed and it was risen so I'm here to say thank you on that have a couple of questions regarding it I was wondering um exactly when it went up and who put it up and why there instead of out here so um just to do a take two cuz I'm actually a former Runner normally when you pass the Baton you know where the finish line is so I wasn't sure when and where everything was going to happen so the take two is I am here to also request that um this February anywhere between the 1st and the 5th that going forward the Black Liberation flag is risen here in Monclair going forward always if you need one again and one that's big enough similar to the same sizes as the other ones that have risen I would be happy to provide one for you um I also wanted to say that um I was taken a back at the last meeting because certain people came to the microphone to in my opinion counteract what I did who wanted to counter what I was lifting again in an effort to commemorate and celebrate and expect the express the pride from my people so it's funny because I heard one of the people here a little while ago mention offensiveness but she's gone but I found that very offensive and to the other woman who was standing here earlier who about the presentation I actually am a person who wants to see that presentation but there's a way to do things and I think we have to be honest with ourselves in Monclair when it comes to the racism specifically the black oppression that permeates here and it creates a type of climate that does make people uncomfortable and I don't like it I don't like it I'm not someone who stands down on that so please I need to see that flag risen again I think there's many people who need to have it risen when we are in a country that black women are being killed and shot in their own kitchens when black babies are being born decapitated cuz their heads are snatched off their bodies before it can come out their mother's body and even in our own local town when we have black children being locked in closets at Bullock school and superintendents who Express that they're okay with racism we have a serious problem here we have a serious problem so it would be very decent if we could have our flag risen on a regular basis and I guess we can start with the month of February since it does represent Black History Month and again that also still includes August so I want to be less ambiguous this time I'm not just talking about this August I'm saying every August going forward every February going forward um and I think that's all I had to say for now thank you very much morning welcome thank you good evening Diane angland 158 Orange Road Third Ward Rah here we go um so uh wearing my NAACP hat I had a wonderful meeting earlier with one of our youth council members and I wanted to present uh vote 16 and that is something that they will be working on and I don't know how that gets started um but we will be looking into that to see about our 16 year-olds participating in voting for School Board elections and I think that's a wonderful thing so you'll be hearing more about that but in the light of voting um here we are legal Women Voters NAACP Divine NES the list goes on and on and we're out here trying to make sure that um residents are registered to vote um but I think some of this ownness has to go on you guys too what is the town going to do we're like 50s something days away from an election and it was almost embarrassing that you guys had an election that 11% of residents voted like so I don't know if we're going to put up signs I don't know if we're going to use TV 34 but we need you to step up we need you to do uh some due diligence on how we are going to um one thing we're finding out is that there are a lot of people in mon who are registered to vote that's really not our issue our issue is them voting so how are we going to do that how are we going to let our seniors know how they can get there if they don't have a ride or what but I think it really is upon you all as Council people to figure that out we need to be at a higher percent percentage um for that um and then I'm just going to leave with being a resident um and talking about civility um mayor Baskerville what is going on on Facebook and I know you're going to say Dian I don't look at that stuff and I'm not even going to worry about that stuff but for somebody to come up here and to ask to do a presentation um and they're supported by maybe somebody on the council and you know they group in the audience but you keep being disrespectful to our mayor and to our attorney um I don't know why you would invite them to do a presentation so um the disagreeing with anything that you all do is fine the disrespect is going to stop so I'm here to tell you that I support everybody here your differences whatever you say people will say you know Dian you heard that one council person they sound racist well I'm not here to say you're racist but what I'm here to say is that we're going to disagree agreeably but all of this the file of Pol signs they brought here but there's others it says fire burrett says fire Baskerville but please let me come here and do a um presentation so the little group that's meeting seems like some little underground government but if that's what you all are going to let um run you then we're going to have problems but the disrespect is going to stop today thank you thank you um M England I just wanted to respond to the vote 16 um Deputy Mayor and myself have um been are starting our involvement with the vote 16 and I'm not sure if councilor lochman but um the League of Women Voters um has a group or did a presentation on it and both um the deputy mayor and myself signed up for that so I think um I I know I'll be okay to meet with or to share the information that we have at some point in time to to try to work with that mayor Basketville I I encouraged um our youth Council to uh meet with a students in the high school to you know and partner with mka and Immaculate and um lacad so that there is a full representation of students in Monclair that will come and request to meet with the council good okay thank you so much I appreciate you next please uh okay good evening um my name is Kevin dardin um the Imam of the Masid in town Masid wadud also um I'm a 50-year resident I'm a nework product I I'll confess that but I'm a 50-year resident of monay and I've dating myself um I'm also a decade old member of the Muslim inter Interfaith clery Association I'm a chaplain for democ CLA Police Department um before I even get into my comments I just want to you know I'm a I mean I'm I'm a licensed professional also and I hope that we um defer to Paul Burr for a lot of these legal issues I'm a home I'm a home owner and I don't want to be paying any settlements out of my taxes my taxes going up so please keep my bill down sir um one of the reasons and all um the the the first thing I I mean first semi complaint it appears the comment that you're you're attempting to implement is uh is it's not as clearly communicated as it possibly could be I came to the first meeting I came to meet at the me not the last meeting but the meeting before and I was told okay we're not going to have it afterwards we had it before so one woman did come in and talk you know but I I didn't feel comfortable doing that coming in and talking afterwards so whatever it is now I went to the website there was nothing on the website so if you guys are going to change at least put it on the website and keep the old and keep the old um system until you until this voted in in um uh final um also too um in my capacity as um a representative of the Muslim Community here um unfortunately we're in an environment now where our um our members some members of our communities and also here and overseas have been demun uh humanized and belittled and frankly um we're going to stand up for we're going to stand up for our community we're going to do it in a we're going to do it in a um uh a healthy way and a legal way because we have a right to do that so it's true that our country and our society now has been broken up into segments we have this group we have that group and certain groups have more pull than others and the media and what have you that has nothing to do with us I'm just let I'm just putting you on notice that we're going to be doing that now here and also in the Board of Education we want to have representation we're talking about Flags I'm an American um I have and I have rights um I'm as an American I don't have no allegiance to no foreign country and don't ask me to have one because I'm because we're not going to do that so finally um uh uh I want to congratulate uh mayor basille for being um elected and our fourth War councilman Amina TOA and all of you congratulations and um thank you very much for your time thank you very much thank you next hi uh my name is evening uh my name is Noah seagull I live at four Hilltop Place with my wife uh and our one-year-old daughter this is her on her first birthday last week um we live in between Delhi and Iris and Roland and Lisa um we're the one of the three houses that has not yet been had a breaking attempt and I think they've said everything that probably needs to be said so I'll just leave you with a few pieces um what's today Tuesday Sunday morning at midnight my wife woke up and there was a car car parked outside of our house so she woke me asked if she should call the police I told her yes I gave her the number for dispatch and I went downstairs and I waited by the door I stared at the car for a while and then I asked my wife how long it had been she said 12 minutes so I called the police again and they came within 3 minutes that's not a knock on the police I think they've been great but that's a long and frightening time to under the circumstances um I think one of the most one of the most unfortunate parts of this is that it is kids for the most part that's what we hear um kids broke into Roland and Lisa's house probably were responsible for the breaking of deli and irises um and they're not residents of Montclair they're coming from other towns they're coming from other neighborhoods um and that as far as I know limits our options in terms of things like youth Outreach or what have you um but I think it's shameful that the situation is that someone will probably get hurt seriously at some point um and it doesn't have to be that way um I think respectfully Lighting on the Block visibility that's great feels like a distraction from some larger issues that we could be tackling and I have a thought or two but um it's a lot and I think we can dive into that at another time so I guess that's it at this point I'll have the rest of my time back M thank you for coming may I yes councelor TOA yeah thank you Noah thank you for being here nice to meet you in person face to face I know we've exchanged emails um as I stated to your other neighbors I'm really looking forward to our meeting next week with Deputy young um I'm going to invite one or two counselors if they wish to attend this meeting with me and Deputy young to please let me know so that we can figure out some solutions and what some of the best things we could possibly Implement Andor do to help these families again if you've never been on Hilltop for Pleasant it's very very dark y it's very dark so I understand your concern I just want to thank you for bring being here thank you for emailing me at length no problem appreciate hi I'm Chrissy Thomas I um have been a resident for a long time I'm sorry to hear about all of the additional break-ins and it's heartbreaking um I'm I came up to talk because I'm concerned about the advice being given by the township attorney I just think it's concerning and I think maybe the words weren't said accurately it's not that we don't want to expose anything we want everything to be out in the open and done with thought and sunlight this entire Council ran on the position of abiding processes and procedures and openness and sunlight and you're doing such a great job but the first amendment applies to people that are speaking it applies to um the Council and to the residents um there is an indemnification ordinance that protects you and it's your job to properly protect the town and its residents and I'm hopeful that there are some things that you can take care of that you will like the bill list that wasn't attached it takes a long time to go through the agenda I know and when you have the responsibility of voting on it it probably takes even longer there were some concerning things that we read when it was finally attached I'm glad to hear that you pulled some of the bills I'm hoping that there were that there were I saw a lot of questionable bills there was one that lists a $6,500 door and then an additional $700 or something I'm hoping that you pull the questional B bills and you don't just pay them in Mass without looking at them it's not really my job but there are only three hires that the council has directly one of them is Mr Lola one of them is Mr Burr and one of them is the clerk and I think that it's very important that you get solid legal advice that you can rely on and I think that it's really important that when you have a legal question that you ask it and that you know the answers before you get to the meetings some of the times it is not an appropriate to talk about people and their great job and their service or if they don't do something it's not inappropriate to bring it up it is always better to be respectful it is always nice to be kind and I am sure that you were listening and that you were um willing to you know have a meeting about whatever it was because that's who you are I just think that we need to remember that we're trying it it sounds I'm sure to some people like we're speaking in code there are things that are of concern that you guys can deal with and you should and I'm sure you will and just being there to listen is we're so grateful to you for being up there and for doing such a great job thank you thank you next please good evening I push again or just let it ride is it green it's green okay uh I'm Aaron bullan I live at 17 Champlain Terrace uh I'm here tonight to request that the council include the skip the stuff ordinance on the next agenda um as it's affectionally I'm sorry which ordinance I'm sorry uh the ordinance I honestly to tell you the truth I'm not sure that I know the name of it of the folks that have worked on it but it's affectionately referred to as skip the stuff it's the ordinance that will prevent all of the excess trash to be put into the bags when you get take out and delivery so um it would relieve businesses and their customers of the burden of excess waste which is very often haphazardly tossed into takeaway and delivery bags almost all of this waste ends up in landfills because much of it can't be recycled and that which can be recycled often is not because of the nature in which it's being dispersed I understand that there's been some requests for more business input on this um and whether or not they should or should not be automatically added things into customers bags uh just one kind of anecdotal bit I can stop or pause take my time back or no would you continue please thank you yes I'll I'll get closer um so I spoke with some gals down at raise lunch inet this was several months ago and I asked them about this specific thing and just how they do it and how they handle it and they're like well we consider what people get and then we think about what they might want excuse me just a moment please in in the audience please can you bring it down a little bit so that we can hear thank you thank you um I think about what they want think about what they might need and thoughtfully put some things into the bag because they don't want to send them with nothing in case they do want something there's no understanding here and then she watches them walk outside look in the bag take half of it out and throw it in the bin and here we are so this isn't hard right this is easy we th this hurts no one and helps everyone so I'm not sure what the hesitation is and why the businesses as the hesitant to use the word polluter but as the polluters because they're providing this stuff are being asked whether or not they'd like to continue polluting the bins that we pay to have cleaned up so you see where this is so my request to you is please read it next month pass it in November and start the year off wonderfully with a great strong smart eco-friendly environmentally conscious ordinance that other towns have passed they've been successful and there hasn't been push back thank you thank you anyone on Council did you wish to say something Council damato regular regular caller uh yes thank you very much I I like I like the the uh the thing we would not be the first lot of municipalities have done it it's also one of the I believe I may be wrong one of the four asks of our environmental commission right now so they sent us an ordin I mean they sent us an ordinance so we can't do it tonight but thank you and sounds good be hopeful councelor lochman and that'll probably go to a subcommittee for them to discuss it right yes yes thank you thank you I'm sorry is it light GRE okay much than when you hit the hit the bar again so it come on thank you okay thank you all right so I was listening to the meeting from home but then had to leave my daughter at badtime routine because we still haven't implemented the calling from home so I'd like to speak for all the other mothers who want to put dinner on the table put their kids to sleep but also have an opportunity for civic participation right um your staff is able to allow us to com to comment from home I didn't need to be here and in relationship to what I heard earlier was great to see the presentation from the Auditors but I notice they didn't comment on payroll audits for police and fire and I want to remind you of the issue that was found by affirmative action officer of the case where younger firefighters with lower rates right than the older an older firefighter were doing shifts for this older firefighter about to retire the consequence of that is that older firefighter retires with a higher pension the municipality pays more money out to that firefighter and then the firefighter gives cash to the younger folks this is Criminal but there's prosecutor discretion it was referred to the prosecutor's office the prosecutors decided not to prosecute there's nothing we can do about that however that is still a very serious like people need to be let go if they do this and we need to understand how much of it's happening and there has been no consequences absolutely no consequences so if we're thinking about a forensic audit that's where we really desperately need a forensic audit we need to find out how much of this has happened what have been the consequences and whether many of those folks who were recently promoted were involved in this scheme because it's really terribly offensive to this community with how high our taxes are and how we have one of the most expensive fire departments in the state so please consider that uh with my last couple seconds I'd like to say thank you for looking to the Home Improvement program Eric um I would like to suggest something it has nothing to do with the legality I don't want to disparage anyone's work but perhaps using the the for Housing Trust Fund for Home Improvement program that does increase the number of Harding housing units is not the best use of that money thanks thank you can I Can I Say Yes councelor lochman uh Mariana I just did want to say that we we are looking at doing a virtual uh you know whether it's Callin or on the screen or something that's something that is you know getting there okay and we had a I did have an email from someone else who's I don't think he's here asking the same question actually it was a voicemail message so I just wanted him to know that as well hik good evening you thought you could go home I wasn't going to talk but I was moved to talk um first I wanted to say I haven't had the chance to say congratulations to everybody who won who won their race to sit up there and take this all night long but especially you mayor Bass askville I've known you a long time I've watched you a long time I shouldn't say I know you I don't know you that well but anytime I've reached out you've been very helpful and I'm over the moon that you're sitting in that spot right now thank you just wanted to say it and the rest of you I voted for most of you too the ones I could vote for and I'm looking forward to coming to all your meetings um I wanted to speak just briefly on the post I saw on Facebook that led me to some questions about who was at this meeting um because only the mayor was named and as soon as I saw what the the meeting was about I knew there was leg legal problems you cannot you can I as a whistleblower myself you can bring things forward but you have to know that some things you can do can hurt the entire town legally financially thank you attorney Burr because everything you said was on point tonight is and it was exactly what I was thinking as a lay person it's easy to know you there's certain things you just shouldn't blast out there and the work is good and people are doing the right things by finding money that should be likely going to other people but I hope you'll follow legal rules next time and as for that flag that um was just mentioned that that kind of prompted me to get up here that panafrican flag which shamefully I didn't know enough about until it was presented to you to fly and a couple days later it was flying and I was happy to see it but I think the town would benefit if we had a rising a raising of the flag the next time with a some information with it like uh Pride goes up and there's a whole to-do this should have a big a big to-do as well I mean imagine how many people are happy in this town to see that flag finally flying how many little kids will ask questions and and learn what I should have known um so I hope the next time it does fly that we can have more excitement about it it can be published people can come watch like we did this summer for the pride flag and we can watch that go up and have a presentation so everybody can learn a little bit more why we're flying it okay thank you thank you and yes we um totally agree regarding what happened there it was something that happened on the spur of the moment it was something that we were all in agreement with and the time was very short between the time that we that request came and um the time that it went up and to the best of my knowledge um the 17th was when it we need needed to have it up and Satur immediately I spoke to the manager who I believe and please correct me manager Leo if I'm wrong the fire department put it up and it was up by the 17th and the commitment at that time because we had not there was no process in place so the first thing I always want to know is what is the process and when I ask manager Lola even though there have been other flag raisings in the township at the time he said he didn't think that there was a process so I suggested that we put it up in time for the 17th and leave it up till the the end of the month so that we could begin a process and at that time I also said that one of our subcommittees will discuss that and and work that out so certainly I agree um there should be some type of Celebration and we still have not yet discussed what that process is going to be but it's important to me and and I think it's probably important to everyone sitting up here and we will discuss it and do something that um is really representative is something that we decide to do certainly we want it to be you know celebratory thing that people can get education from because education is so so important more and more thank you so much and um I'm I'm sorry um Miss s uh you asked why it went up there and so I believe because question I'm glad Johny came there resp some questions that I thought was get resp the one question that I'm going to um answer right now is regarding why it went up where it went up I believe that I did not specifically um tell Mr Lola where it should go it was um a in passing and at that time I knew the time was of the essence and I really just wanted to make sure that we got it up by the 17th he was leaving for the weekend as I recall and so we didn't have time to sit there and really discuss who or what in fact I sent him a text later on to ask him was it done and he said done so perhaps when I was talking with him I should have um noted another location I think because that's where we put the other flags that we flew in that particular location on Church Street because it's um the most visible location that we have um and and so I think that he just you know moved because of what we've done in the past and he was following you know whatever that protocol was so that's how that ended up there yes councilor Toller thank you um to answer the second part of your question Miss SWAT Miss SWAT uh I believe manager Lola you sent us or Mr bar you sent us the statue on uh municipal buildings and what can actually wave if you will here I sent you the the Federal federal law the flag that answers that part of your question why it wasn't raised here is because it's the federal building we can only hang the American flag that's not the answer you want I understand that but that's flag yeah which flag it flag the entire month of June a couple years ago yeah that probably should not have been there then I don't know I'm not an attorney I'm just State no attorney I'll clarify the I don't believe that was the you can fly other flags on the municipal building other than the United States flag uh but I'm not sure why it wasn't flown flown here yes it just has to be flown underneath the United States flag it can't be biger than the United States flag there a f a few a few a few rules so okay so to clarify I'm not saying that um that I don't know why that flag wasn't flowing here and I don't know if that's policy you know what the policy is of the township all right so we'll look into that and then we should be able to give an answer perhaps at the next meeting if someone has a question and just one one other thing I wanted to clarify for the record because I'm hearing some repetitiveness about a secret meeting and underground government people that did not happen there was a meeting with myself and the mayor and some other constituents we are entitled to meet with our constituents just like I'm going to meet with constituents on Hilltop Place next week so I'm just putting that out there there was no sec secret meeting yeah the other two people happen to be um members in fact at at one point in time theyve both been chair of the housing commission and because the matter involved housing when we went to the meeting we were going to a housing you know type of subcommittee and that's how de Malloy and um Mr Scott were were invited there but there was no nefarious exact and no Municipal Employees were present I'm just putting that on the record to clarify because it appears that this story is taking a turn as we're having this meeting so thank you for the clarification counselor thank you okay walk to the mic so I can hear you the fire department puts Flags the fire department handles the raising and um remove uh lowering of flags and I and I traditionally the flags have been done on Church Street and I'm not sure of the law I don't think you could fly the flag of another and this is in another country so it's that's the interpretation you can't fly the flag of another country on the same flag pole as the US flag I'm not aware of what the law is about other types of flags are not officially a country flag no I'm hearing you on that and I thank you both for that clarification and see that's the uniqueness about our experience in this country and even globally as those of African descent so that flag does represent African American people as well it represents our struggle and our continuance to have Liberation safety and protection and freedoms so my other questions I had asked while I was last up here was um for the month of February going forward so when I was here on the 13th when I asked that question it seems like there was some you know there was discourse you all communicated and then there was a motion and you voted this that and the other so what I asked is going forward for the month of February and I'm going to include also that that does have a ceremony and maybe that's part of the processes that you were speaking of but um that's the question can we have it go up always anywhere between the first and 5th and throughout the month of February and also the entire month of June and their additional dates as well so I was just waiting to hear the answers to my question from I specifically did not answer that because at the time that you were here the first time I gave my word that before we did any type of activities again with the flag we would get a subcommittee together and we would discuss that and we would have a process I think you know me well enough to know now that I would love to do that personally absolutely but we have not convened our subcommittee and come up with the process and so hopefully we can do that rapidly I I was thinking in fact that we would have it by this meeting and I might have mentioned that but we did not so I hope that we can um certainly it's not going to be something that is dismissed from my mind moving forward but that's why I didn't respond to to you um regarding that at this moment and hopefully it's not only contingent upon that subcommittee um it's it's way overdue it's way way way overdue and it's sad because even when it's mentioned and this is no disrespect to anyone who wasn't aware previously but it's sad that um the climate has normalized how disregarded we are on a regular basis that you know that went down the way that it did and it was expected to be okay so I'm appreciative that this is the council who actually heard me and you passed it through but going forward you know we always want to meet things where it is in advance that's where we get real true progress in real time unfortunately in mon Clair we tend to do things like 10 years late and therefore those who needed it in real time go we fall between the cracks that's why everything needs to function from a position of equity has to be Equity so um the subcommittee sounds good mayor I would love to be a part of that I don't know if the public gets to be but I am asking to be present to be part of it um and whatever it is that needs to happen in order to get this done going forward it's actually a beautiful thing that everyone should be proud of and it speaks volumes when folks have um just the opposition that I that I saw in here that night and it should actually show everyone here how much we should be having it done on a regular basis thank you so the sub committee the sub committee is um three council members and whoever we wish to um invite to the meeting and certainly I will suggest that and and I would love to have you there um at that time but again that would be the decision of the three council members thank you and thank you very much I appreciate always and you know I appreciate you too and I too uh I I I feel bad about how I'm I'm seeing some things happen while you're in that seat and um it's disappointing woman you're about yeah I was just going to state that the subcommittee but mayor Basketville already explained it to you yeah I just want to know that we have people here that um you know all all persons want to know that we have people who can represent us I actually stopped coming to these meetings years ago because I didn't have representation I didn't have anyone who could represent my interest and that I could trust to follow through with it so that's what I'm hoping that we have here now thank you good evening Council wendyo 125 Gates third W good evening hey councelor councelor Williams um so in the spirit of in the spirit of diversity and representation I just wanted to bring awareness to the fact that September 15th through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month and in Monclair we are celebrating Latinos of Monclair is hosting a celebration at the Monclair Art Museum on September 22nd and all are welcome everyone um no matter what your background is I'll actually be co-hosting that celebration with Jonathan AI owner of our beloved paper plane coffee and on September 18th Latinos Z Monclair will be honored by Essex County in nework I believe all of you council members have been invited I hope that at least one of you consider this as the Latino Community can certainly use representation from Monclair and of course support from our Monclair Township leader ership and I also had a question slash comment uh in the past having seen other um other Council meetings and other proclamations on different Heritage months I've seen it that it always happens at the end of the month I'm not sure if that's by Design and obviously I know you're a rather new Council I don't know if um again I don't know if that was by Design but I always found it a little bit odd that we would be celebrating something at the end of a month instead of at the beginning of that celebration whichever month it may be so that's something for consideration to perhaps call that out at the beginning because then by the end of it let's say even if it's Autism Awareness Month somebody may say oh I didn't know and I and I wish I did so just a consideration for that and again September 18th um Latino s monair is being honored by Essex County in nework that's at 46 Park Street and it's at 4:30 for anybody at home that's watching that may wish to come and join the celebration um the one in nework yes it's at 46 Park Street and it's 4:30 the ribbon the down at the um the chambers in nework okay yes yes you are correct I thought it was 6 p.m. but I'm sure you you have it in front of you I don't have it in front of me so thank you for that mayor um and I believe um in terms of the Proclamation Proclamation question that is um actually I will have another comment based on something else I watched before U when also having a proclamation I've noticed past council members say is is anyone here so where it looks you know a bit um not organized so if you will have a proclamation again no matter what the month is um to to make that group or whoever it is representing a bit of wear so we're not doing something you know just to do it but that the people that are doing the work behind it are um are violated and um recognize thank you much gracias to see everyone i' just like to ask the clerk please can you tell um us and maybe the listening audience what is the process for getting a proclamation um on the agenda uh thank you mayor uh as far as I understand and Mr laola can say if there's something different uh in the past a council person makes the request just one council person makes the request to have a proclamation and included on the agenda unlike with the other items where you have't moving in a second uh and then a proclamation is drafted and uh the requestor is invited to attend if we know you know who the group is and we have their contact information and then they let us know okay we can attend or no we prefer it by mail and that's what I've seen thank you and is there uh a set amount of time that would be ideal I know often times things may happen but is there set amount of time that is ideal just regarding your time and getting the proclamation prepared I um I can't say that there's a set amount of time because the workload does vary from week to week but what I can tell you is that no matter how late the request comes in we always get it done well that's good to know and I appreciate I know that we had a couple of requests and I felt um you know a little uncomfortable because the time was a crunch but thank you for letting us know that and are are you um or have you spoken to someone here already about a proclamation or what because if so I certainly would like to um to to move that ahead no I have not um but if you I'm I'm happy to share the the process with uh Latino zanclair the president there um I've seen again in the past where there's been no one representing so I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen again but um just ask to get us something in in writing what they'd like to say what what they'd like in the proclamation and I will be happy to um do that absolutely thank you madam mayor and thank you all of you I appreciate the work you've been doing and keep it up okay is at the end um of public comment so now we're at the beginning of the council meeting anybody need to stretch or just keep rolling keep going okay um we are going to start with resolution resolution a and we're going to start and keep going uh councilor damato would you start please with the resolution um r241 199 joined and our for 200 the bid the bid um I have to read it by title right the whole thing EXC mayor may I yes um Mr bur and oine if I'm not saying the correct uh but I think that the next step is for you to open the public hearing and and then during that public hearing you you know you allow the members of the public if they want to come up and speak do you have that the um paper about the public hearing cuz I know they used to have a paper for a public hearing no and they read that no ma'am it's just listed on the agenda as a public hearing that's all I have in front of me okay so now we're going to have a public hearing on Monclair Center business Improvement District budget the first portion of that is resolution r241 199 followed by r 24200 um r24 199 Township of Montclair resolution to read the Monclair Center bid budget for year 2024 by title pursuant to njsa 4A 5684 F there's no members of the public that no if there any members of the public at this point in time that would like to come down and be heard on the um Center business Improvement District budget please do so M anybody else good even even good evening mayor and Council thank you for having us here tonight my name is abash sha for those of you who may not know me I'm the inim executive director of M Center bid here with my stute uh board directors we're here to thank you all for once again taking time to do a second reading for our budget really happy that we're here finally and we can get this passed I hope it's a quick and simple vote frankly I just want to mention that I'm not a mon resident I'm not particularly from the community my whole life but it's been a privilege to be a part of the community be part of the downtown sometimes I'm here at these meetings and I hear what's going on and I feel just what a appreciate the wonderful Community you have and this is truly a wonderful community and it's been a privilege of my career thus far to be able to represent the bid and if end up getting the job I would be even more of a privilege but regardless I'll still be around I love this community it's been an adventure that I've never expected to have honestly so thank you for taking the time I really appreciate it and if you have any questions or anything like that we're always around and thank you for again thank you thank you uh so moved second oh sorry looking for a second roll call please okay mayor so this is resolution r241 199 the resolution to read the Monclair Center bid budget for year 2024 by title pursuant to njsa 40a colon 56- 84f is in Frank and I'm going to call the role on that resolution Deputy Mayor Anderson yes councelor Birmingham yes councelor deato I'm sorry councelor deato yes councelor lochman yes councelor Toler yes councelor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes thank you thank you madam clerk will you also call the um role for resolution r 24200 mayor you're moving R uh resolution r4200 resolution to adopt the year 2024 Monclair Center bid budget an ISO move second second please roll call please discussion I'm sorry discussion any discussion um I just not I'm not sure because I know it was reported in the um news that this delay in the budget might have led to um a delay in tax you know tax collection and so I just want to just by way of closure um because I know there were process issues that have been you know uncover you know we're working those through and I think there's a plan going forward um but in my sense of when this budget you know when the um our tax rate was certified it does not appear that there was a significant delay compared to other years past so I think I just wanted to let the community know that you know just in case there was any questions and I think in terms of for Essex County it seems like for budgets this year the removal of that covid money that we talked about earlier the American Rescue was very challenging for many towns um because you have to deal with literally million the dollar disappearing from your budget um so I think within Essex County I don't believe we were I think we were sort of in the middle for getting our tax rate certified so anyway I just wanted to Eric if you have anything to say um I just wanted to thank uh the manager and the clerk for uh and the bid leadership for helping me to understand um the delay um and um just to say that you know uh we don't need to point fingers um there are inevitable problems whenever you have an organization that's large and sprawling and sometimes they're misunderstandings and they get wound up and so I'm not going to say anymore but to thank people for for helping me to understand it I will read two short quotes um about this that came to me uh the first is from checkov and it's the world perishes not from Bandits and fires but from hatred hos H ility and all these Petty squabbles and the second is from the game of from Game of Thrones and it's Summers the time for squabbles in Winter we must protect one another keep each other warm and share our strengths and winter is coming so let's just not squabble anymore and and all get together and keep each other warm thank you thank you madam clerk Deputy Mayor Anderson yes councilor Birmingham yes councelor damato yes councelor lochman yes councilor Toler yes councilor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes moving on to um new business ordinances the ordinance 2429 has been pulled yes moving to new business resolutions starting at uh resolution C can you please do that councelor lochman that was pulled also okay moving on to resolution number uh resolution D well that's the bill list so we want to talk about the bill list right okay here we go thing your thing okay uh mayor yes excuse me I'm sorry I just want to understand for agenda preparation the items that you announced that were pulled do you want to see them again on the 24th of September or a meeting thereafter or they just pulled indefinitely um I'll take my guidance from Full Council regarding the pulling of ordinance 02 2429 and resolution R 24201 um I I can councel lock we can speak to the we can speak with regard to the ordinance 024 29 that's going to be relisted at the next meeting we're just going to give uh have it listed uh on the agenda so that people have an opportunity to review it yeah we just felt that it we just felt that it kind of came a little bit at the last minute and we wanted to make sure that everybody in the public had a chance to look at it and we made some revisions at the last minute as well so that's why it's pulled thank excuse me mayor yes I just want to say this clearly so ordinance 02 2429 is being tabled correct to September 24 2024 and it's going to be listed for introduction yes correct thank you R 24201 that's the manager okay that that W no still discussing the 221 it has to be tabled versus to a date uncertain to a date uncertain okay so R 24201 table to a date uncertain okay thank you thank you think we could be listening to the debate I look thank you madam clerk anything else at this moment no ma'am those are the only two pulled items appreciate you okay thank you I appre you councilor lochman okay so the next thing was the bill list um that's a resolution R 24202 um I am going to read this and make a motion and then we'll have discussion right okay so whereas invoices against the township of Monclair in favor of the following persons for the amount set opposite their respective names have been received duly audited and found correct now therefore be it resolved by the Council of the township of Monclair in the county of Essex that said invoices be and they are hereby ordered paid and that checks be drawn by the finance department to the order of such persons for the amounts respectively and here and after stated on the schedule attached here to and made a part thereof this is the council meeting dating September 10th 2024 and the total amount is 1,992 13055 so I I'm moving that I guess we need a second yes second second second and now discussion please my only question was about I mean half of this bill is just for workman's comp is that correct I'm sorry I can't hear you on this in what did you say I said I just wanted to clarify I just point out that essentially half of this of this $2 million bill is for is one line is for workman's comp and just if we could have a couple of words from the manager about you know just the signif you know what is happening with it's workers comp with workers comp I think the GIF Bill the GIF bill is $900,000 it's on like um looking for that yeah I don't know sorry is it that's not work that's not just the the workers the workers comp is the 31,000 the 97 the $97,000 is our third installment of our payment to the GIF for all of our insurance that's the combined amount for those two things okay the workers compos a small amount that's the third payment our insurance I apologize for not knowing that so it's like 3 times 900,000 is what we pay over the year okay oh okay half okay did you want to come down um to the mic that's okay thank you to get my mind it yeah the TV audience needs to hear you the premium for all the cover that we get through the GIF are made in three installments one of 25% one of 25% and this one that's being presented to you is 50% okay thank you thank you very much can I yes councelor lochman yeah I I just had a question about I I guess the appropriateness of listing individual people and their hospital or their medical bills all this like talk about Hippa and yet we have listed the names and they're what they're what the insurance company's paying them absolutely is that customary or why don't we just all group them together or something I don't know I'm just that's been done traditionally here I don't have the answer to that question I think the Lost Run can be presented both with names and without and if you got names and like medical conditions or something that was an error no I don't think there's any medical conditions but you can tell somebody and the name is on there has a large Bill and you wonder I don't I know the person I mean I don't really want to know what his medical bills are so yes um Council Birmingham I'm sorry thank you mayor um my impression is that these are people who are retired and we're paying their Medicare reimbursement like I I haven't looked I I what I did was asked the GIF to go over how their billing actually works because it's really big numbers and I didn't really understand how we were like how those bills were being paid so the you could the dates on the loss run are go back really far and some of them there's no activity since the loss and then some of them are activity because the the loss happened fairly recently but to your point you're concern when you're saying the word Medicare is that what's concerning to you or no a Medicare it's just just simply looking at there's a person's name we could name some people we all know them we could name them and then there's an amount of a medical bill associated with them yeah I think it's because they're public employees similar to school districts when we do our agendas you see the person's name their salary everything I know about salaries but medical there's so much talk about Hippa you know you have to sign I don't know is there there's something that requires that we put their name on there bill you talk yeah I'm not sure what Bill we're referring to and is that in the bills list no it's in the bill in the bills list includes numerous Medicare Part B reimbursements to individuals and I agree with the counselor I mean there's probably this is very normal but I agree completely you know that when I see it I feel I feel like I'm invading somebody's privacy yeah that's what I'm saying yeah I agree I think what I can do is I can check with the see why they uh list the names and the amounts I don't believe they put like uh Council was saying the procedures that they're receiving but they but I will find out why but you see a name with a $2,000 bill and you wonder but it's a premium it's not that that's the thing this is we're reimbursing them for their Medicare premium you know that yes it is not it is not that they go to the doctor and this is okay thank you their retirement contract we are reimbursing their premium I just want that's part of their contract and part of their compensation thank you okay so there doesn't seem to questions or discussion on the bill list or should we move on anyone else have discussions or questions on the bill list councelor to okay councelor Toler thank you um I'd like to make a motion to table a particular Bill since I'd like to also speak with the council in executive session if not this meeting the next meeting uh regarding possible hearing investigation etc etc that we need to discuss first uh the vendor is CH CGH HP um there are quite a few bills or invoices that were submitted for payment and if I don't I don't feel comfortable knowing that our affordable housing trust fund is shrinking I just want to make sure that we are being cautious and protecting that fund and not overspending or utilizing the funds to pay this um so that would be there three purchase orders the vendor number is 9875 um and there three purchase orders that I would like to just table until we can have that discussion as sure the um so you just want to take out those specific items from right there's three purchase orders number 24 41 433 purchase order 2 41600 purchase order 241 889 and you're making a motion that we move those three I'll second that thank you who was the second I was thank you I ask a question anybody else yeah discussion yeah um um unfortunately I didn't note the page but there were bills for no we oh do we have to vote on that now right no no I'm sorry I thought you wanted to have um some discussion on that okay can you please do a roll call okay so this is uh on amending the bill list to strike purchase order 24160 2 41889 and 2 41433 okay thank you Deputy Mayor Anderson I can I ask a question about these purchase orders if I may yes so are these these are not for actual like the work that was done on the homes it's for their services that are due under the contract is that correct yes turn your mic on yes uhhuh okay that was my only question V oh okay um so the motion is to pull these particular items yes ma'am um then I'm going to vote no okay councelor Birmingham I'm going to abstain s okay councelor deato yes councelor lochman yes councelor Toler yes councelor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes okay the motion carries so the bill L has been amended to strike those three purchase orders that I put on the record that's we have yeah we're going to discuss those in executive session right okay okay okay yes anybody else have any questions or comments councelor lochman yeah okay um sorry I don't what page it's on these aren't pages okay so so the invoice is for Waters mcferson and McNeil it's um land use and Redevelopment attorney invoice um I don't I don't know what what what are we using this Law Firm for and maybe it's better off just do we need to discuss this there are Redevelopment attorney but what have we been we have haven't even been talking to are these like we haven't but these are prior Council these bills that prior from before you were sorry I'm turning on my mic these are these are uh for services that were incurred prior to your um in statement yeah yeah even though the dates are after our uh statement some have to yeah I don't have the particular invoices in front of me well it says July 24th those are probably the dates of the invoices they might be yeah okay the that's that's fine they usually build 30 to 60 days submit invoices 30 to 60 days after Services um they ALS they're also are Bond counsel as well oh okay it says land use though so I presume that's what that's a little bit those are bills probably for I should say not probably those are bills for uh work they did with regard to the lacana Redevelopment okay shall I continue with question yes counselor so um there's 42,000 Plus for a COA fund why are we paying into COA what is that I mean I know what COA is but why is there a $442,000 payment I I don't know they usually when we pay in the co-eds from collect collecting of uh fees for development to COA but Co COA is the Council on affordable housing so why are we paying oh I'm sorry yeah I I I should have written them written them down um I thought this was alphabetical well I don't know if anybody help me find it but so you don't know if the top believe me it's in there $42,000 for COA and I was just curious what it is we that that would come from planning so we have to you want to pull that until you get shall we pull that until we get the information about it because uh COA is pretty much disbanded and I don't know why we're paying money to them I I mean it's probably perfectly legitimate but I just like to know yeah makes sense okay and um is that a motion oh I have to make a motion yeah motion just to do you have any more that you're going to no that is that the only that was the only Co one yeah yeah is there any other items that you might want to remove so we can do it all shall I I I don't think so or ask the manager yeah mayor may I have a question about one item here yes deputed me um purchase order 24199 it's a payment for rental assistance grant in the amount of um uh 3 $372 for rental assistance program that's run through the township there's a rental assistant program that's run through the township people live in affordable housing and having trouble with their rent they can apply okay and the town will either pay the rear sometimes it pays for uh security deposits to move into another unit and not missing anything attorney I don't believe so so that's what that payment's for this money set aside for that and this is why I have concerns with the affordable TR trust housing fund that it's just diminishing when we have people that have real issues and concerns with making their own rent but that's what the program is you can Miss T runs it through the planning department okay thank you that was my question sure and so just to finish up um so I had a question there's uh you know the tree use there's a um a bill for 126,000 for uh the tree company and I'm curious we we have a million doll grant for planting trees do we still have to put uh use our own let's call it our own money to plant trees as well why don't we use part of the million dollars to plant trees in the disadvantaged areas that that's what the the grant is for yeah for a certain area it is it's for the grant is for what we call disadvantaged areas but I would imagine overburdened we overburdened yeah I would imagine that we were going to use our own money to plant trees in that area as well so why don't we just not put $126,000 and use the grant money know I'm trying to save money cuz understanding is the grant does not supplant our our Our obligation you have a very active tree removal replanting where there's a waiting list so and we haven't drawn down that money yet either so that we will be able to allocate some of that I can have I can have uh Lisa send you a memo explaining how that how it's going to work but we are actually behind so far this year and getting the trees planted um so we need to uh you know I believe we allocate in this budget is 300,000 we should 300,000 and we have 126 may may I speak I also um just just my understanding is that may the million doll Grant is not just for planting of trees and it is for specific um overburdened areas of yeah but I think that we should look at um our normal budget and if we can offset our normal budget with the money that we're getting for a grant and we you know I'm sure some of our normal budget for trees was going to go to uh overburdened areas as well so why don't we cut it and use the grant money to do the overburden I mean you drive around Montclair there's a lot of trees uh and I in certain areas so I think why don't we you know I'm trying to cut costs here because I it's over a series of years right the grant money is the trees will be planted over a series of years so if there's an overburden area that can only get 50 trees this year if you will from the grant money but they could use some additional trees I think before we cut the tree money that's allocated if you will we need to look and see what areas are going to be affected first I'm not saying we can't cut it I'm just saying we need to do a real overhaul first yeah yeah they need to do that and some of the areas that weren't considered overburdened are in need of trees yeah in need of trees as well and so if we take that out we may be hindering another area that was perhaps damaged by one of the storms or something I just think it's new information that we have this million dollars and we should take that into consideration when we think about paying $300,000 over two years for trees and you know they're pruning and I love trees it's not that but I just think you know we also need other things in town and if we can save $100,000 here and $100,000 there I think that's a good thing then we'll be able to pay for our police department and our town hall and other things that we need in town so that's the point of this discussion can I just ask a question I'm sorry is is that budget line for pruning as well as planting have to look at the I think the grant if I'm not mistaken but Lisa can perhaps we go back to our emails I thought that grant that she got for the overburden area was specifically for the fourth W DCA has a map of bur just like they did with you know with food deserts which questionable in my mind but whatever right okay just want to double check thank you it's really so I'm sorry um if the budget land that we're talking about right now the spending line includes pruning and just so you know like this week I have been uh uh con had a lot of constituent um discussions with some very very very serious issues with big Legacy trees that that need pruning including some you know some I mean it's it's it is we have a lot of shade trees on the median um and it's difficult and expensive work and I was shocked and embarrassed to discover that there was a very large shade tree two blocks from my house that was dead dead dead um and somebody sent me a picture of it and and you know that's that's $5,000 or something right there so we're going to spend the money we can look as we plan for the future when we finally get the money we can look CU it's the federal government so getting funding getting the actual grant money takes a lifetime what we can look is how we can impact on our budget going into next year okay thank you mayor I'm sorry yes um councelor Birmingham no you know what I just realized I wanted to talk about one other thing but do we need to vote on some other things we need to vote on carmel's vote unless unless other people have items that they want to have removed does anybody potentially and then we'll do them together otherwise um councelor lochman yes sorry made a motion yeah did I make a motion already okay but I'm sorry can can you identify where in this document talking for just before we vote yeah I I have to flip through it COA 40 c ah $42,000 I think that's a a reserve there's not much wording there it's all the way at the end special I think they're depositing money in our account thank you we're not giving it to that this is this is going into our fund is that going into our fund I it's deposit if you look at what it is back here what what page is it on at the very end third to last page they ring aell like done dedication by r or but I can't speak yeah okay so that is what I'm thank you for finding it yeah yeah yeah so the motion was made the motion was made and seconded so you're going to we're going to pull that and uh figure out what it is for is that correct correct mayor yes I'm going to address councelor lochman yeah okay um I'm trying to find here I do have a a memory of you making a motion I just want to make sure that I have a second on your motion second yeah Miss Co okay uh oh yes this is when Mr Burr asked if there were any others if we'll put them together is this the only one the one that Council lockman okay thank you all right that's it do you want me to call the role mayor thank you m'am okay Deputy Mayor Anderson this is a motion to strike it's near the end of the Bill's list it's referenced as reserved reserve it looks like reserve for special deposit COA in the amount of $422 3554 that's what I'm uh calling now okay Deputy Mayor Anderson uh yes councelor Birmingham no councelor deato abstain councelor lochman yes councel Toler yes councelor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes okay so the motion carried so now the bill list has been further amended to strike what I just said okay so so just so I'm clear if this is in fact a deposit which it may be yeah does our action actually impact the idea that that money would be deposited or Exempted May yeah I okay I just want to be probably the question is we don't know what it is so that's I I think like this is called the bills list but this is a lot of accounting stuff so perhaps going forward you know we just can be clear or we should just have bills rather than accounts that have deposits in them that's another point right anything else on the um Bill list that we need to discuss or should we move along did it get yeah anyone else have discussion for the bill list we finish the bill list yes Council Birmingham um sorry I apologize you go ahead take your Vote or no I'm sorry or make your comment oh okay I just have a comment on I see three um bills here from psng and I know this has been a a topic of conversation around the organization of the bills and I think we're expecting a report on some of the unpaid bills yes councelor um just looking at these I see three bills here one you know from different places in the town go going forward do we get a sense that like we'll have a handle on the bulk of like we won't be halfhazard le like oh we're paying no we we've we've been paying all the current bills we have a dispute of approximately a little over a million dollars with PSG that they say that we owe uh which I think we do owe but um uh so we're working on that I can we are I think we we've been current on the bills for almost probably about the past year we've been paying them the existing bills that's complicated as I explained before because we had been uh delinquent so when we're delinquent you may get a bill and it says $400,000 except under the reg the BPU regulations they can take that and apply it to all our oldest bills so it goes all all over the place so the next set of bills are not consistent with the previous set of bills so when you're trying to figure this out but we have not we have not all we have not located any payments to anywhere else that we can say that we paid and we're not we will get the report I've instructed them a little bit of a delay that all the information that we provided to the consultant and all the information that pscg provided to us be appendices to this so you could see all the numbers I mean this does go back um sometime we can discuss perhaps an executive session at the next meeting um the previous things that you know what are we can discuss uh what happened at my last meeting with pscg last week and just going forward again once we have this resolved does it seem like it would be a good idea almost every month or every to literally be able to say our balance PS is that is that is a condition of any settlement okay thank you okay anyone else okay we're going to um I make motion make a motion I had made a motion to accept the bill list and I second mayor seconded and now we vote okay so this is uh resolution R 24202 excuse me Madam clerk I'm sorry councelor Toler has one one other thing just one other question and I see Jo John John M Construction Group um is there going to be any more invoices coming in because I thought that door was completed from this vendor in my understanding it's complete they had to come back final one there won't be another yes okay thank you okay we'll try again um thank you madam clerk okay mayor thank you so this is resolution R 24202 the uh amended Bill list resolution Deputy Mayor Anderson yes councilor Birmingham yes councelor demato yes councelor lochman yes councelor Toller yes councelor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes okay um resolution E I mean resolution R 24203 resolution R 24203 is a resolution to amend resolution r241 197 of the township Council to in enter into a contract with Jersey Professional Management to conduct an executive search for the position of Township manager so moved I second any discussion please call the role Deputy Mayor just to clar I just wanted to get it on the record so just to clarify this is a resolution to um so basically it is to change the source that the account the account number from which the $166,000 that was previously approved is being drawn from Y and that's it yes um manager can you tell us what account that money is going to come from for that resolution for the um resolution we're talking about coming out of the May thank you very much much Madam clerk thank you mayor Deputy Mayor Anderson yes councilor Birmingham yes Council damato yes councel lochman oh yes Council Toler yes Council Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes okay okay we're going to move on to discussion items um we'll just keep keep going this way deputy item resolution one resolution number one resolution authorizing the use of competitive Contracting from consulting services in connection with the Township's Professional Services as affordable housing administrative agent Home Improvement program administrator affordable housing attorney and licensed site remediation lsrp professional I so move anyone yeah oh I'm sorry these it discussion only I forgot sorry unless unless you unless you want to unless you want to move I'm sorry it's been a it's been a long night already um but I um mayor I before I um just before the discussion I just wanted to I think it's a 1 two 3 four fifth whereas Clause I think there's a redundancy um it says licensed site remediation professional warrant a qualitative evaluation of specialized goods and services um but then after that it says warrant a qualitative evaluation of specialized goods and services so I think just the second from from the second warrant a qualitative evaluation of specialized goods and services should be struck I have a um question does that mean that we're not using competitive Contracting for these positions at this point in time cont the contract's up so now it's time to do it again what's up no this is authorizing the use of competitive contract be our first time I thought it was because can you guys speak into your mic so we can hear hear it is it the first time that we're doing the competitive Contracting as as it it appears to read or are we just up again refer to the clerk okay Madam clerk can you please answer my question okay um I'm I'm going to preface mayor with saying that I'm only answering your question based off the papers that were submitted this is a resolution submitted by the planning department uh so I've read Miss Tally's memo and I read the resolution she worked with the purchasing agent put this together and this resolution would authorize the use of competitive Contracting sometimes called like a RFP or an RFQ uh in the past I and this is based off my memory and my knowledge we have uh gone out for RFP or RFQ um for this type of service I'm not sure what exactly the benefit is to now do this officially if it changes maybe you can do the contract for longer that I don't know but this is the first time that the governing body is passing a resolution authorizing competitive Contracting for this lsrp so we have done contracts where we've hired lsrp to work at 399 Orange Road the old pyramid gas station we've done that before but not like like this this would authorize for the governing body then to let the contract this specific way I think it allows a contract up to 5 years okay thank you councelor Toler I don't think that's um thank you uh mayor would this qualify and I guess Miss tally would have to answer this or the the purchasing agent I know that the township has a New Jersey diversity inclusion program so when you go out to bid to do contracts are we making sure that we're honoring that we advertise that and we there's I mean is that included in her plan if you will because 20% for minority owned veteran owned LBGTQ own disability own women own I just want to be certain that we're honoring our own words when we're going out to solicit okay and there's proof of that in I guess the purchasing agent or Miss tally be able to supply that okay thank you purchase puring with we Council lochman okay so um first first of all I I feel like uh these uh the licensed site remediation professional that should be separated from the housing issues I thought so too I thought so right so the the first three things for Consulting affordable housing administrative agent Home Improvement affordable housing attorney so those are separate things so I feel like this should be a separate resolution for the licensed site remediation maybe the language is the same but it's implying that there's some relationship ship there and there's no no relationship there the other thing I think is that I think that the um uh what's it called the Home Improvement program should be suspended at this point there are too many questions around it what's going on with it and I feel like um we need to address those questions before we send out a requests for proposals from companies until those are resolved in my mind I I really don't want to move forward with ir a professional yet I don't know if anybody agrees with me on that but that's uh I agree with you yeah yeah I just feel like um you know I've asked questions to Miss T and you know granted she was on vacation she's not gotten back to me about the questions that I asked about the Home Improvement program and about some of the grants that have been given to a couple of I mean I know Mr damato had a question but I have about two other sites I wonder why they're included so I I really I need to have answers to those questions before I can agree to move that keep moving forward with that program because I'm I'm uncertain about what's going on with it mayor councilor deato yeah I I would agree with that but just say that um maybe the best thing to do if it's possible would be to sever these different have resolutions about the different activities it doesn't mean we can't hire the same firm to do it but that they would be separate uh B Bing processes because we may decide to alter the terms of the of the one or more the we may decide to terminate or or slow down one of the programs and you know again site remed I mean you know site remediation does seem like a different line of business and it's no great problem for us I think to have three or four resolutions in a row mayor mayor yes Deputy Mayor yeah I would agree with severing um or separating at the very least the lsrp because that seems to be for a specific property and um the other the other things are um you know for broader programs and if I if I may continue just for one second um uh I think that we may need to talk about this in executive session but there is the question of how our uh not about this particular company or anything like that nothing to but we uh the uh our affordable housing program and the way that we do it you know we'll have uh some some firms may want to really want to work with us and some may not so we we need to break this up maybe I I think I think I think this is this is one resolution to allow for all these different procurements different procurements then it's fine that's that's how I'm reading it you want do the sear I think separate them for one resolution allowing for all the different there should be four different attorney if I may and I understand what council lman is is suggesting but just so that it's clear this resolution is allowing the qpa to issue separate uh RFQ requests rfqs for each individual section that he's going so it's not saying we're we're just going to issue one uh RFQ for all of these uh entities to perform the same Services it's going to be for the attorney for you know one for the attorney right I understand what you're saying though to for clarification sake you want to see sorry if I may though but we as a as a governing body are not managing down the line of those different rfps so we may want to reserve the right to have a resolution for each of these different things over the next couple of we or months so there's there's a good there's a healthy reason for us to reserve the right to look at these as individual authorizations or our okay I mean unless it's a big burden I don't want to be a burden coun lock I I assume I'm sorry just because Council de just asked me a question I assume it was done for you know to efficiency just do it in one resolution as opposed to separate resolutions so I I just wanted to explain my why I'm a little concerned about the um the housing program the Monclair affordable what what's it called Home Improvement program okay so we looked at numbers that um defined what properties go into our account for affordable housing units right and a good number of those are homec properties okay homecore home car is a private company privately funded yet we use their count to go into our numbers for to meet the uh the state requirements for affordable housing if we weren't using those numbers we could would should we would we have a different affordable housing requirement I don't know but that's one point I just that's and it's a question I've asked Janice about and the second point is we have X number of dollars in a fund that's supposed to rehabilitate affordable housing units we have home Corp which basically was going down the tubes and is still not doing very well and yet we give them no money and we use their count in our you know in our processes but we don't fund them at all and we have a fund that is designed to help you with affordable housing units I have no idea why we don't support affordable housing um that home Corp provides so that was a question I raised with Janice and still you know she was on vacation I'm not saying anything about that but I would really like to know those answers before we approve or it looks like we're approving or looking to go out to a uh a company to provide the the services for this morage this Home Improvement program well stated well I just want people to know I'm I'm not against the program I just think there's other questions behind it that I need answer I said well yeah I I agree with you you know 2009 we had over $4 million in the affordable housing trust fund 2012 something changed in whether it's the state law and then we changed the ordinance here if you will but now we're under $2 million and it's just where's this money going if it's not helping those people if you will can I can I just chime in on two things I'm not maner I'm not an expert on affordable housing but I think the calculation on an affordable housing is there's two different things you've been provided with information about how many units we have funded that's different from our Statewide obligation is to Affordable hous pretty familiar with this yeah right so that's two different things right so we're not and the other one in terms of this home Corp um I think there were issues as to why we couldn't use them for the time being um that are internal to them yeah and I think some of those issues arose from the fact that we don't help them at all MH no I don't you know I was on the board briefly in homec cor right before they I just couldn't stay on the board because I felt like who this company is going down the tubes practically and I can't look when you're on the board you're expected to raise money I couldn't look my friends in the eye and say can you please give more money to homec because it looks like it's failing so anyway so my par un at that point I'm just saying I just want to make sure on those two right Soh and we can pull the resolution and come back with four separate ones and you can decide what you're going to do okay mayor if I may I just want to make sure that I understand so for the meeting of the 24th of September discussion item number one it was the governing body came to a general consensus that this resolution authorizing competitive Contracting each profession will be on its own resolution so you will have a total of four yes yes okay thank you thank you I'm sorry but are you are you suggesting that all of these resolutions will be on um September 24th that's how it's listed right now on the agenda all those discussion items at the next meeting they'll be listed for consent I'm not sure that we'll be ready yet to yeah we will not have all the information not be ready by September 24th for which one well anything to do with affordable housing I think okay yeah so do you want to table that discussion item yeah and send an email when we're ready to bring it back we let the manager know when we want the clerk yeah we want to put it back on the I'm sorry we'll send an email to the manager or the clerk when we're ready to put it back on the agenda it's practice and uh the current agent is in place until the end of the year correct correct and I know that Mr Morgan who's the housing um is he a housing director housing officer officer I'm sorry he's currently going through the process now of application so it's not like the township is losing out on getting people into affordable housing units he's doing the work right now there are no units mayor I have a question may I have a I have a question though that affects this so the affordable housing attorney that particular role um what is what's the function of that position because I don't really feel like that has anything to do with the the um Home Improvement program or afford you know the administrative I believe it's all interconnected and remember this is for going forward so we would award for next year so I I recommend that we pull this for now okay and not do any of them until the mayor and Council decide what they how they want to move forward with the program and we can we have time to come back to you and have a procurement for those reasons okay so it's not it's not a rush to get an affordable housing attorney that's that was what I was asking so the discussion item number one um just yes one of them is the lsrp 99 for 399 Orange Road we pulling that too or you want that on no I thought we were going to go ahead with that one maybe that can go that's what I want to just make clear mayor if I may on the meeting of September 24 discussion item number one was slated to be a consent agenda item now I'm hearing that we're we're making this one resolution into four because each resolution is for a different profession you have the affordable housing administrative agent the Home Improvement program administrator the affordable housing attorney and the lsrp license site remediation professional those are the four professions are we not having this on the next agenda or are we just taking some of the professionals and not addressing it I'd like to keep the lsrp on the um next agenda unless somebody is very strongly oppos okay with that but at the last housing um when Janice presented her uh Miss tally presented her housing report um for 399 you know I had some concerns that whether or not they had made contact with the residents that live there I'm not saying we can't go ahead and move forward with this mediate remediation process to give them the bid if you will um but I just want to ensure that she's reached out to those families to ensure that they know something's coming yeah um and and I personally um began the process too of going through there and um myself and um fire Chief Antonio Gary will be continuing throughout the street very good very good thank you I I don't have an issue with um yeah leaving the LSR I I think that should move forward my only question was regards to the affordable housing attorney um is that a separate is that separate and apart from the um from the Improvement Home Improvement program and I mean I'm just asking do we need need that position filled before the for you know the affordable housing program just to add to her question have we ever had an affordable housing attorney yeah who is the affordable housing who is the affordable housing the memo said that the anybody else does the the memo says that the Township's former affordable housing attorney has retired yes so who is that who was that who was that yeah I'm you know we don't know I would com having that next time there's no next time there's no there's no urgency clearly no but I'm saying yeah maybe we can have two of them on next on the agenda for the 24th so the lsrp the lsrp and the attorney these are not and then the other the other the program administrator and then the Home Improvement program can we can PT it off it seems to make sense to me to keep all the affordable housing stuff together which includes the attorney okay okay I agree okay so um moving on Madam clerk did we answer your question I just want to make sure we did mayor I'm going to address councelor toer I I believe I understand councelor toer that the only resolution that's going to be on the next agenda is authorizing competitive Contracting for the life site remediation professional thank you yes thank thank you okay resolution rejecting and bid proposals received for removal and disposal of vegetative waste bid 24-13 pursuant to njsa 4A 11-13 do2 D any discussion sub no we're not moving um number three councelor Toller scpt uh resolution authorizing execution of fair and open contract with CME CME Associates for license site remediation professional lsrp associated with incident 23- 06- 01-1 are we allowed to know what the incident was or what it is or should be or could be will be yeah that the police department I think it's tank removal when I read it it sounds like they have a a well that's dug there already and they must have had some leeching of uh some kind of chemical that was uncovered and so they have to do a little investigation thank you it's it's the uh potential abandon abandoning a place of a 550 gallon underground storage tank a tank excuse me exactly where it is it's an underground storage yes um Council yeah I think it's like a let it was leted gasoline or something full of that but this $40,000 from what I can tell it does not actually remove the tank right just invr state so all of the removal but no but then we'll be paying for the removal okay number four I don't option um number five four resolution awarding Affair resolution awarding aair and open contract to PMC Associates for purchase of new new handheld radios for the police department pursuant to NJ State Contractor uh number 8390 councilor Williams so L Lieutenant I don't want to what's your his last name um barard barard Dean barard he was excellent in answering a lot of my questions I I still have questions I I think we have what 112 police officers yes no around there okay this order is for through 25 uh and the only reason I don't want to nickel and dime or anything like that but each unit is extremely expensive um the Prices range from 3600 per unit to 4,700 per unit and you know councilman laughman and and I both had kind of similar questions about sharing and stuff considering police officers aren't going to be all on duty at the same time I don't know maybe for a safety reason or something like that maybe I I can back up and see why we need all of these uh units here I just think I I still think it's really expensive uh well we as this membo said we and I we were I was part of these discussions that we they Sunset what we were using before so then they wanted to sell us their new uh system which was almost a million dollar they went out found this other system they had extensive testing and I think what happens here with the radios is they all have the radios and they take them home and they bring them in there's different shifts so logistically the ability to share and switch and how you would do that and who's responsible I think that they allocate these they have some spares and that's how they view this as working the most efficiently so and they went out and it's you know half the cost of what the original one was so councilor Birmingham and just to be clear the are being paid from a capital budget so the useful life would be expected to be at least 5 years right um and then my other question is about um just in general and again I'm not sure if the right people are here to answer this but in terms of just the communication my understanding is that the police are on the state um wavelength or whatever the frequency they're they're using a service from the state and the fire department and perhaps maybe it's I'm not sure if it's Public Works we're paying Motorola and I think it was like $1.3 Million last year that was paid and my question is one are all of these radios then compatible with each other and and also with like the St the county and the state and to I I noticed I was looking up other towns and it seems like other towns maybe they're all moving to this state and I'm just wondering if that's a ask question mayor council Williams councilman bman you you touched on the question that I had but then it slipped out of my head very quickly you know just in the future there's nothing we can do about it right now but it it just seems like last year we just bought all this equipment for the fire department this year we're going to buy all this equipment for the police department just seems like there should be a coordination of efforts in terms of of you know buying all this equipment at one time and that way we can ensure that everybody has the same thing it's on the same timeline and and probably there's some sort of cost savings that can be gleaned from combining them all you know just nothing to do about it right now but just in the future I agree and may Council lockman and just to follow up on that why don't we coordinate efforts with the county and all buy radios as needed together you know I don't believe we're on the same frequency is the counties is but shouldn't we be if there were some kind of Regal would we are not in the same frequency uh monair police and fire department they have their own separate frequency are we on the same frequency with the other towns around us no each Police Department have their own frequency they all assign M Police Department is with the state same as the fire department is uh now is with the state parking utility is also with the state and because parking uh utility they do carry radio um so they are part of the state and then um last time the police department was radio refreshment was back in 2015 beginning of 2015 and then um so now it's more than 5 years that they need their radio replacement well not arguing about that I'm just saying do we look to coordinate our effort and our cost with our neighbors in the county and and why are why not wouldn't that make sense I mean I don't know enough about it you know we can have Lieutenant parity come here and answer all your questions I'm sure he'd be happy to cuz I'm also curious sorry mayor I I'm just also curious around when you say that towns are on different frequencies and how towns and the county can communicate with each other given we were talking about you know regionalization and how important it is for people to be able to communicate so I I would just again like to get a picture of how this all works and fits together I think a radio can have multiple frequenc I mean they they probably yeah no I they talk to each other it's just that they're not yeah and I was uh spent some time at the at the police headquarters this week which was amazing and wonderful we have a great team we really do um but people should know that uh they are bringing back dispatch to the police headquarters it had been at the fire station so they're in the process of a big thoughtful um um trans uh uh upgrading let's say of their system and they moved it I believe so this may be mixing in with that and there certainly it's top of mind but just again like West Essex is getting $4 million from Mikey Cheryl for regionalization of their dispatch so it's just again thinking Monclair is very unique but we can where do she live anyway we can you know work with other towns too so which is not at all a comment on what's going on I just want to understand the picture oh it's my turn so number five um resolution awarding a fair and open contact to Winter Ford of Cherry Hill to purchase utility trucks for Township Water and Sewer utilities department bid 24/14 there is not there is not an electric version of these trucks as a designated pain and scold for making everything electric uh I Mr Prim Vera who's in the audience and is it deserves a round of applause for staying all night also wrote an excellent memo with lots of math explaining why in this one particular case um you know we have to rely on the try and true and I just want to thank you so much for for literally going the extra mile okay number five resolution number five number six six number six yeah so this um this is a resolution regarding the governing body certification of the annual audit for the year ending December 31st 2023 good number seven number seven I I would just urge everybody before next meeting to review the bud and the specific sorry May in these specific Parts because we had this problem last year where we went to vote and then somebody said they hadn't looked at it but it's very specific on what you the minimum you have to review and you'll sign statut dead right no I'm talking about last year someone said they to doing it we have to vote on the resolution yeah thank you manager number seven number seven resolution requesting approval of items of Revenue and appropriation pursuant to njsa 40a 4 through 87 4 87- 87 sorry anyone number eight oh I'm sorry I'm sorry councelor Birmingham um just a question on that so it was something like $435,000 some somewhere in the 400s um is that money earmarked for something like or is we're approving it is it going someplace that this is this this is just so we can amend our budget to receive the grant right we do have two contracts with different um Paul D remember I'm Council remember who the two contracts are with the health department work with the police department so we do have two contracts where we do provide services in the community for families and people in need of treatment Etc okay but when that so is this going to be money received over several years or is it a one-time settlement I believe this is now that's how these right yes this is for this year this is a one time settlement and thenen just just following on that that this like receiving this money is not committing us going forward to like we won't be paying salaries if once this money is gone or is that you know what I'm saying like that's not it's not for step it's for equip not for State specific and we did receive a I got an email today for one of the big consulting firms I can't remember which one who was sued on the whole in the whole opioid uh litigation that we're going to get an additional 30 or $35,000 as part of that settlement okay and I'm just again speaking out of maybe a little bit out of order but I think we could consider the moner ambulance unit which is really on the front lines of the opioid as a capital expense again which is often good I do believe they get this part okay okay but like to I know they need a new ambulance or they so okay thank you okay so that's me number eight okay um resolution authorizing execution of fair and open contract with Barbo Landscaping Inc for Township 20 24 fall tree planting bid 24-16 number nine I'm sorry oh I'm sorry I have councelor Williams sorry first you say so I had a question on this one uh just because looking at the proposals here and it seems that the person that we're going to give excuse me the firm that we're going to give the contract to they're planning on planting 2 and 1/2t trees is what I s here so it just sounds odd and you know just if I could somebody could just I I'll look into that because it just seems odd I I think normally they're they're planting oh but maybe they're talking about this the of it I I hope I hope they are I hope they are there you go bonsai trees it was my intent to start with I think I that I shall never see but after councelor damato quoting Game of Thrones I figured I'd take a pass it's it's a diameter yeah probably yeah the B um I have a question too so I think um maybe for I know that I've been getting a lot of questions from residents about you know like requests to plant trees on their block so I think it would be really good to to know where these trees are going to be planted okay I will get that information from thank for you I mean I will tell you that I I have had at least four trees planted around my house because I requested I just would talk to the tree people and say Hey can I have some trees this is over time it wasn't four trees and one Fell Swoop so I would tell constituents just I forget who they would write to maybe Michael you and say I want a tree in front of my house and it's happened for me anyway but just if there is a plan um it looks like there's a plan for fall planting um it would just be good to be able to share information about where they're they're being planted a little bit more and do they do they plan on um County streets if the M clear residents are on County streets would they put a tree in front of them or would they have to go to the county to get a tree that's a question all right just ask uh res did do we know oh okay next uh number 10 resolution authorizing Amendment to the contract to the TLP climate control system incorporation um I'm sorry resolution number nine pull that back authorizing execution of fair and open contract for environmental renewal LLC for Township leaf removal services bid 24-17 number 10 resolution authorizing Amendment to the contract to TLP climate Systems Inc for Township HVAC maintenance and repair service provider bid 2108 counselor this was the one that I that I keep on flagging here just because you know it started at 60 and then went to 80 then 110 you know it got approved I think in January by the previous Council for 60,000 and then in July we approved it to take it to 80 and now we're approving a further increase to take it 110 I just I just have a problem with that I I don't know what the original contract ra really covered but it just seems odd that we just approve the previous Council approved it for 60,000 in January 7 months later for a further increase and then a couple of months after that another increase after that it it just doesn't either either the scope of the job wasn't correctly spelled out the first time or you know I I don't know you know if this is a under bidding situ and this isn't an under bidding situ this is a contract that's been in place and then we renew it and it's normally for $60,000 every year constant constant repairs that we're making to older equipment and when it breaks down it breaks down and we have to fix it so that's that's where we are if I may I was on the roof while they were working on it yesterday and they're definitely working on it I mean like people are working on not not this bill I mean not this thing but that those uh at the police department they're they have very very old um HVAC systems and are squeezing as much life out of them as they can so Ju Just one one last thing it I'm I'm pretty sure that they're doing the work the the issue is is you know when we're Contracting out the work when we're writing up the scope here if we're including everything I I just think it was kind of add oh yeah we need to fix the police department it's like that wasn't included in the over overall job from the beginning that that's all I'm saying I think yeah that's what I was going to ask is there a way that we the council um and maybe you can answer this or Lola um again the the scope of the work if the qualified purchasing agent is putting these out to bids what is the language that she's using do we have authority if you will to ensure that certain language or additional language is included when she's putting things out to bid I don't I don't I I lost you there well the scope of work this this was a bid that went out for this contract correct so she had to put it out in the paper and do yeah it's it's a Mr daos I think what it is is they look at the experience from the last year the year before right so we when you're making the budget you have to make a decision you can budget for worst case like you could say okay the last two or three years we spent $60 or $80,000 it could break down maybe four years ago it was $100,000 so you in your budget for these things you put an amount in right and you don't calculate for worst casee scenario you put the money in and say in the event there is it does break down we can transfer money so it's not a question of they're they're not bidding it it's we anticipate this is what the cost would be but if the system breaks down for example whether it's air conditioning it broke down here uh what twice this summer yep and uh it's just like our elevator every time it rains it breaks so it's just a question of we estimate what we think it's going to cost for the year and we can't anticipate when it's going to have a I don't think anybody can anticipate you know what it would be but I'm saying what parameters can we put in place what buffers can we put in place to ensure that this over spending if you will doesn't happen What language can be put into something it's not I I don't I'm not arguing I'm just saying I wouldn't call it overspending because you know we can we can have a basic contract and nothing breaks down in the course of the year or we could have it where air conditioning sister here system here is broken down multiple times Police Headquarters breaks down multiple times because the systems are old and we've made a decision not to spend a million dollars to replace the entire system when it happens it happens sometimes those repairs could be 10,000 sometimes they could be 20,000 coun Birmingham you know and so just I think we talked about having the um purchasing agent would be great but my when I read the like the bid that was placed my sense is that they're bidding like these are the costs of our services like per hour or whatever and not like on a $60,000 project so like it's like they're bidding we accept their bid as like per hour and then we we allocate $60,000 thinking that that might be what we need and then we turned out to have given that our buildings are so old and whatever okay so that cuz that's what I'm just trying to figure out here is that they're giving us their rates we find their rates AC acceptable and then okay okay it's it's like an authorization and I'm telling you I was there and they have a system they're also going into the walls and looking and finding things it's a very old you know the police building is very very old and they have a condenser that was spilling water and it wasn't condensate it was water from a line I mean it's we have to budget a lot I mayor I think it's just um I I get I I thank you for um Eileen for your um commentary I just I think for me it was just a matter of just making sure that it's not due to a lack of coordination or anything like that these we did talk earlier about having the uh our our our qpa come in and make a presentation on like he asked earlier about you know what he asked the audits about the bid you know what's 44,000 what are the cutof offs what you can do what's a professional service so we can come in and give a presentation on that so you are more familiar on how all of this works what has to be a competitive bid what does not how you handle Professional Services like lawyers what if it's less than a certain amount of money you know so we can um uh I'm sorry I said no before uh so we'll have him come in in the next few weeks these are very good okay um number 11 resolution authorizing personto person transfer of alcoholic beverage PL plenary retail consumption license number 0713 3322 d008 from Essex Restaurant Group LLC to CLA mezanine LLC any discussion number 12 I had a question no is um so that's going to Mr Grabowski what's he going to do with is this a pocket license again I think he I think he's mic on I think he's doing some sort of venue on the second floor the clar theater okay thank you that would make sense okay so I'll go 12 okay number 12 an or an ordinance to amend section 327 vehicles and traffic of the code of mon of the township of Monclair New Jersey so this is a multi-stop um intersections okay good 13 just one one comment on that so I saw somebody was wondering because they there used to be a speed bump there right so this is going to replace that I think there used to be like a okay okay yeah I actually I went over there the other night on my bicycle and uh talked to people on the corner I waited around and talk to some uh some residents and it was interesting uh because uh um Everybody people had different opinion about the speed bump some people liked it most people didn't and uh and they were they were very curious and this was this sort of new and interesting thing nobody myself included understood that there had been a it had been changed I guess it is now a temporary four-way and so we were all sitting around going why did they remove the hump the bump but in reality we didn't realize that it was because they put up stop signs and they bumped out the curb so they notice that well you know you for sure notice it you have to just go buy it and go buy the one on the rain what said they didn't notice no they noticed the stop sign they don't remember that there wasn't a stop sign before okay number3 yeah okay last one I think on the last those two the the engineers asked if you could introduce those ordinances tonight so we can have the public hearings in two weeks so that we can get these things done yeah that's your prerogative whether or not you want to introduce it now and have the speed yeah both number 12 and number 13 or we can do it on the 24th then it could be the public hearing and adoption could be the first meeting in October so they they feel like there's somewhat of urgency of of getting these things done once you get these approvals and the second with the county it's like let's I mean I don't think we have problem with that let's just do it we have the approval from the county um but we it doesn't go into effect until you adopt the ordinance uhuh so this is our first reading then is that what you're trying to yeah I don't mind approving this but I do have a question about when and if and maybe I'm just going to put this on the record uh for vision zero and our own Township to do some looking in the fourth W Maple Avenue and Elmwood Pleasant Avenue and Hilltop those are speed tracks Lincoln Lincoln and maple you know I understand this is an urgency for the entire Valley Road but I'm just going on record that I would like to either meet with whomever put this together so we can have some real discussions about some of the major major problems in the fourth W with traffic and we too could use a 20 25 M hour on some of our streets yeah my question was kind of related yeah my question was related it seems It's not enforced there's speed bumps there we don't have enough crosswalks you got a major school there you've got two daycare centers the streets are tight we we need some assistance down there anyway just to um my question was this is talking about Valley Road but Valley Road I in my view runs into Orange Road so is this not talking about changing the speed limit in Orange Road as well is it just Valley this is for Valley but it just curves around and then becomes right so why wouldn't you also include is it5 all municip most Valley is to municip municipal or okay so I'd like to make a motion um that we have a ordinance to amend section 327 of the code of the township of mon CLE New Jersey mult multi-way stop intersection between Park Street and Alexander avue Vue is there a second second um roll call please Deputy Mayor Anderson yes Council Birmingham yes councelor deato yes councilor lochman yes councelor Toler yes councelor Williams yes mayor Baskerville yes okay motion for 13 please yeah um number 13 ordinance to amend Section 3 3 27-11 speed limits of the code of the township of Montclair New Jersey um to establish a 25 M hour speed limit on Valley Road within the township nice so second all in favor I any opposed I carried okay so we're going to take a f minute break and then we're going to um excuse oursel from the public and go into executive session and we move into executive session now and we'll take our five minute break okay so we're going to move into ex session now and then we're going to take our five minute break thank you for coming want make just for closure to make sure no one has right to go into executive session I'm sorry who's the second on the motion to go into executive session me okay thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay so at this point timec m thank you good evening we're going to return to the council meeting at this time and um we're going to have good of the order we're going to start with councelor Toller uh thank you mayor barille um are we going to make a motion this evening or do would like to hold that to the next meeting for these appointments so which appointments are we talking about Early Childhood so you had recommended Miss Troutman yes and but two other people who are currently on the board want to be re reup correct and that would be jam sus wine and Dylan Walsh correct and is there any reason that you know why those people should not be reappointed not at all so um I personally believe that if people have serving on a board the board is doing well that there's no reason to knock them out and I personally know James swine and she's a wonderful person I don't know Dylan Walsh right and I think they've done work on the the um commission mecc so I for one would not be in favor of replacing them with somebody else at this point there may be I mean I don't know what the terms of the other people on the uh the board are if some of those people are coming off next year or maybe later this year the reason I brought this up is because per the information the clerk sent us a while back about vacancies there was one seat available oh so is there one seat or is it just yeah three seats I thought there was just two there were just the memo that we received did have two people I'm fine with Jane um when we got the updates from the clerk in the very beginning back in July it said it was one seat available oh so which is it there are two seats that are Council appointments governing body appointments to the mecc the group is made up where part of the appointments come from the Board of Education and part of them come from the governing body so at this time there are only two vacancies for governing body appointments and does that and they're three individuals correct well let me just finish does that does that include uh those two seats to be could they be filled by the people who are currently on the board the holdovers or are they two separate seats the the two seats are the holdovers so the mecc they made contact and they asked that the governing body reappoint these people as far as I know these people are still attending meetings so that's why they use the term holdover so we have no ability to appoint a new person if we want to appoint the holdovers I don't understand it to be that way uh but it is the governing body at your discretion you fill those two seats but the board is asking that the two seats be filled by the holdovers I'd like to um suggest that we let the three people if there are only two appointments come in because I also know U Miss chman and I think she'd be an amazing person I know Jane sus wine very well and and I'm very familiar with her I'm not um as familiar with the third person that was on that list and so uh I wouldn't just say because people are there then therefore I would personally think that that they would be better than anyone else so I think it would make sense for me anyway to to hear from the three of them and make a decision after I learned more if the rest of the council's not interested in hearing from them I would ask please that I'd be given a time period maybe until the next meeting to go and meet the other person that I don't know and then I'll be able to have a little bit more um understanding about what I'm voting on I believe that Dylan Walsh was that who you don't know yeah um I'm okay with Jane sus I'm familiar with the family um I believe that Miss tropman would be excellent candidate for this seat based on her background and her experience uh I'm not familiar with Dylan but if the mayor would like to hold this over and meet with Excuse me all three and then come back with the decision I'm fine with that as well as I said I kind of like the IDE I just want to make sure that we have adequate diversity on these commissions and Boards um yeah I I I respect that the board actually made the recommendations um for the two individuals who are on but I would like to um get a little more information about uh the you know the candidates um I I I I think I I saw Miss troutman's resume I think it's really strong I just want to know a little bit more about Mr Walsh and um this s fine Council I I agree I'm not prepared to vote I would prefer not to vote right now uh likewise same not prepared to PO right now okay so um I would like to suggest that we invite them in and let them talk to us a little bit about you know what they've done what they think they're contributing and see what we think so all great and it really works well when we've done it in the past it wasn't it was just you know and people actually were even the other people that were trying to get the seats were seemingly interested in hearing the other people too so is there any objection to inviting them in and of course if they say no you know I don't want to come in but okay I would like to do that I'm sorry but then you had two more right yeah uh Stacy Dunham would like to she put in a volunteer form for Parks and Recreation uh like for the council to consider her for that position I believe there five seats available there plenty of seats right for Parks and Recreation so if the council could entertain that that would be appreciative um Kyle parro uh put in an application as well he's interested in either landlord tenant advisory committee which desperately needs some additional seats people to fill those seats or either the environmental commission um his paperwork has been shared with everyone I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Stacy Dunham to the park and recreation advisory commission they have quite a few vacancies I second that can I just ask a question of process um none of this was on the agenda correct correct okay I like I I guess I this is not I this is not at all a commentary on the people and and I really appreciate you keeping us on track get the appointments done I just in terms of not having you know this is not on the agenda is do we need to do this tonight um rather than putting it on the agenda I I just want to put it out there that again this is not at all I like related to it's just it's just a a process question for everyone whether it's like we need do we need to do it now and I will vote you know what I I mean I'm going to be voting and I so I don't know should we just do it now or do we wait that's my question yeah I I will um how do I resend my my motion okay just like I respect the process and I thank you for reminding us of that um I think it's very important we've never actually discussed the process for appointing people to um to committees and whatever how we're going to do them and it has been in in my mind also somewhat halfhazard somebody will come up with a name and say I really like this person and talk to three people and then come back and they'll have four people and they'll vote and then people get there so I I do like the fact that we you know first discuss what that process is going to be and then adhere to that so thank you for the reminder mayor may I just ask the clerk a question um and thank you I agree uh to follow the process in the meantime um would you be able to send us any new on volunteer interest forms that that we may have received since the last time yes anything else go to the order um councelor Toler okay councelor Williams Oh councelor Toler oh speech well now now would be the time Council Toler no coun I se I seat my time to counselor toer okay to no this is it I'm not coming back no problem okay so just wanted to share with the community a few upcoming uh events happening in town on Wednesday September 11th at 600 p.m. is a small business meet and greet at the Walnut train station uh Thursday September 12th from 5: to 8: is the friends of the how house art sale at birkshire hathway uh right here on Bloomfield Avenue in Mont Clair of course we know the Jaz festivals coming up this weekend uh Tuesday September 17th I'll be hosting a fourth War community meeting at the mon fire department at 6 o00 uh Saturday September 21st there's a St Mark's Fall Festival on Elm Street from 10: to 4: please come out and enjoy the fall activities and vendors um October 4th the NAACP mon cleair Branch will be hosting their annual third Good Marshall Freedom fund dinner and awards ceremony their guest speaker is youf Salam if you're interested in purchasing tickets Please visit the NAACP website and of course Saturday October 5th is the Montclair fire department blog party at Nishan everyone's invited to this free event um next I would like to extend my uh appreciation to the young black fathers Organization for organizing the sixth annual kickball game and backpack giveaway at Glenfield Park along with other sponsor sponsors who participated like reaching out Montclair uh it was a fantastic day I look forward to seeing even more community members at the seventh annual event um I just wanted to thank our CFO majja Ral and our Township manager Mr Lola for swiftly processing the check needed for the bouncy house that was sponsored by this Council so thank you for that uh congratulations are in order to the most recent historic preservation committee commission awardees I won't go through the list but they are posted I believe on our Township website um just want to give an additional congratulations to Jessica and S Kofa coffee which open had their grand opening at 319 Orange Road in the South End if you haven't been there to get your coffee please stop by it won't disappoint um I wanted to for the record to let the council and the community know that um the Township's affirmative action binder which was dated in 20 16 is currently undergoing revisions and updates by our human resource department and Mr and the township manager's office um I appreciate the team's efforts in addressing my request and um eagerly anticipate the new binder's release um I just wanted to thank the community members who have already submitted volunteer interest forms for various Township committees and commissions I'm thrilled to see so many residents eager to get involved and contribute their expertise knowledge and time to support our community um very excited for those that are really willing to help us move this process along here as Council um the last thing that I wanted to say is um I wanted to express my gratitude to the numerous residents who have contacted me through email regarding their issues or concerns in the fourth W Ward I just want to remind the residents that while I am one person with a single vote please understand that I committed to diligently working in your best interest to find the most effective resolution for your concerns I'm here to advocate for you and I will continue to do so thank you for this time Council Williams that was excellent so just a couple of uh advisements uh to anybody that's still watching this uh the town homepage confirm that there's a way for you to get a request or a complaint or whatever you have to the right person with 205 to deal with it and it's on the town homepage and it says request info you can fill it out there and it'll go to where it where it needs to go if you have some sort of issue and it's just helpful for us because I found out also that we can compile that data all of us can get access to the app and we can see the data and we can see what type of complaints and things and that nature are coming in and we can kind of put together kind of a robust plan to maybe deal with with these sorts of issues in in the future and that's that's really it uh at some point I'll have a another town hall uh potentially in December and that is it for me deut mayor sure thank you um I have just a few few updates and um some announcements and I'll try to be quick because it's really late um just wanted to give a quick update on the town manager search um I want to thank um Mr burrr the um Town attorney and the legal department for swiftly getting documentation and um the draft contract out um to JPM um and all your assistance I understand the contract has been now executed um as of today and so um you know um the next steps will be moving forward um also wanted to just mention that just because a couple of people I heard at least a couple of people today during public comment just you know some um confusion around public comment and um agenda and so um I just wanted to share that um uh myself and my Council colleagues have been working on a um a process a procedure for agenda creation um and the the purpose is to make it more transparent um and participatory for everyone um and to make the process a lot smoother um for the staff and um and the council and um and the public so um we're hoping to get that Implement implemented in time for the you know in preparation for the next meeting um and uh just in announcements wise um I wanted to just say a big thank you to Sophia who um that organization that had its 14th annual walk um to bring awareness and support to victims and survivors of domestic violence it was on Saturday and uh myself and mayor Baskerville were in attendance and it was is a really wonderful event um a big turnout and kentberry Park um it was really inspiring and meaningful to be there um and thank you to Cynthia Walker who's um who's uh been heading up Sophia for many many years um and let's see councelor toer already mentioned the jazz festival uh there are other um small business meet and greets um the 11th the 12th the 18th the 19th and the 25th um information hours and locations are all on the town website so please if you're a small business owner um be sure to check it out and and um and come out and and share your thoughts and ideas and I think that's it for now thank you councelor lochman I'm sorry sleeping I don't really have a whole lot to say there the Walnut Street um fair is um on September 29th which should be a whole lot of fun hopefully the weather will cooperate and uh that's about it for me councilor Birmingham thank you mayor um very briefly because of the late hour I I will be holding a community meeting award to community meeting on Thursday um at 700 p.m. in Edgemont Park um house um I look forward to seeing people there and um I also want to wish everyone um a happy school year this year I know everybody's back to school um and otherwise I think given the hour I think that's all I'm going to say tonight councilor deato thank you mayor um since I've been such a smarty pants tonight I will say something uh silly and bad about myself which is that uh that ordinance that earlier today I had an exchange with a constituent about Valley Road and they were wondering why we can't have a lower speed limit or you know have better traffic on there and I I said I'm going to look into it for sure and went this whole long thing and of course it was on our agenda and yeah you can laugh and you know I laughed at myself about it and this was partly me obviously being a blockhead but also it's just because we're overloaded with things I had read uh I had just um I had read our agenda when it came in in print ahead of you know earlier than it ever has um and uh probably so it away in my head and then as we were going into this meeting was you know sort of drowned in lots of changes that forced me to do a lot of other looking at the top of the the top of the agenda and worrying about the process so again it's mostly on me but I think it was another wakeup call that we should really be trying to make a a regularized system for everybody's benefit so I'm not wasting people's time uh you know uh um writing emails that say things like that now all that said there was a happy ending uh we you know we'll learn stuff uh and uh that was a huge change that we just made um a huge and surprising change on Valley Road uh it maybe wasn't great that an ordinance was passed like that you know uh so swiftly but this will be an amazing change um uh it is a it is a terrifying Road and I mean it is sort of the key main artery of of our town up there and you know sort of most importantly and I live very nearby and I have a kid that runs around you know and doesn't always pay attention but to really bring it home to us why changing that road and making it safer uh is so important is that my opponent in this election who I like very much last year was hit by a car almost exactly at the location of the resident who rode in so it's all sort of tying together but again I am feeling very overwhelmed with a lot of stuff that changes and it would be good to have a process that was a little that was a little Slicker and that would help us all out and then finally I would just also say that I am having uh a town meeting next Tuesday September 17th at 8:00 pm so it's a late one at the Belleview uh Avenue Branch Library uh where we can talk about problems or or give ideas hopefully or if you want you can just come and yell at me like you do here um there's also a Township event for small businesses for the First Ward which will be also in front of the branch two days later on Tuesday the 19th and then we have a a weekend that's very big for for the First Ward which is the upper Monclair sidewalk sale on the 21st I want to thank the manager for helping out with this one uh that same day there's the rose Square art show in Anderson Park um which is which is a lot of fun to walk around and actually buy some stuff and then the following day I'm looking forward to an event in yanako Brook Park um uh where there's there'll be some fun things and hopefully I will not be killed and eaten by the geese which if you haven't seen over there the geese are really something else so that's it for me mayor I'm so I'm so sorry can I just say one thing September 12th I'm having my community meeting and before that you can come to the watang small business meeting in watchong Plaza at War I so I just wanted to add that what time is that it's at 6: p.m. so yeah 600 to 7:30 7:30 thank you sorry okay um I I have a um question I guess for the manager based on the um ordinance about the speed limit on Valley Road so in about 2012 or somewhere during that time year the council passed was it a resolution we passed or was it an ordinance because we declared at that time that speed limit all over Mount Clair was going to be 25 miles an hour then they found out that there were some um County Roads that had not been the speed limit changed and I thought they did that and because they were making you know big headlines about how they slowed the the traffic down and so now what is I'm I'm trying to figure out what happened to Valley Road and and all of the efforts before this to make all of the roads that were 25 miles an hour or or it was done by ordinance just so that you right that's what I thought but then he amendments to the the amendments to the code are generally done by ordinance right um the prior Council set most of all of the municip ible owned roads in Monclair to 25 mph no it wasn't the prior it was the council before cuz I was sitting on there when I did that I know we had some ordinances that made some of the uh reduced some of the uh speed limits to 25 I believe there's also some um limits that were reduced at school zone yeah the school zones of course are so what happens is any road that's a County Road I thereof has to be uh Changed by County Changed by the county so we can make the recommendation to change it and then the county has to take up that um spearhead that movement to change the portion of the road that is deemed a County Road and I think part of Valley Road is considered County Road just like part of Upper Mountain Avenue is considered a county road so they only I believe the county has decided that the portions of Valley Road that are County should be changed to 20 reduced to I get that but but they but under the last Council there was a portion of I believe Upper Mountain at that time so did they not get all of the county roads I do not believe yeah they did not I do not believe we certain of that because I thought that that was I do not believe all of Upper Mountain Avenue has been reduced no all of Upper Mountain isn't but I know that they did they did have have the speed limit Chang by the county in the conversation with the county road I thought they were doing all County Roads at that time they didn't requ study traffic study okay very okay so are there any other County Roads and I guess you know we should all be thinking about this now in our Township that have not been done already and should they start the studies because you know is that orang h Orange Road is that yeah Orange Road I I believe part you know gr street is is still at 30 miles hour well it's just something to think about because I keep thinking that we've accomplished that yeah no okay all right okay so I um earlier I mentioned when um Mr tcio was in here that the um meeting was at 4:30 the meeting is actually at 6:00 pm and it is in for the Hispanic Heritage Month in nework and everyone's welcome and it is in the Hall of Records room 506 for everyone that wants to attend I'd also like to um share that I was asked to um there's an organization called the Junior League and um they are they ask that we dedicate um September 19th 2024 to find the good day in Montclair and this special day find the good day encourages individuals to recognize and celebrate the positive aspects of their communities of our communities and take action to uplift others and and so this Proclamation reads whereas a Junior League is dedicated to promoting volunteerism empowering women and enhancing communities through effective leadership and action and whereas find the good day observed on September 19th 2024 encourages individuals to recognize and celebrate the positive aspects of their communities and take action to uplift others and whereas on this day we acknowledge the importance of kind kindness compassion and community service in fostering positive change and building stronger more resilient communities and whereas the Junior League continues to play a pivotal pivotal role in advancing for significant Community initiatives and empowering individuals to make a lasting impact now there before now therefore I Dr ree Baskerville mayor of the township of Montclair County of Essex do hereby Proclaim September 19th 2024 as F the good day in the township of Montclair and I encourage all of our citizens to participate in acts of kindness volunteerism and community service and of course I still believe that most of us do that on every day so I'm going to continue us to do to continue to encourage us to do so and let the league of the Junior League know that I stand with them um in this celebration um Madam clerk thank you mayor um the only thing that I was going to report tonight is that we have a special general election on Wednesday September 18 that's I'm trying to highlight Wednesday because usually elections are on Tuesday it's for the 10th congressional district there has been the county moved to of the poll sites and we'll have the information on the website but I can you know from the top of my head tell you the fourth Ward residents who vote at uh Nishan school they're being moved to Trinity and the uh District 27 uh normally voting in the Freshman cafeteria they're moving across the street to the high school that's what the county did but that's September 18 special general election just for 10th congressional district that's all I have will that be will that be posted on the website in advance yes thank you manager Lola okay um I have a question in terms of the um Community the community um I guess the community the person that's going to be doing our um posting on Facebook and that type of thing the communications specialist where are we with that because I think that we are um really lacking in that area and I apologize I I I offered the position to someone he accepted and and he's going through the HR process now so I should have a start date to give you in a name very shortly okay and I I appreciate that and I hope that everyone listening is is understanding that hopefully that'll make a huge difference in terms of communication and the other thing that we really need to will be very helpful to me in terms of communication is the um computers so we were sworn in on July 1st and still don't have um Township computers so I'm hoping that they're coming soon do we have an estimated date and time when we'll be getting the computers okay so for anybody that's watching I'm still having a um difficult time um with some communication technology things but thank you for your patience um the Township attorney mayor due to the late hour I have nothing to report okay motion to adjourn second all in favor I I I opposed have a good evening