all right good evening this is a conference meeting of the Council of the township of Montclair this meeting is called pursuant to the provisions of the open public meetings act this meeting is included in the annual notice the meeting schedule is set forth in resolution R23 277 adopted by the council at its regular meeting of November 21st advertis in the official newspaper on December 21st 23 December 28th and January 4 2024 posted in the bulletin boards um outside the municipal building and has remained so uh uh at this time a copy of the annual notice is and has been available to the public and is on file with the office of the Township Clerk uh please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge algi of the United States of America to the for stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all Madam clerk call please councelor Cummings pres Deputy Mayor Hurlock pres councelor price Abrams pres councelor Russo president councelor schlager here councelor Terry pres mayor Spiller present thank you we'll move the agenda with flexibility uh first I've got a proclamation um that certainly uh excited to move tonight and it's designated Jan January as Muslim Heritage Month uh in the township of Montclair and it reads in part whereas on April 29th 2023 Governor Murphy signed a joint resolution number six by the Senate and general assembly of the state of New Jersey designated the month of January of each year as Muslim heritage month and whereas Muslims are the world's second largest religious group practicing the Islamic faith with 1.9 billion followers representing approximately 25% of the world's population whereas um there are over 300,000 Muslim Americans in New Jersey representing one of of the largest Muslim American communities in the United States their contributions help fortify and strengthen the economy diversity of the people of our great state and our local communities uh and whereas the township of Montclair recognizes this Monumental achievement uh from the the Monumental achievements from the Muslim Community um and and desires to recognize the month of January of each year as Muslim Heritage Month uh whereas the township of Monclair recognizes and appreciates that the Muslim Community has directly contributed to the diversity and positive growth of the Township in various Fields including education entrepreneurship government law medicine literature drama sculpture music food and culture as well as all aspects of Life throughout the United States and abroad and continues to uh influence our beliefs and embedded values uh now therefore the mayor and the town of of Council of Monclair do hereby declare the month of January as Muslim heritage month and acknowledge the contributions of all Muslims who continue to enrich all aspects of the Monclair community and I so move and without objection and thank you and and again really pleased that the governor um was able to move that forward uh on April 29th from the joint resolution um and certainly I I know I've had a number of residents who reached out and certainly who um you know want again to use uh our our bully pulpit to issue proclamations to draw attention and certainly celebrate our Rich diversity so very pleased with that so thank you very much to my colleagues there may may I just want to add that today or yesterday was Haitian Independence Day it's another uh recognition we maybe didn't get to do but I want just noticed that because we have a great group in town the uh lamp for Haiti group that always raises money Dr Morgan um but we do want to recognize Haitian Independence Day January 1st thank you excellent thank you very much sir okay uh next we're going to go to public comment on agenda items uh specifically so uh all speakers please complete the sign-in sheet over by the clerk and please come forward for public comments on the agenda items only please anyone wishing to speak to any agenda items then please sign in with the clerk and come on over 12en is your mic on is it on now yeah he so I'm here uh again for uh Clary Anderson I know you guys are um bringing up the RFP tonight M and I just want to urge you to uh move forward and improve that so we can move on to the next stage of this Advent uh some of the things that I wanted to bring up in terms of kind of reiterating how important it was um Ken Lillian from the Wolves organization just texted me today in anticipation of this meeting that they have a uh session of learning to play at Clary Anderson they had 47 kids and families triple what they had before and he just gave me this information today so that's that's definitely a growing interest here there a lot of my friends here from the nutly organization uh they're Monclair residents and also outside of Monclair and there people who were having a real hard time getting ice because of organizations like this group called black bear it's evidently an equity uh group that's going around buying up rinks raising the prices of the ice then my son referees when he's on the weekends and I just got an email today about the number of rings that black bear has bought up there's a couple dozen of rings lo you know around this whole area that they bought up they raised the price so the public rings for anybody who wants to expand the audience for ice public ranks like Ron Arco U Monclair other public ranks are really really important because otherwise we're going to be priced out of ice hockey um and one of the things that we're in the process of is creating our 501c3 uh nonprofit so once the approval goes through we can start raising money and get work going over there and uh another thing is I wanted to the coaches of mka and msh are going to invite all of you guys to the annual Monclair a cup which is January 19th Friday January 19th at 4:15 so hopefully everybody can show up there and get a real taste for a nice local rivalry it's a good uh good Monclair event all right so thank you very much thank you excellent thank you very much and we're definitely excited uh to have that on the agenda today and finally be moving forward here just a quick question may have question for you again this black beer group yes they can't buy our rink because well we're not selling no but the problem is is that all the other ones are being bought raised up so that put more pressure on the public ranks to you know and there's no ice time as it is so they just go around buying them up yeah okay so this is unbridled capitalism right okay let me just tell you I keep teaching this it's great capitalism but without controls without regulation without the government to Monitor and watch over it it's outrageous it's a free market they just go buy them all uping preaching to the choir yeah okay we know thanks I'm still not a socialist but hi hi Anna Gman here 63 SXF um happy New Year everybody I'm here with my wonderful neighbors we know that you will be discussing an executive session the uh act legal action that the Monclair Public Schools is bringing against the township so that they can avoid going to the zoning board uh and we would just ask you to please um give that some thorough reflection and thought because we really don't understand why residents of woodman field need to not be protect protected in the same way that those who live around mka's baseball field were protected um we totally get that like when it's an educational facility the Mandate is to educate and so it supersedes but this is not an educational facility this is a baseball field used by 30 40 kids not during school hours and it is affecting our quality of life it's going to affect a lot of different things and it's already caused massive uh environmental degradation EOS Shanda we're call calling it and if all goes well everybody understands what that means and sees the video that we did about this um we would encourage you all to please um not mix up my feelings against artificial turf in that particular matter that you're looking at this is nothing to do with that I know we have some soccer fans here um Maradona all the way from me um but this is not about um the artificial turf although I would encourage you also since you're reviewing a green application to please make sure that nothing is being used there that is in any way uh of concern like um ported in place and uh Synthetic Turf because they all have the same environmental and public health concerns with past uh so we really would just encourage you to please protect residents because we are about to wake up in front of a 40ft fence in front of our homes noise levels that haven't been studied like the mka ones were and a lot of different other issues that um happen when you build a stadium basically in front of people's homes thank you very much and just to add to that um we have tried numerous times name oh I'm sorry no problem I'm NC I've lived here for a long time I wrote All of I wrote oh I'm sorry I wrote all of you in the last um week on Friday and explain to you I mean we have honestly been through this before but the last time this came up big was when the Fieldhouse went up and the board of education then brought us into meetings and they ended up moving the building to the back here we've been excluded every time we've tried to have a meeting in fact we were supposed to have a meeting tomorrow that was canceled again until January 18th so it continues to happen no Oprah requests have been filled they've been numerous put in everything we've tried to do has gone on deaf ears so I encourage you our last resort is have the zoning board support us as longtime residents of Montclair that deserve to be heard in this matter thank you for your time thank you mayor I just like to are you on this topic too I am on this top go ahead go ahead thank you I'm Aaron bullan I live at 17 Champlain Terrace and I'm here to show you what that looks like this is sh this is Champlain Terrace right now these are our homes these guys don't Allison lives on Champlain these guys live on Essex this is the corner of Champlain and Essex you were told by the Board of Ed that this was a baseball field renovation Improvement if this looks like that to you guys I would be surprised this is massive construction equipment massive that's a tipping dumper I have a four-year-old it's huge that is a full-size excavator this is not a baseball field renovation and what they have submitted to you is false they said I believe three words to the effect of baseball field renovation but this is massive massive heavy equipment there is dust on our homes I can smell it inside of my house where are the permits we as residents need to be protected from this kind of horrendous oh my gosh what did you say unbridled capitalism Mr Russo it is unbridled capitalism and is being driven by our Board of Ed and we as residents are begging you begging you please hold them to account have them go through the same process as everyone else this is not not educational the Department of Education has instructed them to give you the plans I have the letter with me here today I've already emailed it to you please please protect us there's reasons we have all of this stuff in place and it is to keep residents safe to keep residents healthy and our Board of Ed is doing the opposite of that and we need you to keep us safe so please do not let this slip through your fingers slip through the cracks or all of the loopholes that we have found everywhere please are you going to talk on this topic yeah the no I thought what she just said because I have to respond I have to respond because I have a courtesy to to respond to my friend Allison um who's been a friend of mine since I moved here and my mother and her mother went to the upper Monclair women's club's luncheons every month and my my mother felt so close to her mother so Allison Sergeant I apologize for not getting back to you today but I've been trying to respond to hundreds of messages from people from over the holiday weekend and I said in my response on this one to the people who are on the council and to the board of ed members I sent it to all the Board of Ed members and to the superintendent I said I'm just so upset about this why can't Our Town manager the town attorneys the superintendent schools the Boe and the mayor all communicate with these residents and try to work this out now the resident one of the residents I answered just said to me it's hopeless it can't be worked out there's n they don't respond I don't understand that let's make a New Year's resolution to communicate with each other at least here it is January 2nd at least communicate I know we do try to respond one the residents acknowledge at least the mayor and Council try to respond you know councilwoman scher's been to meetings with residents I know Allison all my life here I just don't know what to do I don't know what to do the board event is now completely separate from us if we had the leverage of being the elect the appointed board by the mayor and having the board of school estimate which three of us would sit on yeah we'd have some leverage over budgets but we don't have any control over the Board of Ed but of course you brought up about the zoning issue so I I hope that Janice tally can do something on that and I think we should pursue if they didn't get the right permits they didn't do things the right way we should enforce that across the board they're not exempt it's like unbridled capitalism as you said so I just wanted to make that apology to Allison for not getting back to it but any of the residents from that area we need a field we want a field we're not against a field we just don't want to destroy the neighborhood with big big fencing all this digging going on all this construction the the the uh uh you know the field um artificial field and also the the noise and dust and dirt for maybe a six month or year period I mean why doesn't anybody give you the input that you need I don't understand the Board of Ed I don't understand it thank you hello everyone my name okay good hi I'm Matt ber liner um I'm an executive uh on the board um for the Nutley Clifton Hockey Club um not as young as I once was so excuse me here uh I just wanted to go over some points um about our club and how important Clary is to it um our Hockey Club dates back to 1977 we've been playing at claria since the beginning um we are a 501c3 charity not a single member of our club takes a penny for their efforts uh five years ago we were 18 volunteers and 80 players this year we 69 volunteers and 147 players 147 players from 49 different towns Montclair Nutley Clifton um Glenridge make up the majority of us so 49 different towns these kids come to clar to play our club follows the rule that hockey is for everyone we have 13 in need players on full scholarship or reduced tuition without a lower cost clar our club would not be able to absorb the cost of these kids playing for free or at a reduced tuition we do not cut players if a player is not ready to play in a game we allow that player to practice to be a practice player until they are ready to play their tuition is also reduced until they're ready to play in games this year this season we have 162 practices and games at Clary 10 different teams if Clary no longer existed it would be impossible for us to find 162 Ice slots at the neighboring ranks I know at the last meeting someone mentioned well you know what about Cody um we play all over we called Cody we got all their available ice that they had left it was nine nine practice slots that's all they had left their books H uh this season our members have traveled up to an hour for practice practices and games we've traveled to Bridgewater Westfield Newark hackensac Morristown West Orange just to name a few we still have a few gaps in our schedule and we've rented out local turf fields for the kids to work out and spend time with the coaches but it's not the same as being on the ice I probably have twice as much is it all right if I keep going uh holding everyone of the two thank you though what's that I'm holding everyone the same time okay thank you good evening everybody hope you had a good holiday and a happy off to a good start on New Year's I'm Allison Sergeant lifelong resident of Champlain Terrace my family's been there for four generations I don't know quite what to say about this situation as I started off in early September about the disappointment I feel about the dysfunction of this town right now I can't even imagine all of the people that I knew that ran this town many of my family's friends that work tirelessly they weren't paid they donated they did everything I have been on the Salvation Army board for 25 years I've chaired it for six years I run the Cornerstone homeless shelter that's AB buts this property I've had nothing but good experiences over the years with people in this town donating to the underprivileged and people in need what's going on on at Woodman field isn't because I live there or generations of my family live there it's about the precedent that you all are setting in this town for awful things to come and I want you to take responsibility for that because if you don't take this project in front of the zoning board your insurance policies are going to be liable for all that's going to happen and it's going to be awful I hear about the how fast you can drive do you know how fast people drive up and down Champlain Terrace our dog was hit and almost killed and almost hit my 6'5 in husband because they were going 75 miles an hour down champagne Terrace do you know what's going to happen when that field gets rented and is able to have people come and go at all hours of the day and night up and down that street in Essex Avenue please be prepared for the consequences of you not knowing legally that the zoning board saw this case I beg you I beg you just please get collaboration going it's all that we're asking for you just did it on Lloyd Road I know you can do it again I trust each and every one of you I really do thank you hello it's on hello my name is Evan task I live on 173 Arms Road um I'm here with my teammates to talk about Clary um I talked last time about how much Clary means to me just um personally but um uh now I'm going to talk about um what it's going to mean to like the whole hockey organization of North Jersey cuz um as a few people mentioned who came up before me um North Jersey is running out of ice cuz everyone's booking it um and so the more losses of ranks the more damage to the whole hockey program so we can't lose anymore um it's really important to keep all the rinks we can um thank you thank you thank you thank you guys hello my name is Jacob perui I live on 17y Terrace and clar means everything to me and I love it here and I if you do a lot of damage it takes a while and a lot of like construction to build everything on Clary and that it loves in my heart and I don't want it to fall down it's just I love it there and it's what it means to me thank you hello my name is Eli Copa I live on 107 Claremont Avenue as a task as uh Zin said uh we are actually running out of ice since it we've been using that ice for so long and um if that does happen it will take a if we like one completely out of ice that will it will take a while to rebuild and it's not that beneficial for other people that are close to the rink uh like Jacob or me um so so we would have to drive 15 to 20 minutes to get to the other closest ice rank um and that would be like for multiple months and um there's also some things that we don't use in there that is actually taking up a lot of space like the Zamboni outside that we other people has probably not used for maybe 11 years or more so we could actually use that space to clear put more hockey equipment or th resources there and that's why um that rank means so much because I've actually been there since I was about like 5 years old and now I'm nine so I've been there for maybe about four I've been playing there for about four years I've been on Theon team for maybe 3 years and it's it would break my heartart to see everything um destroyed thank you thank [Applause] you mayor Spiller and uh Council happy New Year there's not much more I could possibly say after you just listen to Three uh heartfelt speeches by uh our 9 y- old team members for Nutley Clifton but I can say that my wife and I have raised our family here we have lived here for now 23 years right down the street District 2 uh councilwoman schluger uh Rucker alumni mayor Spiller uh and we love this town uh and we we bought that house on y Terrace uh right down the street from Clary uh knowing that we would have kids and one day would raise them to play sports Clary was a draw for us that place uh is an institution it's part of the heart of this town uh and it would be such it would be to the detriment of the culture of this town to see that go for God knows what uh rather than reinvest in it and and create something that is really more of I consider to be more of a cultural center for kids to build around a community which is really what we're all about and why we first moved here 23 years ago um but again I think you heard it from the three boys before me I think that was enough but uh thank you for your time and we all here look forward to you doing the right thing good evening thank you mayor Spiller Council folk uh it's great to be here my name is Victor Capa uh I live at 107 Claremont my son Eli just uh articulated probably better than I could the meaning that Clary Anderson has for us for those of you who don't know Clary Anderson was a great football coach in this town for many many many years I found out about that from um uh Gary and Willie Gainer who owned Gainer Automotive right around the corner from where I live at 107 claremount down this street um what clar what Clary means to me uh uh is more than I can state but uh uh I'd like to share some stories with you guys I think it's you know we could sit here and reason um but the only reason that I've been brought to a political Forum like this is uh uh to talk about the importance of the institution and how much it's affected the relationships that I have not only with my own family but with my neighbors and with my community I love Monclair as I'm sure all you guys do as I'm sure everybody does in this room or else we wouldn't be here um it's a great center of culture of sport of politics of uh Civic engagement and um there is not one place that I can name that's better at doing that than clar Anderson Arena the problem with it though I don't know if you guys have ever experienced when you were growing up having friends over to your house this is my home the town is my home when I invite friends and my sister and my parents from Florida up to this town I show them the town with a lot of Pride I don't like showing them Clary Anderson Arena I'm sure if you guys have walked in there recently or anytime in the past 10 years you've seen as Zamboni as my son has said that's broken down that's sitting outside the rink you've seen a broken down Park that you guys um uh renovated over the past few years that's wonderful um but I'd like to invite the people of New Jersey the people of this country to come in visit this town and bring them into Clary that there's it's a place that has uh uh an an extreme amount of people coming in and through it um and we host many other towns in the New Jersey uh area so so would appreciate you guys um uh voting to uh to renovate and move forward with all the proposals that come before the council thank you very much sorry going thank you hi my name is uh Nate Rothstein I live on 5l Terrace I'm Greg's neighbor um we did not know about Clary when we moved here but we were very surpris we were very happy when we heard the sounds of hockey uh when we were down by essic street so I'll just Echo all those comments um I'm just going to add a little bit more on some of the costs that that were uh put together so Clary costs about $425 per hour of ice time and the highest uh that our clubs had to pay this season is $677 per hour uh having to go to Bridgewater uh so that's about $250 more dollars per hour uh $250 more dollars plus an hour's drive just to get over there um our average cost this season was $525 per hour uh so that's $100 more than Clary and as was discussed Clary is a lowcost option for our club so that allows us to be a lowcost option uh for for the people in the town um and it's not just about Clary it's about Montclair um we've calculated that we spend about $225,000 per year on ice time uh across uh New Jersey um and but the economic impact our club uh to Clary is further than just the ice rentals um we'll play 105 games at Clary that means that teams are coming from outside of Montclair to new to our town as far as Atlantic City to play those games that's about 40 additional people per game that's 4200 people per hockey season coming to Clary to play here and when they come they ask us where should we eat what should we do when we're in the town so it brings a lot of extra activity uh just having the rink and having the hockey going on there um so they visit the local Montclair establishments on a regular basis they order food they pick it up uh after practice during the games uh we have Team dinners uh and the Monclair eateries and our our ten and under team just had a team dinner at opis on North Willow Street in Montclair they still remember it yeah so all right thanks for your time than you thank you uh Nick Mand Rus 561 Park Street uh mayor council uh I was going to speak a little bit I'm a a volunteer hockey coach I got two kids that play uh they're not here tonight cuz one's in morrist toown and the other one's uh like Ironbound so they're spread all over the place so uh we got a rink in our backyard and our club we're driving all over the map to get our kids to uh practice uh we also we have a coaches chat and you'll if you saw it it's like a full-time job every day seeing what rink we're going to who's got pucks who's bringing equipment you know and it's all volunteer and it's just for the kids uh I grew up playing at clarry uh was probably about these guys age 9 10 years old um and I spent every weekend there not just playing hockey but uh public skate Friday Saturday nights we used to do public skate mom would drop us off when we're 12 13 years old and we'd spend every uh you know Friday Saturday night there was something to do there was a lot lot of fun made a lot of friends um but I spent you know a lot of time there uh and Clary looks exactly the same as it did when I was there it smells the same it's exact nothing has changed which is why I love it but when you bring new people in as they said it's uh it's a little offputting um let me try to finish the rest of this because this are some important points here uh it's not just about hockey Saturday mornings our coaches and our older players volunteer with alumni from the New Jersey Devils and participate in a learn to play learn to play as a casual practice that exposes future players typically 8 years older onto the to the sport of hockey uh we had 40 kid 48 kids participating our learn to play this season uh We've organized successful food drives for Tony's kitchen here in Monclair uh each team had two collections at Clary during games we made visiting teams aware of it they helped contribute as well so we could uh collected hundreds of pounds of food for Tony's kitchen uh college scholarships to date since 1994 our club has had a total of $173,000 um I know my time's up but uh maybe someone else can um thank you for hearing us out uh my name is Lauren hburg it's my daughter Charlie um I grew up here in Montclair um lived my whole life here moved away moved back um I I don't I'm not going to talk about the kids I mean my daughter learned to skate at Clary my son learned to skate at Clary um I played Monclair Blues I played Monclair High School I won state championship um but I'd say the biggest thing and the kids are important but for me personally um I didn't have a sense of community when I moved back to the to the neighborhood um and then I ran into the guys I played youth hockey with who played every Sunday night and I started playing and now I play three or four four times a night or four times a week and I have a sense of community um this goes beyond just Youth Sports this is this is a part of Montclair and all the guys I play with they're all Montclair athletes most of them like grew up here most of them were Varsity athletes most of them played at mka most of them played at MHS like this is a part of our town like this is the fabric of the community and it's named after a man who is the fabric of our community and beyond that like this is what this is about like this isn't about hockey versus non hockey this is Montclair there's history here like love it love it or leave it but you guys are the ones who are in charge of loving it like you've been elected to love it so do that thank you thank you [Applause] uh mayor sper council members thank you for taking the time happy New Year to everyone um I'm speaking about Clare Anderson as well I just wanted to say I'm I'm brand new to the community I've lived here for about one year on 31 S6 now and um I want to Echo just saying that's such a um key part of the community for us my son plays hockey there now we've met a ton of friends um and it's been very important to us and my daughters are 6 years old and open to play learn to play soon and they're also taking skating lessons there so just want to Echo what an important piece of the community this is and it's been very welcoming for us joining the community thank you Michael M hello um happy New Year I'm Cara lochman 26 Walnut Street so um I have no quals with doing whatever you decide to do with the uh with the arena it sounds like a great idea what people talking about however I have I'm interest in Good Government and I have a question about the ordinance uh r244 it strikes me that there were um two responses and a vastly different amount that they're proposing one the Aubrey group who seem to be a bunch of grant writers are charging $63,000 the CME Associates who often we see stuff from them come before the planning board are municipal Engineers all kinds of Municipal engineering they do they're consultant Consulting for all Municipal type projects and their um amount that they quoted was $175,000 so to me I just wondered did they quote on the same project um what were the you I mean I hope that they did but one would certainly wonder if they quoted on the same terms um I don't know why a grant writing group and a municipal Engineering Group are are comparable um so I'd like to know you said after review of the proposals the price and other factors considered that you've selected Aubrey group I'm wondering if you could tell me what made you select that group given what I understand the project to be which is I guess it's a Str strategizing on what we're going to do with the Clary Anderson Arena well yeah we'll speak to all points at the end thank you again okay thank you and happy New Year sorry I don't mean to be I'm not critical I'm just trying to figure out how government works okay thank you thank you good evening everyone and happy New Year happy New Year looking forward to uh the coming year a lot of work to do in the township my name is Kathleen Bennett I live on Glenwood Road and I'm the chairperson of the HPC um I'm asking the council to vote uh positively for resolution r242 it's the resolution to apply for New Jersey JY historic CLG CLG Grant and some of the history in this um I just thought it would be uh I sent everybody a message today with a map in 2022 we applied for a grant um which was based on the commuter District which is in Upper Monclair there were over 600 properties uh the amount of money that we received was almost 50,00 the grant consultant cannot survey all those properties for that amount of money so we broke the grant up and we s had 431 properties surveyed what we're doing now is going back to uh ask additional Monies to have the additional property survey and also to ask for um more properties along the strip of Park Street to the east of Park Street so Al together this grant I believe is 220 21 properties and it's in the amount of $30,000 anyway that's on your agenda for tonight and I hope you look favorably upon it thank you very much thank you okay here we go good evening Happy New Year my name is Lonnie summer Pia and I'm a resident of Montclair um couple of things I want to touch upon on one the first is this two-minute time limit um and going into public comment after the executive session I ask that if you do that that you make meetings virtual um where we would allow for virtual comment to have people waiting here a you know while you're in executive session just to do public comment I think is a little unfair um so if that's what you are going to do please allow virtual comments um also I know you're going to be introducing the temporary budget um I am begging you to please allocate some pilot funding to our schools just the same way that we have kids here tonight speaking for Clary Anderson if there is no pilot money going to our schools come may you will see not just a rep of last year with this room filled overc capacity with children crying knowing that it was your decision that made it happen that way it will happen again and I know it's election season this year for all of you I urge you to really consider and really just do it at this point there's really no reason not to parcion is having the same issue other towns as well and councilman Russo I know you said uh you hope that the Board of Ed and the town can communicate um I hope so too I think there's no reason that shouldn't happen um Cedar Grove managed to do it they managed to have their Board of Ed work with their Town Council to come up with an agreement for pilot funding to go to the district please please please please do that happy New Year happy New Year hi I'm Christina Thomas I'm a Montclair resident Mr Spiller you've said that questions will be answered at the end for the past four years I went through all the meetings you never answer the questions at the end I wish that you would um as for the agenda there are 11 items a through K on the agenda how is it reasonable for people to speak succinctly within two minutes to each of those items it appears that the purpose of curtailing public speech is to eliminate the Public's ability to be heard until after the council has already done damage and violated the law in 2021 the town got neglia engineering to do a feasibility study of Clary Anderson Arena I believe that contract went over budget and ended up costing us about $400,000 that study found that the condition of the current building unsafe and needed to be demolished and rebuilt Mr wood is an engineer and head of Public Works and has relevant expertise and presented it to you now why are we doing that study again resolution r244 authorizing a contract with is a it authorizes a contract with the Aubrey group how is the grant writer the Aubrey group who contributed to Sean's campaign according to elect qualified to do an engineering assessment for Essex Park the resolution is unclear and so is the scope of work resolution heading says feasibility study of Essex Park body of the resolution says evaluation of design options of Essex Park including Clare Anderson Arena did the did you all see the proposal did you see the scope of the services requested how can you be even thinking about approving that I also have a concern about the resolution for executive session r24012 that appears to be addressing the status of the interim Township manager Mr lapola is it it appears to be a plan make L Mr leoa permanent after executive session tonight what happened to the search that GSG got hired and paid to perform also why would Montclair want to give a top position in its government to some white guy from South Jersey do we not have a qualified PE person locally that's your time your com and our values about a white guy from anywhere we we don't we don't we don't get into that here so no we we value diversity yes and we're not talking about a white guy we thinking about hiring Mr lapola that's who may or may not be qualified but who also has a conflict and has a and is collecting a um pension is he going put his pension on hold why don't we have anybody qualified and why aren't we doing the proper search that's what GSG was hired to do are we getting our money back it's my money that you're spending and you're doing it improperly I think Mr Lola may be great but we were supposed to do a search you were supposed to do a search and you didn't and it's my time it's my time too could be everybody's time if it was three minutes or four minutes like Verona this two-minute limit is ridiculous it should be two minutes per resolution please good night and happy New Year I'm Mar I live on Garden rest Avenue in monair so I'd like to speak to the budget and again again remind you that s Grove can take care of their schools with pilot funding because they have taken those properties of the tax rows and if those properties paid taxes then out then property taxes would be lower in their town so they understood that and they took care of their schools and they're sharing pilot funding with the schools that is not in the preliminary budget it looks to me as if each and every one of you cares less about Montclair schools and mon class children then see the Grove cares about their schools and their children do better please put down the plinary budget don't vote Yes on a budget that does not take care of our kids and our schools with pilot funding Monclair abuses the long-term tax abatement law you got away with it but you abuse it and that puts a very high cost among Clair taxpayers we pay the highest average taxes of any municipality with a population between 30,000 and 50,000 people that is a lot it's disproportionate to the level of services we have in this town it's abusive I don't see any discussion of changing that at a minimum these properties that have been taken off the tax rows that should be paying taxes and therefore reducing our taxes must be contributing to the school district and at a mean minimum to cover the cost of educating the kids that these properties are sending to the school district because otherwise I am pay to educate the kids that those Rich developers are sending to our school district it's not fair it's not right it's not right to our kids if s grow can do this you can do otherwise you're worse than S The Grove think about that I think you Pride yourselves right on at a minimum we're Democrats right um and since I have well I don't do better care about you good evening everybody my name is Frank raki I'm a resident of this town um I just want to speak briefly about the uh well two minutes is brief um about the uh lawsuit that you're dealing with in executive session um and I think that um to councelor Russo's comment I'm a little bit concerned um I'm going to change my remarks accordingly is that um he didn't feel he could do anything about it um my understanding is that we own 2third of the property that comprises Aubrey Lewis okay we what we did was we signed an agreement a deed agreement to let the Board of Education have control over improvements and use okay but this is about land and you have a responsibility to the land and you have a responsibility I think as someone else said to run this through a process that we are told protects us our land use boards protect us and protect the character of this town and it protects the safety of this c town too and by not by allowing the Board of Education which we all know has not built a level of trust anywhere near where it should to do this is just really wrong and I will specifically point out to the our attorney and to the two counselors who reside in the fourth ward that they might have a special interest uh the to and the public and that is because it does involve our land I think we need to counsel certain counselors no disrespect in recusing themselves from the conversation tonight C slager I would think I think you might want to consider it I think M mayor Spiller I think you might want to consider it and maybe even Mr uh councelor Russo um the other thing is my big issue is Storm Wier weather forever Kemp okay now thank you if you guys want to know my thoughts on it reach out to me thank you thank you hello hi my name is eileene Birmingham happy New Year um I'm just here about the temporary budget which of course I understand is really a required by law hold over um with some adjustment from the previous budget but I just want to point out to everybody because as we're hearing here um there's a lot that this town needs um and there's a lot that goes into the concept of safety and as a um former pediatrician I'm really um you know it's inspiring to hear all the children here because the idea of um Recreation Sports Community is really vital to people's well-being and their safety in fact um and there's a lot of data that supports that but in the temporary budget that we have here um we have almost 50% of our money going to the police and fire department and I know I say this a lot but we have no data we're we're not we do are not shared any data as to why we need such big Public Safety sectors in this town um when you look at last year's user-friendly budgets if you combined westfields plus paran's public safety personnel you would still need $3.5 million to get to reach montclair's it's not sustainable it's not sustainable in our town of with a 89% residential tax base to to spend like this and again the little data that we do get I believe it was in 2020 the chief presented the fire chief presented that essentially fewer than 1% of the calls that they go on are actual structure fires in the town of Montclair fewer than 1% they go to a lot more outside of Monclair and in fact they receive very little Mutual Aid and less than Mutual Aid than apparently Cedar Grove receives but again this is really just respectfully asking about sustainability for our town and all of the other things that we need here thank you thank you inquiring minds want to know where is the data supporting tonight's budget vote what criteria have you used to evaluate the budget decisions you are making no department has publicly presented data have there been private presentations are there departmental annual reports if not why not are you just rewarding buddies and insiders are you using a Ouija board or throwing darts at a dart board is there some measure you were using if so you have to share that with us because of sunshine laws now regarding the last meeting Mr Cummings thought that it's citizens who need to report problems with the police department when I outlined a culture of non-enforcement you are responsible for holding the police police chief responsible for the culture and all of you are it is not a citizen's job that very specifically is your job okay passing a new speed limit is wonderful but it's completely performative if you are doing nothing about actually enforcing it what are you doing to make sure the speed l MIT is actually the limit that cars travel at what are you doing to make sure we have a culture that promotes the safety of the kids in the bike bus of pedestrians of bike riders of other drivers up and down Bloomfield Avenue the main thoroughfare of this town it is painfully obvious and clear to everyone that there is no enforcement of the parking lots the other day I drove down Bloomfield Avenue 35 illegally parked cars how is this going on all of the time I brought this up last meeting and none of you expressed an interest in doing something about it I'd like to know if anything has been done or if anyone has an intention of doing anything thank you wait till the end okay happy New Year it's 2024 happy to be here tonight aava fad your favorite President and first founder of the tenants organization of Montclair we grew again today I am happy to see you all here tonight I would also like to see and I didn't anticipate having to even address this a change to the length of time given for public comment returning to the three minute minimum the three minutes for individuals and the five minutes for organization leaders or something better better yes a bar has been set that allows for better communication when speaking for those who can write it out they write out what they wish to say deliver it and hopefully have it received well we will continue to make adjustments however I'll Rea rephrase it I encourage you to reinstate a minimum 3 minute public comment our time need not be invested in asking for more [Applause] time the tenants organization of Monclair Facebook page at tomb advocacy will be updated to include the meet and greet times I continue to thank many of the members of our community who participated in the rent control movement the revitalization of to make sure that our tenants who wish to stay can stay I'm sorry that we have lost many but many do also remain these were outside on the day of the April 7 2020 call thank you thank you have a good night okay with that we'll close um comments on all the agenda items um specifically just ending with that one I know that uh we're all very pleased to have passed the rank control law one of the biggest things that we um have done in town here in in decades so really proud of that um with that uh going backwards and some of the pieces Mr leoa I'll turn to you just to speak to the CFO has in previous years explained the temporary budget process and what's required under the law and why it is introduced in this manner uh but if you want to speak to that briefly as to why uh townships have to introduce a temporary budget and why it is a template from a previous year that then gets modified in the budget process that was alluded to but sure mayor under New Jersey uh state law we are required to introduce a temporary budget until the uh final budget is adopted and is not to exceed 26.25 of last year's budget so that's the basis for uh for the numbers that you see uh attached to the resolution right they're just a percentage per rated of all those numbers correct yes sir process and then the formal budget process which occurs um follows yes uh can you please councilwoman thanks and so Mr Lolo so to the extent that I understand that was a formula I didn't invest a lot of time in debating with my colleagues to this point because we haven't even been presented the budget uh as to where we should maybe reapportion or more this less that we haven't had any of those conversations not yet so I I understand that this is our duty to sort of ensure that there is funding for the town to continue to operate it's an estimate somehow that the state decided on that number and that's what we are passing tonight it is not with all the due care and thought that we will be so this is for information Mr leul if you'll also speak to the other item which is I believe was mentioned about parking enforcement believe IFI have oh yes I just wanted to mention that our next meeting which I believe is January 30 uh the police department will be making a presentation on enforcement at the public meeting some of the numbers I assume as to their what they yes they'll be discussing at length enforcement numbers Etc excellent um thank you very much and specifically just note because it was mentioned too about um bids and uh believe what the first question was asked about uh why there's such difference in bids at times uh remember some of the ones that always stand out to me uh tree plantings is one where I see $100,000 differences every year and it always surprises me um you know can't explain why people will bid what they do uh snow removal is another one we see drastic differences otherwise uh but the bottom line is under the law we've got to put out uh bid specs and entities have to provide their answers um and then of course unless we see some specific compelling reasons why not to go with lowest bidder you know we go with lowest bidder um that's specific to that um um but as we as we look through all these pieces and and we uh um analyze that Mr Lea I know you look at them uh and then make a determination correct yes and the difference between these two had to do with the fact that the one that was more expensive required a lot of the um uh more engineering and environmental components of this that have already been completed in previous studies so that was the differential okay helpful thank you I have a so I don't know if all of you have but I requested the two proposals and again this is what we got from GSG this is what we got from CM auy yeah not just I think the concern I have is that I believe it was maybe a year and a year and a half ago where councelor schlager councelor price saams mayor and myself met with uh engineering groups and did a walk through of Clary Anderson and requested that those those groups submit to us recommendations of the area I haven't seen any recommendations also I know that our current engineer neglia have presented to us recommendations of Clary including uh potentially enclosing the pool as well as upgrade to the arena and the area around it so my so what I'm what my point here is that we've already had this done we have this information I don't see why we have to go out and spend anything when we know the potential cost of a complete renovation is around $30 million we know the public wants this done and therefore what we really need to do is basically get real proposals in here of what are required to do Clary Anderson with the because we have this information that's what's alarming to me we've walked it we I haven't received any anything from those groups but I know I met with noberto and Steve Wood about two years ago and noberto has designs and they've already multiple designs already in place in the township so this is just it's a waste of money because we've already done this work and I was surprised that was on here because the last time we talked you said we we had allocated about $50,000 and that would be a couple of weeks before we got responses and then the two responses that we received again it's similar to when we went out for the um traffic study on lacana Plaza L CME was one of the groups that responded and now we have a group that we brought in to basically do grant writing services and when I looked at their proposal again I'm not sure this is something that they've done before they have gone out and done Community assessments but the work that's required of what we need to get an understanding what's done at Clary Anderson I don't see that in this proposal I see it as a way of going out meeting with the community saying hey what do you want we already know what the community wants what I see with this is examples of work that have been done before in other cities of what we need and this is more of what we need not this this is just a waste of money and so in $60,000 is a lot of money so I want to make sure that my counselors I don't know if you all have received the proposals I asked for thank you Mr well thank you Angeles for sending it to me so it's available to you and I trust before you move on anything that you really look at the two and understand that it's the most responsive bid not the cheapest Bid And this is not responsive to what we're talking about and to the community members out there no one up here said we do not want an arena I'm on the record of saying that what I want is a quality Arena and what our own people have told us is to do that it needs to be torn down you've been in the arena I was in that Arena when it was outdoors I learned how to skate at Clary Anderson I think Mr Cherry may have played for Clary Anderson Roger did you right so I understand what you're saying but what I'm saying to you is do you want peace meal or do you want a real Arena that can be operated year round because that's the assessment that we were given if you're going to do this to operate it correctly it needs to operate year round and not on a similar basis the cost we know roughly $30 million the location ideal it's a town asset it's something that we can do we can also as I said before enclose the pool to make that year round opportunity our seniors now don't have to pay the high rate to go swimming at the YMCA or other places that asset has a lot of potential for us but we cannot rush into it we need to look into it and we have it's got installed due to other things that this Council has had to taken care of but I just want to make sure that you all know because you've come up here multiple times that that Park and that Arena needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt in order for it to be a functional ice skating ring we lose money on it right now because we're paying the electrical bills and so therefore it's but we still do it why because people want to play there but now 10 years are now do you want the same Arena that's the question you have to ask yourself he just wants to put a roof on there the interior of that facility is tor is is in bad shape I'm afraid that it's a health nuisance you look at that was built a long time ago we don't know what's in those walls so therefore to this Council this is a real responsibility that we have to take into consideration and whether or not we want to do something peac mail or do it right and so that's what I have to say about that and I do inore you please angelise if you can have these sent to everybody so that they can see the difference in these proposals as well as the qualifications of the two groups thank you um I'll just briefly say cuz I know I've met with a number of the individuals who are here tonight and thank you guys and listen to your concerns um one of the things that stands out to me is I don't think there's uniformity around what is wanted there right I know even the conversations I've had it ranges from um improvements to totally redoing to um you know uh putting a roof on or not right so uh those conversations are still important secondly as councilman Cummings I think you noted I did walk the the arena with you we sat with a bunch of Engineers and they didn't provide anything to us right they didn't provide anything to us because we didn't go out for a bid and do exactly what we're trying to do right now right so one of the things that I think is the start point is um to get an assessment done of what is I've framed it this way what is the um you know the the the low cost improvements which everyone will that I've seen talk about is a few million dollars what is a nice rink but simple but nice rink and what is a gorgeous as you're describing enclosed pool you know Community Center sl3 streets ice you know all the different things that we want to talk about right all of those things are different costs I want to see what each one of those are this process has been pretty clear and I think it's a commitment I know you guys have been here from the whole time budget process last year I specifically said let's make sure we've got money in the budget to do this specific study uh you did commit to giving 10 grand towards it I know you guys are working on those pieces as well I believe you also committed about 1720 million I think you did at one of the meetings right but I'll let that go um but in all seriousness right committed to getting that in the budget at that time that was quite a while ago now right and made sure that was in there we specifically spoke about making sure we hear from from you guys and everyone else in the community about what specifically is wanted there that's what this proposal has asked for um and I appreciate it but you know when we talk about losing money any field any sports that we build as a Township as a school loses money right it is for the kids it is for the community it is not a profit maker right so these entities do cost the township money all the time either when you build it up front or maintenance or whatever else uh that to me is not an argument right the arguments are how do we make sure we have an asset how do we make sure we look at which version of that asset that we want to see moving forward um and I will let my colleagues who have extensive experience working with the Auber group and others uh comment on it I have seen nothing but exceptional work so far to date in anything that they've done um and quite frankly with the commitment that we've given from budget process year ago um you know this is something we said we're moving forward with this hasn't been some quiet conversation we've said it every single meeting you guys have been at all these meetings um so this is the commitment I have I will be voting to move forward on this because that is I believe exactly where we need to go get the community feedback input talk about which one of these things we want which version of that the Cadillac the the you know the forward or the or whatever else right and see which way we're going on this um and then allow you as you're talking about forming your uh nonprofit to raise dollars to maybe close a gap to move from one version to another if we can see what that looks like so I think this is well thought out and quite frankly it's gone too long um when we've talked about putting dollars in over time the dollars always keep getting taken for something else and I think is enough on that front which is why we've got to put dollars in now in my opinion so um that's where I stand on this issue but we'll put that to the vote so I want to I kind of want to push back a little bit on that because I believe and Council price hav or slager you guys can correct me when we did go through the walkthr with those groups it was understanding that they would submit to us um suggestions without at no cost that's what I believe was told and so did you get it did you get a thing did I no Nei what I'm saying but it was the way you framed that was the reason why we didn't go out because we didn't go out to bid but what it was as it explained to me is that they were willing to come in Walk the location with us and provide us with an assessment of what could be done there at no cost and I believe you agree with that councelor slager I I do then I want to go to the AR group as a consulting firm no issues as a grant writer no issues core Services Under the auy group comprehensive comprehensive strategic grants Consulting organizational management consulting Community Development and HUD program management strategic marketing and branding Services compliance license and rfps those are their 1 2 3 four five core services so what we're asking a group that's five core Services none of which include building an ice skating rink or assessing that I just don't see where that makes sense and if we're going to do this we need to do it right and so most the if you're telling me the most responsive bid to this was what they received and I'm sorry here you go um I don't think that's the case at all and before we can make a decision before any of you can make a decision you need to see the proposals who here is seen the proposals on the council no one unless Mr Po or someone else has seen it I have and how could you vote on something without seeing the difference that's my question to you all how can you sit here and say this is the way to go when you haven't seen the other one it may be worth spending $175,000 on this if this is the way we want to go but I don't see how you can vote Yes to something you don't even know what you're voting for so appreciate the uh FR councilman Cummings extensive conversation with Mr Leo and I believe he even just spoke to it uh one of the proposals and we did talk talk about this goes in and is extensive because it includes things that we've already had done uh and the other one speaks to the proposal which was requested so but we can agree to disagree so thank you one of the proposals shows what a company has done already already and what it's capable of and yes we've had this as I said from the beginning we've been through this before our own engineering firm has already given us specs on a new Arena we have that it's at your disposal all you have to do is a noberto for them so yes that work has been done but here you get me one I just put it it's the proof is in the pudding and again public should know we're going to vote on something in which no one has seen both proposals no proposals were given to us unless you ask for them which I'd asked for because I've been down this road before so there it is so mayor if I could say I agree with councilman Cummings I want to see this done I want to see it done as quickly as possible I don't want to see us waste money I haven't seen everything so I'm not going to vote Yes on it but I don't want the people who want this Arena to to stay alive to think we're voting against anything for the arena the question is the investment of long-term money is better than short-term wasting money and I think that we should really see a lot more before we vote on it okay so first we have resolution R 24001 which is a resolution authorizing adoption of the 2024 temporary budget I so move second is moved in second any questions concerns comments yes um and the budget that we have that was presented to us Mr POA can you give us this uh can you break down the Department of administration um item in here at 40, 5,000 uh yes councelor I am asking for the creation of a department of administration we have a variety of responsibilities within the township organization where we have absolutely no point person um whether it's Building Maintenance or insurance or grants everything seems to be spread everywhere we need I need assistance in terms of the daytoday keeping control of the operations um so this person would also be dealing with all the Regulatory Agencies all the filings all of those things helping with a um comprehensive uh reorganization of municipal government that I hope to present to the Council on the future uh because currently our organization is Antiquated and uh not responsive to either you to me or to the residents of uh of Monclair um this is pretty commonplace in other governments and um you know I there's a misconception out there that if you went to the manager's office you would find a uh you know a large group of people working there there's me and my Administrative Assistant I have a deputy manager we have no other supports St the director of it is in the same s but and there's now a a Communications person but other than that that's it that's all of us who run do run the day-to-day in addition with our department heads so the purpose of this is to try to make this place more efficient and so what the public should know is that it's actually not a new position because it's been this was a what's approved a set up in like 2014 it was an approved title I have no idea whether or not it was ever you know we the the way it works here is that titles are approved in an ordinance and this is an approved title and I went and found the title rather than having to create one um but that's it's been there I don't I I don't know how long it's been there and so then the other part that I have for you so and I say this with all due respect to him even though he's not here what is the Deputy manager doing and what part of this you know is any of this fall under his purview or what do does he have too much on his plate to kind of like take care of any of this this is and I I don't think I can talk about Personnel matters well not you're right I we'll have that discussion we have that discussion another time so essentially we I just want to be sensitive but if we do move on this we're basically adding $180,000 once you add this over the next because we got it's what quarterly correct so we're ask it'll be there there's a salary range uh for the uh for that director of that department which is comp able to other directors okay all right so that was that just one question that I had because I it was something new that I don't know I wasn't aware of so I appreciate that thank you and um and one other thing in terms of the temporary budget in terms of the temporary capital budget uh we did include in there because we're trying to act with more deliberate speed is the uh is there a placement of that light where that woman was killed we want to get that moving in the first quarter we also allocated some money for to start the purchase of uh of speeding um uh equipment you know where we can notify people how fast they're going flashing lights Etc so rather than wait till the budget's adopted we included that in there now so we don't lose out on the first quarter and then just one more when it comes to Pilot money um I think the residents know where I stand on this from the beginning and so I believe last year the Board of Ed was around $4 million that was the number that was shared with us and as I said to many of the residents who were inquired come back to me in July when the Board of Ed got its state aid and so the Board of Ed received over $8 million in state aid so if we were to when you think about giving up pilot money if we were to give them the money that people requested and then they got the $8 million that's $12 million that the Board of Ed would have so I think we really need to I'm really speaking to my councel cross here if you're going to look at to Pilot money we really need to make sure that this is money that's needed and that's the part that's important I understand wanting but I think what the Board of Ed received from the state covered what they needed and so therefore for us to take away well that's what listen I'm not I'm not going to get what I'm going to say is based on conversations that I've had with the board um Financial person that for us to consider giving them pilot money we nearly need to review what we be given them to make sure that we're not basically given money that is not needed so that's up to you to investigate and I hope you can have conversations with the Board of Ed to make sure that we can get a good understanding councelor can I just address that in terms of and I want to address the public on the ISS issue of uh of of the field is that I reached out to the superintendent on October 4th when I finally got a response can I finish when I finally got a response I was told a few days later he was a very busy man and he might be able to have time for me by Thanksgiving I received an Evite today for a zoom call tomorrow not confirming my availability to finally talk to the superintendent so Hope Springs Eternal I guess but it's been 3 months with no response so when the public comes up or counselors want collaboration that's a two-way street and we've been there we've offered I know the department of planning is offered for months and months and months and we go our answers we don't get answers at all so I just wanted to State for the record that we I believe we have done whatever we can to try to get them to sit down and they choose not to so hopefully tomorrow we will turn a new Leaf but in the meantime I just wanted you to know that this is not us you know not returning their phone calls I mean we're all very busy people but to get the response that in October 4th maybe after Thanksgiving to me sent the message that there wasn't really interest in sitting down so I'm optimistic about tomorrow but we'll see what happens any other questions see Madam clerk wait questions yeah I have a question on this new position because that is only for the quarter that 4,000 is four times that right yes so 160,000 for a new person to be hired that's almost the second highest salary to the manager isn't it no I no not by far counselor and I also I believe that is because they include um uh ancillary costs for benefits Etc but the and we don't have the range on this is one thing about our ordinance which at a certain point in time this year we're going to revisit is that some of the ranges are so vast that it's almost pointless to have a range for a job when you have a 60 or $80,000 range for a high level job I think that'd be little tailored more than that this person will not be offered $160,000 by any stretch of the imagination I can tell you that much but what is the what is the top range cuz if you say that's including benefits of okay I understand you take I believe the range goes from anywhere from uh 112 to maybe 1 60 or 170 something all right so you're saying the top of the range is 160 or 170 so in other words we have to budget that much it's just temporarily and then well we have the person hired hopefully within the next 30 days so I will then based on their their experience set the salary and the actual salary will be reflected in the budget that you adopt let me just ask you this this is a surprise to me to see another another layer you've got you said you don't have anybody all right but you just went through five people I'm not talking about the individuals I'm talking about the titles you have a Communications person you just hired none of us at least I haven't met the person I don't know how we got that if that's Communications they ought to communicate right so the first thing is that you've got a Communications person you've got your IT director you got your deputy manager there's an executive confidential executive assistant that Mr um Stafford had is that still in the budget there that person yes she's on leave she's on she's on maternity leave right but that is in the budget that's a spot yes all right and then you have the administrative assistant you just hired who and that that was already in the budget there was a person in that spot to retire so that would be five or six people and that's not an unsubstantial number of people for the m man's office all the years I've served I've never seen anything more than three or four now if you add this this new position and you're going to just hire somebody in 30 days are we going to be stuck with that person if we don't keep you or or what happens here it's like we're giving out jobs during a time that could be a transition in four months in 4 months and 12 days okay in 4 months and 12 days Mr manager there will be an election in Montclair I may not even be involved in that election okay but there'll be an election and the election May produce new people up here now you have a contract till July 1st I believe I have a resolution not a contract for you to have make have us make a commitment in a temporary budget not even the full budget that we have a lot of discussion about this is temporary it's like it's being stuck in not saying sneaked but it's being slipped in okay like I got those new shoes those slipins they're very good by the way slip in shoes you're slipping in another $160,000 for another person to come on the staff to maybe what is that person going to be above the deputy manager who's been there for many years who knows this town well is that person going to have to be trained and have need need 6 months to just get oriented are you're going to get that person from Union County or something you know I don't know people are asking me these questions and you have to understand that you're not seen here as a permanent person you're here only temporarily 3 days a week people ask me today if we're going to go to a close session and hire you permanently I don't know the answer to that people came up here asking about this they asked me I don't know the answers to this I respect you because I know you for 40 years but your friend of mine Peter Shapiro and Bill Bradley who we both helped years ago 40 years ago when I ran for County F he they would not like this that I have to keep confronting this and I'm not going to vote for this budget if this is in it I'm not just one more question question so have we posted for this position not yet and for the record counselor counselors under the law I could have taken a vacant position converted it and filled it and never even put it before the council I include it in the budget for this very reason because I think we have to be transparent about these things so and as for your other comment government with all due respect government doesn't stop because there's an election coming up I have filled other vacancies because we have no choice and that's going to happen between now and election day and now in the day when the new or old counselors are sworn in we have to provide services and that doesn't go on hold because we don't know who's going to win an election in May right but you're going to put somebody in permanently with a high salary because you're here three days a week and you can't do the job that a full-time manager would do so what we need really to do is you need to leave as the temporary consultant and we need to have the deputy manager promoted to take the spot and then you can hire another deputy manager in that spot that's the solution management wise I manage the whole state consumer affairs lemon Lord Department I manage the Essex County Consumer Affairs office you know that you manage the turnpike which I think is pretty well-run road but you're here temporarily with us okay I could swear to you that if you were if you were looking at the interest of Monclair you wouldn't do this this you're looking at your interest as the as the manager there interim manager that you need this new position it's another 160,000 that could pay for four teachers well maybe three Mr laala um to that to that point which is raised here I've heard it raised a couple times now um you know there there's no Rhyme or Reason it was your limitation on 3 days a week is there ability for you to go to 5 days a week to do more of the work yes sir oh okay so um why aren't we what how does that fit with this position that why why aren't we moving to the 5 days a week and and and do would you still need this position if you are going to 5 days explain explain explain well you know I I I I will give my opinion here yeah um as somebody who ran uh Union County for six years and also ran the Turnpike Authority which included the turnpike and the parkway there is a contrary to the issue of of cost of salaries for our form personnel there is a dir of people providing services in other departments MH I'm I'm telling you there has been no investment in human capital here in a really long time with positions to get things done so my goal coming here temporarily counselor is to make this place more efficient and better run than when I got here and the fact that I'm acting my predecessor was or two predecessors were acting for years and years and years and I here till July and but until then I'm going to do this job as if I was going to spend the next 10 years here because I don't think government is temporary and I don't think government takes off for elections or election Seasons so we're going to get the job done and that's my goal what uh what what do you say then in terms of it was you were the one who couldn't do more than three at the time right so so are you saying firmly you can do the file full five at this yes I can okay well I would say we should start with that I mean that you know I mean you're talking about adding these other positions too but I get it but when you're you know again you couldn't be here but now you can great you know great I think everyone was great we want a full-time person working here we don't want somebody working here just a couple days it's been noted right so um more things get done right so um you know anyway that's something I believe we should move to then that was really sweet I like that so are you saying that by adding these two more days you'll be able to do more work I'm doing it now on my own time not TR days this place is nonstop so I think it was a direct my weekends so adding more days I will be here five days a week then and I will you know I excuse me yeah can you do more with five days yes and do we have to pay you more of course what do you think okay uh this isn't and I appreciate that this isn't filling a permanent position this is all right yeah this is still a temporary position this is goinging from 3 days which was his limitation to 5 days um okay interesting all right we're we're at the temporary budget any more questions seeing n Madam clerk councelor Cummings no Deputy Mayor herlock yes councel price Abrams yes councel Russo no councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes next is resolution r242 which is a resolution to apply for the New Jersey historic preservation fund certified local Grant uh Aid 2024 I so move second move than seconded any questions concerns comments uh councilwoman price sa um thanks mayor so um and I I did ask our planner Miss T who I see is here um for some clarification but I I wonder if we can just um make sure I fully understand so this is to um apply for a grant that would evaluate the historic district to the map we have in front of us so it would this this laid out area and what I was trying to understand was the impact to if the whole area becomes a historic district what's the impact on those people who currently own those properties in terms of their full and free use of those properties I just wonder does it change anything that they have to do differently by virtue of if they are at some point designated as historic well certainly um if those properties do become designated which would be an act by the a separate act by this Council to designated historic district then they would be subject to review uh by the historic preservation commission for any changes uh to the buildings and structures on those properties however what's what this is for is to do the survey um it's an intense level survey of the properties that are shown on the map what that does is once that survey is done and it's accepted by the state um that puts those properties into the category of requiring approval from the historic preservation commission for total demolition so essentially um once once the study is accepted just by the state and it's been structured so that it would meet the state's requirements for a historic survey it would ensure that those prop that you don't have any knockdowns of any potentially historic resources within that area unless it was approved by the historic preservation commission so that's the immediate impact um it does provide the necessary background if and when the township ever decides to make that a historic district which would have further limitations and if it's a historic district it would have the the uh Property Owners would have to be notified but so also again it's a whole District so does that mean every house in that would be evaluated to see if it's historic or is the whole District deemed histor every house is evaluated so some would this one is that one's not next door there every property is evaluated and and documented so we know what are what is or is not historic associated with those houses okay thank you okay thank you any other questions I believe this is to um authorize uh so Madam clerk councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor herlock yes councelor price Abrams yes councelor Russo yes councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes next is resolution r244 which is a resolution authorizing execution of aair and open Professional Services agreement with the ARB group to prepare feasibility study for Essex Park I so move second it's been moved and seconded uh questions concerns comments3 oops oops oh I'm sorry um well whatever well yeah I'll do this one first the kids are still here so yeah let's do that so four four you always s that one so resolution I'll go back to three this is resolution r244 resolution authorizing execution of fair open professional service agreement with the auby group to prepare feasibility assessment for ess6 Park and I so move it's I'd like to I'd like for us to table this until everyone can see these proposals and make an educated decision on this well again i' I've said my piece I've spoken with the manager he's given the explanation I've specifically commented on these proposals and I'll go back to this you noted it right we have certain information from previous work that we've done the goal here is to move forward to take that information we already have to infuse it with the comments from the public to determine which style of rink we want three different options see how much each of those options would cost us and then move forward the feasibility study um specifically in terms of the one that replied to the bid that's a lot more money as the manager noted talks about about some of the structural pieces which we have as you note yourself right that's not the that's not what we're trying to get at here we've said this from budget season all the way to now and I appreciate it I appreciate the comments all along the way of you know we don't need another rink you know we put it to football fields um G gate somewhere I've heard it all but I you know look I'm about we need to do something for this rink and I appreciate the the the other ideas that are out there um but you know I don't know how much they ring true to trying to get the work done when there's been a lot of movement to try and move us in every direction except moving forward with doing something on this rink dollars taken out last year money this year when we talk about it roadblocks every step of the way to try and get dollars to this rink it's a commitment we made they said they would raise some money to do this work we you know I I honor that commitment um said we'd put it in and I think this does exactly that so I'm I'm it's moved and seconded but I I hope my colleagues would support it as well and I said I just want to make a motion to table this and i' look for someone to Second yes I'd second at least tabling for a while so we can look it's not a while well all you got to do these can be delivered to this to the council within 24 hours M was given to me in an hour uh not not the bill moved and seconded uh uh all those in favor of can we discuss what we're doing all those in favor of what this is tabling not debatable not debatable all in favor of tabling right uh Madam Clerk councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor herlock no councelor price Abrams no council Russo yes councelor schlager no councelor Terry no mayor Spiller no so we're back to the main motion um any questions concerns comments M uh councilwoman price a thanks so I I do want to also tease out what I think the distinction is between the two requests uh and again I did not read them both so is based on what I'm understanding about them often we get to two different or multiple biders of something and the lowest responsible responsive bid uh in this case though what we're discussing in part because of council cumming's um own review is that the one by the engineering firm goes into a great manner of detail as if we understood what we wanted and I think the point of this proposal is to help evaluate what we do want I I know the mayor's commented on his you know Volkswagen up to the Cadillac kind of verions he didn't say um so I think what this is to do as the bottom of the memo says um the current project includes a site evaluation document review coordinating of a community engagement program and preparing the feasibility studies with recommendations so that is the part where some of the people are coming to speak with us but the people we have to go out and talk to and figure out what is the community of an appetite to fund if we could have the biggest best thing um great but what do we want to what do we want to weigh off off in terms of costs and in terms of the benefit and taking the facility we have and whether it's a tear down uh to council cumming's point or it's not um and so I do believe that is within the scope of I think expertise of the AUB group based on the work I've done with them um certainly the community engagement PS we had talked about with them and so I'm understanding that the engineering firm I presume includes that and more and we don't need the end more um as the mayor has described so I'm I'm on board with supporting this to move forward I do have a question though um cuz I noted that when um it was certified by our CFO it says pending adoption of the 2024 budget so I want to understand is that the temporary budget that we just passed that that applies to everything alth although I do believe my understanding was that should have that we put the money in for this study in the temporary budget which is under my um the money in the last year's budget yeah yeah we have the money speci we have the money right now actually hold on one second well the reason why if you look at the temporary budget that was adopted where has Township manager OE and the number is $212,000 it's because I specifically put the money in for this for this study how however all of the resolutions say um uh you know uh subject to the adoption of the permanent budget okay but I did specifically make sure that the money was there to start this and we didn't have to wait until the adoption of the uh of the 2024 budget that makes but we're we do have the $50,000 don't we yeah we we we had talked about putting this in now last year's budget there was never any just just like um uh Vision zero it the full funding for these projects was not specific in the budget I can assure you that in the 2024 budget when it comes to things like Vision zero and other studies that they will be specifically mentioned in the budget document so we don't go you know searching for change every time we want to do something that we can't predict a year before I think the counselor's point is we approved $50,000 so we have 50 we should have 50 towards this 63 already you never there was never specifically $50,000 set aside for this study right but that's what we approved well you you approved the budget that but there's no there was no specific light item last year for this study even though you thought there was we had a there was a resolution put before us to set aside $50,000 for RFP for what is essentially this what we're getting and you're saying it never happened never happened okay we never voted on that no it wasn't execut it wasn't done like we voted on that so I i' say to you Mr Lola to make sure that so it went from 50 to 63 so we're going up to 63,000 for something we said we would do 50 an an estimate councelor the an estimate I have no other way to all right well Mr my bigger piece there is if you can make sure that you know when public comes we debate these issues that's the challenge right everybody here has a very valid and important ask a funding one balanced against tax assessments and wanting to we all pay taxes here too want to be you know good stewards we trying to find that balance we have tough debates up here we don't always agree but we figure it out when we do come down with something we got to expect that when we vote on it as was noted and we pass a resolution and we include number you know that it is then in the budget the way we just voted on it right we can't operate from somehow then it's not put in the budget right so I just ask you to then closely monitor as we talk about these things to make sure that they are actually follow also my recommendation to you would also be to put a line item or two in the budget so that if an issue arises in July it's not where are we going to find the money to address Etc that's good budgeting and smart I also want to go back to when we actually do something not wor that's why that's why I put in the temporary budget too so we didn't have to wait until the adoption question councel Abrams you said you've worked with this group before the auy group so these of the folks who uh the education committee is the mayor and councelor Scher and myself and we have been working with them uh for grant writing and so they have actually secured a good amount of grant funding uh for various kinds of initiatives working sometimes with our staff and sometimes on their own and so we have found them to Be an Effective group in that regard and we had talked through the walkth through that the council was speaking about before was a walkth through with them talking about what that process might look like okay could you talk a little bit about your I will I we'll talk about that um I've worked with the Aubrey group now for the past three and a half years with on our education committee they're very professional they're very knowledgeable they work all throughout the state of New Jersey on various um Comm um grants and programs and they've worked with hospitals they've worked with many nonprofits school districts universities they're very professional and very they're great I mean we meet with them once a month for three and a half years but I would also like to say yes I went through three walkthroughs of Clary Anderson Arena with three different engineering firms not one of them I after I left those walkthroughs nobody wrote anything down nobody took a picture and I said to myself what what was the reasoning behind this I I didn't really know and we never heard from anybody nobody ever got back to us um I I don't know where $30 million came from but I'm sure it's got to be in that ballpark perhaps no it's we have it in it's in the Department of Community Services neglia did it provide it we have scope specs and everything I I hav se that again it's all you do is ask but the fact remains in my view we don't have $30 million there's lots of people and lots of Advocates that we hear from week after week after month after year we there people that would love to have a senior center which which I think is a great which is long overdue there's we need a new municipal building I was on the planning board and we had a presentation by Miss tally and her Department of all the issues in this building some of them you could even see in this in these uh drop- down ceilings and the facade on the side of this building is in bad shape we need a new police department building we had Chief coni in here telling us of the leaks and the potential mold they have rats we need a new building there we need to upgrade all our pools summer after summer we hear from residents who would like to see upgrades in in our pools and and I and I absolutely agree with that as well we don't have 10 20 $30 million for a new Arena I love the arena it's it's it's a treasure of this town it has history and if we could find this the Aubrey group who I know and who I've worked with and Trust um if we could spend this minimal amount of money in my view to get a proposal to get a feasibility study to maybe for four or five million that we could get grants for fundraising to upgrade what we have a new refrigeration system a new Zamboni um a new roof I'm all for that because as far as I could see whether I'm on the council or not in six months I don't see us I don't see a $30 million check that we could write and and and when there's other issues that are just as important as an ice skating rink if not more important in some people's views I agree with you 100% And I think it's we have to be realistic and understand that that building is more than just fixing it up and that's not me that's our Department of Community Services former director saying it not me the interior of that facility is really old and bad pipes you know it goes back to when we when the schools were bad right they couldn't find equipment that fixed they couldn't find equipment that would that matched up to the the vents inside the school because they were so old so they couldn't even find equipment to fix that and so we're looking at a similar thing here where when we go in the feasibility study I skated in that ring in 1972 okay when it was open air and the only thing they did was was fill it up now I will say that the they had the best french fries in town all right I will say that I can remember that very well choc was good I'm talking 5 six years old as a child and so but the point is and to your point about what we need and Lori I believe you and Peter yakob Bellis and I were trying to get a facilities group going and the first thing we said was we need a new Municipal complex that should be the priority for us and then we can look at what is next but I'm what I'm saying to this group and to the public here today is yes what do you all want you want a ice skating rink but you want a ice skating rink that's going to be viable for what 5 years or 30 years do you want something that you're going to come back and say hey this is broken every year we're we're maintaining and going into that ring and fixing it up again and again so you know whatever this feasibility stuff comes back with we could support it um and see what it is but my thing again is we have these done done already it's been done already and it just really seems to me that we're wasting $60,000 on something that when it comes back to us we're going to end up peac mealing again and so but but the main thing that I want to say is again you're voting on something that you didn't see and with these two assessments look at what the what did we ask for in The Proposal that's all I'm saying the township issued an a res request for proposals to retain a consultant to evaluate design options for Essex Park to evaluate design options that's what we said in our proposal they don't do design options they do great work in terms of going out after grants but they don't do that and so look at again that's why I say look at the proposal because it tells you what their core services are and what they do so now they're going to go out probably have to hire an architect they said on the proposal they have an architect that can do this and then the Architects have to come up with some things potentially and if that does is that going to increase the cost or is that going to be absorbed by the auy group because they don't have these things on there now what we've received from CME they have these firms in there it's all in house but this is you know seems to be something that this is a done deal and we'll see what happens yep I mean so let's put it let's put it to a vote I go back to I'll just end with um you know we can't at one hand say we think it's 30 million and we don't have 30 million and we're not going to do that but by the way we don't want to do peace meal we don't want to do something smaller so go with the 30 million which we're not going to do that's my S so so me that's that's that's not what I say I don't think it's going to cost 30 million looking at three options I don't think all three options are going to be 30 million there going to be well I think there's going to be different options that are less than 30 million yes there will be options less than 30 million okay there will be and what those options are but if you remember that 30 million I'm glad you TR that that 30 million Robin also included adding a second floor and making this truly a community center cuz that was the other conversation we had about it was as you said our PTA have no place in town where they can go and have an affair at no cost and that's what we were looking at that's what included within this 30 million and there are three different tracks with that with that one one is just adding the second floor because we can go up expanding outside because we have a lot of property over there parts of New Jersey Transit I mean we've done this already so you know but what I want to make it clear is it's not spending $30 million or $6 million it's doing this right from the beginning which is I would assume every counselor up here reading two proposals that they're going to vote on that's number one step no disrespect to you guys because I hear what you're saying but then and also the other problem I don't think we should be looking to private organizations nonprofits raising money for something that is a municipal asset that's another issue this is our asset and we should be the ones who are championing this and going forward with this that's what I think so I set my peace appreciate that I I think that councilman schlager has direct experience doing private fundraising for parks and other things that I think worked really really well but um anyway Let's uh put it to a vote M clerk councelor Cummings no Deputy Mayor Hurlock yes councelor price abam yes councel Russo no councelor schlager yes councelor Terry I must say that uh councelor Cummings make some very good points but I don't see any issue with doing the study at least for now so I'm going to say yes thank you mayor Spiller uh yes uh next is resolution r233 miss this resolution awarding uh the uh non-fair and open contract the power DMS remains of the Township's Police Department training accreditation and scheduling platform I still move second is removed and second seconded any questions concerns comments seeing none uh Madam clerk councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor harof yes councelor price Abrams yes councilor Russo yes councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes uh next is resolution r245 which is authorizing the submission of application hazardous discharge site uh remediation fund 75% Recreation and conservation grant for remediation of discharge 399 Orange Road I so move second move and seconded any questions concerns comments yes Janice can you please tell me if this is going to get done because I have a certain former fourth W counselor who has been on my case about this for some time and it seems that it's been quite a while that when this should have been done it wasn't done so is it going to get done well I hope what the all this does is it um authorizes the township to apply for grant funding we finally got the cost estimate to remediate that property it's close to $1.3 million so um The Next Step as you know we went back and forth with the site investigation every time we got new information we had to go back and REM remap it and before we could do that this was all entirely Grant funded so the next step will be if you would pass this resolution will apply for the grant funds it's very slow getting those Grant funds in it may be close to a year before I get all the paperwork back from uh D and Eda because they're the you need approval from both of them to move forward with the grant but if we do and we have our contribution lined up we'll be able to move forward and and and this is the last step remediating it and part of the remediation will be creating that Park and we met with the the group so the group that we met with last year I think it was last year where this was the step that they said they were to get to before we start going in and changing the location that was uh I believe the licensed site remediation professional lsrp yeah we met with them we had to bring in um they brought in different uh contractors to come up with the cost estimates because as you know cost estimates can vary widely and this one did too so that's how we ended up 1.3 but we met with them they brought in a variety of different contractors and I think they felt confident that the cost estimate that they developed which was the $1.3 million is what the remediation cost will be and this is Town land that the township owns yes and therefore the houses near there we want to make sure that there's nothing in that soil in their area that is detrimental to them so this is we B the property it's our responsibility to remediate it thank you so okay uh councilwoman price yeah thanks yes so I also had flagged that um you know the 75% of this total estimated um remediation cost you know comes to over three is it 308 38,000 or 380 which was it 308,000 so it's it's also significant dollars you did point out to me that it's Our obligation to remediate it if we can get the 75% we might be able to find other Green Acres maybe or other dollars that would be a part of that match absolutely I've been in conversation with the CFO and with uh manager Lola to find out exactly how we're going to fund that you know we can look for other grant funding to to if it's possible to help uh supplement our match I do know that we had some money set aside in an open open space trust fund provided by uh various developers so we'll see if we can tap into that as well so we still have a fund of that sort ex the open space trust fund we still have see I've asked the CFO she has hasn't responded to that okay thank you okay thank you J you're welcome any other questions concerns comments uh this is authorizing submission of an application so I don't believe I think it should be a Voice vote correct all in favor please say I all I I post extenstions okay thank you resolution r236 which is the resolution authorizing acceptance of an $111,000 Grant partners for health I so move second um questions concerns comments just I'm sorry brief uh Mr Deputy Mayor thank you Mr Mayor just that we're a friendly Amendment please uh that we're going to actually accept the U expansion of senior programming instead of the expand dentition of senior programing other than that I'm okay fa thank you I second that change I second thank you Bob a typo really it's just a typo last tyo we haven't done corrected thank you Mr Mayor that's corrected again this is the acceptance of a grant so I believe we could do a Voice vote on this uh all in favor please say I I I opposed abstentions okay we have uh approved that thank you very much next is resolution r237 uh which is a resolution so sorry wanted to say something here briefly please yeah Council price uh I just want to also just acknowledge what this dollars go to it's not a lot of money at this point but it is you know supporting the um then the health department the work we do on behalf of seniors and so you know that's something that I know many of us up here have have made a strong priority and and that's just some of the dollars that will go into that I just wanted to flag that thanks yeah absolutely uh next is resolution r237 resolution authorizing execution of shared services agreement uh County of Essex for the Transportation uh again services for our senior services and again I'll just note this has been you know great success great success so I so move second it's moved and seconded any questions concerns comments seeing none um this is execution of agreement so Madam clerk roll call please councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor Hurlock yes councelor price Abrams yes councelor Russo yes councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes resolution r248 which is resolution authorizing in the township to accept accept uh qualified responses to the request for qualifications for Professional Services for conflict and general litigation counsel I so move second it's moved and seconded any questions concerns comments yes this is this is outside Council that is being recommended by our town attorney is that what this is yes and there for when it says conflict in general litigation what's conflict cover that the township Attorney office is your microphone on in the event the township attorney's office has a conflict and cannot represent the township that we have conflict Council uh available to now I see four names your microphone's not onic sorry I got it now thank you there's four names there's four companies here there's four firms I'm sorry right so any four of these can do something like this and fill in correct is that what this is correct council do we need all four of these why is there four we don't need all four but they're all being qualified in the in the event we have a particular matter that we want to reach out to one of those particular venders that might be within their specialty something that they handle uh in an expedited and a uh cheaper manner so we qu so we're qualifying different vendors so five proposals were received mhm we've eliminated somebody right yes I'm glad to see some you know there's a couple of firms that are more local Montclair Livingston I will also say um counselor that um some of the council members have requested that we look at firms that are diverse and uh we'll fulfill our DIP program and a couple of these vendors do that first now one is mon first for the law department since I've been here so the the one from Montclair Elvin estevis I know that yes now rer Danzig um we've been using them for quite a few issues haven't we we've had two years of them so far correct so you want to keep them again right well they're handling matters for us and through consistency that carry over from one year to the next year and it's beneficial for the town to continue using them and not transfer those cases because it will cost more for a firm to get up to speed to where reker already knows what going understand all that you know my general problem with all this is all the outside costs and and that that's now in this temporary budget and any full budget there's going to be a large amount of money spent on these outside firms in your in your uh unit so my question is with the overall outside attorney issue and looking at I which we're not on but it has a couple of attorneys to do our labor work what happened we don't have uh Genova anymore well we'll go on to that one in the next one but you know I see a change somewhere but then see it not a change where I'd like to see it so we'll we'll take one at a time but on H I'm going to vote no because I don't like the whole philosophy of going out for all these expensive firms all right Madam CL uh councilwoman price so just for my clarity um Mr attorney um these are not we're not there's no money here to hire them these are people that you are deeming qualified that in the event there's a conflict that you can't your department can't handle something we have firms that we could select from who some of them may be conflicted so we can use a different one so we have a selection of firms that would be one of the reasons yes one of the reasons why we are qualifying these okay so it seems like it's just due diligence to have people in the stable should we need them yep and the other reason would be for their expertise that the Law Department doesn't from time to time from time to time doesn't and and often the law firms themselves on this list could have a conflict another party so it's not only the conflict for the department but within there you can have several who have a conflict um so we need to have a a list gotta okay uh mam clerk councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor Hurlock yes councelor price Abrams Council Russo no councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes next to resolution R2 24009 resolution authorizing the township to accept accept qualified responses to the request for qualifications for Professional Services for labor and employment and I so move second move and seconded questions concerns comments okay mayor my question again was what happened to goova Burns that we used for years and is this costing us any more you're you're putting two firms in place of that one firm for the town attorney and the manager please explain the uh my understanding is Mr the Genova firm decided not to pursue work with the township and that was last year they weren't on the list and this is for the same reason as that if outside Council has a conflict we need to have two firms and there's Al also areas of expertise which we may need one and not the other all right so this is employment law right negotiating and labor negotiations yeah so we've got a firm from Cedar noes and a firm from Oakland there's no local here that we could use just like on the other list what were at least the Monclair firm I mean I know Stuart ball from Monclair does enormous amounts of labor work I'm just throwing a name out he's a local guy I mean why can't we have some local MR bald submit a proposal to the RFP he did not he did not no okay well I mean I'm just questioning who these people are I don't know who they are very comfortable for years with Genova Burns I don't know who these people are I believe the HR manager the HR Director under her watch the uh clear firm came on isn't that correct cor correct we we brought clear on last year I think she had a prior work relationship with them she has a prior work relationship with with Clary so that's where she that's where that firm came from but and they submitted when we put out an RFP last year in 2022 they submitted a proposal that that worked hand inand with her coming on board she knew them and it was one of the firms that we decided to work with and we qualified a few other firms too on that list um last year as well okay Madam clerk councilor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor Hurlock yes councelor price Abrams yes councelor Russo since we have to have labor attorneys I'll vote Yes councelor schlager Yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes next is resolution r24 uh 10 resolution authorizing the township to accept and qualify responses to the request for qualifications for Professional Services for vacant and abandoned properties and I so move second moved and seconded any questions concerns comments seeing none Madam clerk councelor Cummings yes Deputy Mayor hura yes councelor price Abrams yes councelor Russo this is for that s archangelo firm right that's been working with us yes correct and he's a local attorney very good yes councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes next is resolution r411 resolution authorizing uh to pre-qualify and Award of fair and open Professional Services again to this uh sple Clooney company for municipal audit services and ISO move second any questions concerns comments yes I have a question we're moving from a West Orange firm to a Westfield firm who made that decision we we're Mak recommendation recommendation recommendation from who from the committee that reviewed the uh the committee that reviewed who's that council members Council Comm the process is internal councel internal C okay I I just want the recommendation of the uh uh what's wrong with the order we had what's wrong with the order we had local West we believe that it was necessary for we need a it was time for a change time wait time for a change you came on and now you want to change our auditor right yes to somebody who's in the town you live in I don't live there oh I'm sorry so okay well you don't live far from there do you well I I I'm do you know this person is this somebody that you know like bring an auditor $888,000 to somebody just like that Mr what's his name Bernstein that's the lawyer for Stafford that we using for $80,000 he shouldn't be on he shouldn't be hired by us now you want us to hire this firm and you're dumping this local West Orange firm that's worked for many years with us I believe and I don't know I don't understand who this is Supple Clooney and Company from Westfield okay I'll vote no on it I'm just bringing it to the attention of the public again any other questions patronage to me seeing none Madam clerk councelor Cummings no Deputy Mayor herock yes councelor price Abrams yes councelor Russo no councelor schlager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes uh Mr Lola you want to go over the uh discussion items on there and and and certainly and and finishing up just on the um you know uh Auditors right it is it is standard and good practice to constantly switch Auditors every period of time so that you have a different set of eyes on it that's absolutely appropriate and I had handed out I don't know if all the councilors got it another resolution in terms of um the award of a fair and open for the financial advisers uh yeah I don't know if Council Russo was here when I handed that out I got something here um this is to replace Ben sorry yeah so this is a resolution authorizing the township to pre-qualify uh for service contracts to um aaia Financial Group and NW Financial Group and I so move okay it's move and seconded Mr Leo you want to speak to that briefly same this is what we've been doing for all of them but you want to speak to yes yes uh these are we received the responses we rated two of them acceptable and um they you know depending on their expertise will will be assigned uh you know uh project by on a project by project basis some that will involve some of the uh budgetary advice but we thought it was prudent that we award to two um certify same concept is before all biders were required to be have all certifications um with the SEC okay yeah can you just explain again why we're doing this because we had this big incident with Mr Beni didn't we I mean uh so the public knows why we're changing why we even need a financial advisor we have our financial we have our finance officer and the whole staff what do we need this financial advisor for it all I'm glad to see ones from Bloomfield our neighboring Town think that's really I I I would I would ask that same question we have a CFO and a department I I don't understand why we need this I never understood why we needed Mr Beni either well but nobody so um they the the I I believe every governmental entity in New Jersey would have a a financial advisor you use them in terms of when you're going to go out to uh to bid to to do a financial analysis to do to assist us in negotiations um for on lacana for example all of those functions there there's a variety of functions bond is bond issuances is the first one they're all certified to do Bond issuances so we avoid that problem in the past and um whether it's Nork and Jersey City or the smallest community in New Jersey everyone has has an official financial advisor CF you know relies on this consultant to help her uh with making decisions and choices and presenting um Financial uh analysis to the manager so I think it's important that the township have a has a financial don't we have on Mr Scotland's firm to do our bond Mr Scotland is no longer representing the township as our bond Council but what they do is prepare the bond ordinances for the for the bonds that uh are going to be adopted by the township they don't do the financial analysis of it I see but we still have McMan in Scotland no we do not they they resigned they resigned they resigned yes they NOA resigned everybody's resigned okay let me ask you this question there's no money listed on the second sheet for the NW Financial Group in Bloomfield is there just a mission there or what the other one says 25 25,000 that was an Omission is it just an Omission or something is it still that was $25,000 each each I assume that right why couldn't we just have that one firm since we had one guy before and one firm before why couldn't we just have NW Financial from Bloomfield cuz going all the way to Mount Laurel great town but we you really have to go to Mount Laurel for a financial advisor the these two firms I would say represent probably 50 to 60% or maybe more of the municipalities and County governments in New Jersey really these are two of the Premier firms I guess there's question do we need the two I what we're talking about for all the other position makes sense conflict I mean um and on that other issue uh look ahead I'm sorry I won't go to the bond Council okay all right any other questions so we're switching to two we have two Financial yes groups that will be assisting CFO and yourself and everything moving forward yes and you feel as though we need to because if there are certain conflicts one will be able to handle it the other isn't and some other with exper and compared to cost before um it's it's comparable is comparable Mr Ben's contract last year was 49,000 initially and this to and then they get paid on bond issues ETC that's different there's a schedule for that depending on if we borrow money or not right but for the basic service this was just a split in that that fee and so this isn't a retainer this is an actual fee yes it's it's a not to exceed on the cont not to exceed and it gets spent Down based on usage absolutely so it wouldn't it wouldn't be necessarily my understanding to that question where both are working on the same thing at the same time unless dou use one and then maybe the other one for something else AB who make those decision Finance director how she uses Township manager manager decides how we use okay Madam clerk one other thing I would like to point out is again uh one of the two is a uh women certified women owned business so again we we go to you know trying to meet our our 20% on our U diversity inclusion program that we have in our ordinance okay mam clerk councelor Cummings no Deputy Mayor herlock yes councelor price Abrams yes Council Russo no councelor schlager no councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes um Mr LOL you want to briefly go over again we know a lot of these but just go over briefly these items sure resolution uh number one is a resolution authorizing the amendment to a fair and open contract for New Jersey licensed Electric electrical services provider due to a change in the state of New Jersey prevailing wage rate there was an increase so we're amending the contract to reflect same number two is um a resolution authorizing the renewal of the fair and open contract for Township HVAC maintenance and repair service providers this this was done by bid and we were uh now exercising our option to renew for another year number three is uh resolution authorizing the renewal of the fair and open contract for Township new Township New Jersey licensed plumbing services um for another year um number four was a is a resolution authorizing the purchase of uh uh for the repair of a piece of fire apparatus and the amount of $837 97 uh number five is a resolution authorizing the emergency purchase pursuant to statute to repair a storm water catch Basin in Van vleck Street or Van vle Street I apologize if I van vleck um in the amount of 8,269 Mr Mayor a real quick question if I could please um uh Mr Leola what is the procedure for that to identify broken catch Bas and and stuff who who should we go to because I see them all over the place to be honest with you uh I would call I would contact the uh Town engineer Roberto okay that's the quickest way to getting a direct response okay and you authorized me to do that under the fuler act so I don't get for you legally just one time okay thank you thank you Mr Mayor just copy me all right all right thank you okay number six is a resolution authorizing uh the award of a contract for count uh for year 2024 by the purchasing agent pursuant to the um to the uh election transparency act uh sorry before you sure um so this is to retain our current qpa AL daos no right no it's an authority to award a contract so as we're in 2024 is this something we should take action on tonight and pull it out or it's find a way to the end it's find the way it is it's for this year right yeah okay unless you want to pull that's fine well only if there's any impediment to uh there is there any there's no didn't indicate that there was a rush there's no rush then leave it Y and again unless wear an objection all these will be consent for next agenda these lady over there y okay number seven is a resolution enable uh Ena resolution in support of the Green Acres um application for Nish Park uh uh completely inclusive playground project so we're seeking a grant of 750,00 I have a question on that so that application um was generated and started by Norberto I believe because the memo his memo is from Norberto right which I just I read the other night and just now and so on something like that who initiates that is it Miss Tally's office or I think it all depends on we get notifications on grants either from our our our grant consultant or just different departments or myself getting these notifications on a regular basis you always are looking for the Green Acres and those big things that you get on a regular basis but this has been a goal of ours to uh to to make these improvements at at at NWI so we're hoping which is which is great but we also have an all-inclusive playground at edgemon Park which which um 80% of that money was donated money from residents we we did a huge fundraising campaign about 10 about 11 years ago and the playground needs to be be updated it's there lots of broken equipment the um surface is broken and um and in bad shape which is a dangerous situation I had many conversations with a former employee Steve Wood through the manager I um and that was on the long was on the list for upgrades for that inclusive playground so I'm just curious how this superseded that hey Robin I wouldn't say this superseded it um before covid when we first got on um this conversation about Nish way because Nish the pool at n way hadn't been done and the park the playground itself had not been done for a long time and it needed to be upgraded and so but there was also a push well if you're going to upgrade it it's having inclusive um playground playground was very important cuz it had nothing there as inclusive so I wouldn't say it's superseded I would say the the change was needed there because they didn't have anything that was um inclusive and in fact canterburry was going to follow that because canterburry was in the same situation um and so I I think it's as we've done with Parks we've upgraded Parks over time and Nish and Canterbury hadn't been upgraded before any other Park that was upgraded in the past same thing with the pools so right now the pools at Nisha is being done and this just happened to be something based on delay of the pools not getting done before where it seems like it's coincide but it wasn't as as if it was it jumped over anything and that was in conversations with Steve and Alberto U actually when I first got on the council to talk about Nish we did the basketball courts first the and the the walkways everything initially hadn't been done it was the last Park to get done okay and so this is just a continuation of it based on timing thank you and I appreciate that I I didn't know any of that um but I would also like to in our in our budget when we go through it line by line which I assume we're going to have those budget presentations between this temporary budget and the actual budget um I would like to to see money in for edgemon Park to upgrade it's it's upgrade and um and fixing what we have there um thank thank you yeah I M mayor if I could um I know you and I have worked on this since we've been yes up here yep seems like a 100 years ago now but it was only 11 but we went to we met actually with some of the Reps from the all-inclusive playgrounds we did to get something done you know I understand there were upgrades at those Parks I think it needs to be something though across the board there's been so many advancements when it comes to these types of playgrounds and the need for them and how effective and important that they are I yeah excuse me I would ask Mr Lola that we look at this townwide at all of the parks because I I know you and I have met with several Representatives over the years over this and whether or not there was money and you know back and forth or whatever I think this is a townwide issue and I would respectfully request that we do an assessment across the board thank you Mr Mayor yeah I think that that's important but I want to reiterate when we started redoing parts we did them and NTI way was the last to get done and so therefore that's why it's first in here because it was actually last right and it didn't get anything done regards to other Parks so as you want to look townwide that's that's exclusive of this but yes do agree we do need to look at all the parks to see which Parks have not you know which Parks need this sure yes and thank you and I believe last year we the park next to the claran Anderson Arena was redone right that's Essex Park Essex Park y okay thank you when all the trees were removed yeah I'm concerned maybe we didn't have such a good maybe it was a subpar job done at Edgemont you know I don't know no that was not the case at all it's just it's almost 12 years old and it's used not only by residents but used by the Edgemont school um and you know they have that's wear and tear but didn't they give us some sort of a warranty it's 12 years old well it's time yeah it's time right but I mean it was also what does it say in a contract it was also there was vandalism there a few years ago where somebody Set Fire to the rubber surface in the playground all right it's it's old Mr okay number eight a resolution authorizing the exe execution of fair and openpr professional service agreement with negle Engineering Associates for for 2024 from Municipal engineering uh Services go ahead Mr leai I I was we all like you know let the meeting by July okay um I'm just so we will be retaining neglia in an ongoing way yes Etc but I I just wanted to come back to I know something you had suggested that in the hiring of our DCs head that you hope to find someone who's also an engineer yes we're we're advertising for that probably by the end of the week but you know we'll see if we get we we can't make it mandatory because there's a a dirt of Engineers looking to work in government right now and there's if you if you check on like for League of municipalities there are always numerous people looking for engineers so we're going to hopefully be able to recruit somebody okay but uh you know or not at least have a staff engineer but we we don't know that yet thanks for the update okay okay next number nine is an ordinance supplementing chapter 190 uh of the housing code of the township of Montclair to add an article regarding lead based paint That's pursuant to New Jersey statute where we now are going to be required to do inspections of uh of uh all rental one two and multif family buildings um so uh we need to amend our ordinance to be in compliance with the statute okay thank you thank you Mr laal appreciate that that's it when objection we'll have all those on the consent agenda for the next meeting be prepared for that move the agenda of flexibility uh next I'm going to open up to uh public comment um all speakers sign a signing sheet uh next to the podium for addressing the council is there anyone wish to speak for public comment I forgot yeah we just sit down and do that whatever I have to do hello good evening mayor Spiller council members and Mr Lola my name is Susan Shen Anderson and I reside at 14 Forest Street um first of all I'd like to did you push the button did you maybe push the button okay um I'd like to first of all start by thanking all of you for your service I I recognize that this is um you know as much as as it's a privilege and an honor to serve it's not easy work so I do thank you for your service I'm here tonight to ask in followup to the emails that I have sent for an update on the establishment of the Monclair Police Department anti-hate crime Community task force supported by a $300,000 Grant awarded by the US Department of Justice to this Township I first learned about this opportunity for our town back in January of 2022 through an article in the Montclair local as well as through my involvement with aapi Montclair since then however I've heard close to nothing on what's been happening with the progress of the grant implementation or the community task force and whether the police department has moved forward on this grant the grant narrative presents this initiative as a community collaboration and specifically proposes community events to raise awareness about bias crimes and how to prevent them I hope that such events and educational programs for the community at large will be part of the grant implementation there's no question that it's important to educate people about how to identify and Report hate crimes to make sure the police department is properly trained and that there is robust data on hate crimes accessible to the public however the majority of bias incidents are never reported to law enforcement or do not rise to the level of a hate crime so to me it's important that there is a plan for us as a community to learn how we can address incidents when we experience them or as neighbors and upstanders through non-law enforcement responses as well stopping hate requires community-based Solutions outside of law enforcement I'm sure you know there are many groups and individuals right here in Montclair who have been working to raise awareness about hate and bias crimes and provide opportunities for community members to empower themselves and learn from each other and share resources for how to identify and respond to hate and bias incidents this initiative and task force is important to the health and safety of our town and I hope that the township and the council will ensure that this work is done um I respectfully ask that the formation of this task force be prioritized and that a detailed update on the progress of this initiative be communicated also um I did review the temporary budget that was in the packet for tonight um and I do want to inquire about whether or not uh this grant um I didn't see it in the temporary budget so I would like to know if it is part of the budget and if it is if it's folded into another line item so um I appreciate your time and I would appreciate a response thank you very much thank you thank you for raising Susan yeah Susan stay there so we get an answer I'd like to ask the the um Grant is absolutely a priority we had the the council women and I who serve on the committee were very thrilled when we got this grant um specifically as it's moved through we've run into I believe Mr leolo you can speak to this a little more at this juncture um it's run into where it was house right we had the grant writers who were able to successfully get this grant um but then it wasn't them to manage the Grant and make sure they were on top of that Grant it was uh moved over to staff and then staff on the police side of things right on their front um they were then working with um whoever the contacts are with the state to kind of get that work done I believe there was just a long leave where the person has been out for how long at the state level side of it and they just came back you'd be able to speak to that a little more Mr Lola um but if you can give us an update as exactly where that is at and then if we're re-engaging who to do the oversight of that if it's going to be grant writers or others because I know the the the police had it and have it and then you know specifically to that now that the state person's back like what's this what's the process there sure and first of all I want to thank you when you sent the email because I'll be perfectly transparent here that was the first time I heard there was an issue with the grant so after we received your communication we immed immediately reached out to to the police department where there were different people whether it's in the department or the agency that we're dealing with on leave and this and that I can tell you right now well there was an issue with the budget because we initially submitted one budget then we I believe through the uh through the finance department a changed it because we wanted to be able to hire personnel which is not allowed under the budget uh under the grant so we now have submitted a new revised budget and we are waiting to hear back to make sure to see if it's accepted but I can assure you that that this is a priority of mine and as I mentioned before about creating this new position that I would like to create is that we have grants all over the place we have you know we get money we're well intentioned we apply but you know different departments have capabilities of of of monitoring administering grants and some don't but we want to make sure that nothing ever falls through the crack I have a similar Grant from the small business administration that I found out about because when I was going through literally going through my desk I found a file with the information and it sat dormant for the better part of a year so we're doing our best to make sure this doesn't happen and I will be in personal contact with you to make sure you know as things develop when we are back on the budget Etc can I I can I ask a couple of follow-up questions please do you mind I would appreciate if you can grab Mr Leola he'll answer all of them I'd like to hear I'd like to hear the questions publicly yeah well I know but we have a lot of people waiting to to speak at this time too and I appreciate that but you certainly can grab Mr PA he'll be here and you can speak to him and get all hang hang on a sec hang on a second I have a question on this I'm reading the original press release from January 2022 it specifically says that the mayor said that we were going to appoint a committee which was unlimited number but it specifically said that Montclair State would have a representative the County prosecutor's office what have representative it's got all kinds of specific details in here that we were going to have a committee appointed that would be a task force again now we rushed one night here to app point a task force on leaf blowers that we didn't even need and we put all the people on it we put a chair and all one night but this has been lingering for two years why couldn't we have at least appointed the task force that would work with these grant money you know we should at least get that done because it's urgent that we deal with this when we're having these conflicts between various groups in our own Community as going on nationally it's an urgent thing that Su has brought to our attention so you may not know this Michael but the whole press release says in 2022 January that we're going to have a big task force committee made up with people including Monclair State students and faculty and whatever so Bob here's my direct question to you again I believe we got the leaf plower committee because a counselor took the lead and did something about it and came up with it so if you're so interested why don't you take the lead in this and and create that task force very task forone you can go vote here no it's not Lor's one vote but she was able to go out and get community members who are willing to do it because a lot a lot of times while you say things and I appreciate what you say but the bottom line is if you want to get this task force you have every right to go out and find individuals to be on it cuz you you made the comparison to division zero I mean to the to the task force for leaf blowers that Lori went out got people they signed up for it and we created it she didn't go out and get got a chair of it a my point to you Bob is if if you could take on the role of actively going out and finding people to be on this committee thank you I appreciate that you think I should do that I'll work with Susan on that cuz she's been very prec I don't think the mayor wants me excuse it's not about I want or not the the grant actually requires it it's in the grant it specifies what has to it is but my point is arrows in the bottom line is Bob can sit up here get but disect I understand but everyone's waiting for their 3 minutes so appreciate I didn't mean to cause um conflict on the DI my my sole my sole concern is that we actually make use of this money it's a lot of money agree and we have a lot of interested community members that are that are more than willing to work with the police department on the work so I appreciate your responsiveness thank you thank you committee appointed by the mayor Council as a whole not me thank you in your comments tonight I've heard that $111,000 is not that much money $30 million is a lot of money $300,000 is a lot of money $60,000 is a lot of money and $50,000 is a lot of money so we talked about money and how much is a lot what's a lot of money is the $450,000 that's been reported that was misused for health care and waiver payments and about $50,000 of that went to you Mr Spiller what we haven't heard was how much money us taxpayers are paying for your lawyers to delay the investigation and to tell you guys to take the Fifth Amendment cuz that is a lot of money and when we talk about money we need departmental reports we need to know where our money is going because in Monclair we pay a lot of money in taxes to have an ice skating rink that's problematic to have schools where things are falling down to have pools that don't work to have all these things going on and monair citizens deserve to know where's the money going is it being spent well cuz it doesn't seem like it is is it being spent efficiently where's the money thank you dipping sorry all right so something I really do not think anybody should to spend money on is artificial turf um but my opinion is just that of an environmental advocate so I want to let you know what Dr Phil landrian says and I'm bringing this up with you because you I hope that you redo all the playgrounds or playgrounds that need to be done and there's a lot of um you know recreational space that kids need but what we don't need is poured in place plastic an artificial turf or rubber crumb of any kind uh and if you don't believe me please believe Dr Phil landrian who is The Graduate of Boston College Harvard Medical School London School of hygiene and tropical medicine served as epidemic intelligence service officer and medical epidemiologist in the US Public Health Service assigned to the CDC and the National Institute for occupational safety and health and was a member and faculty of Icon school of medicine at Mount siai where he served as chairman of the Department of preventative medicine professor of Pediatrics and Dean for Global health for more than four decades his research examined impacts of toxic chemicals on human health and especially the health of children he's a member of the National Academy of Medicine he's a retired captain 0-6 in the Medical Corp of the United States Navy and he says there's no safe level of exposure to Benzene pasas or lead all have negative Health consequences at every level and children playing on artificial turf are exposed to all of them so it's extremely upsetting to me that um our public school is putting even more of this toxic material that's full of microplastics and that pollutes our planet in front of my home um the health effects of pasas are awful they help metastatic cancer cells move faster several of the Neighbors in our neighborhood have cancer or fighting cancer so that's really bad news for us and there's kids P also has to do with lower birth weights and a lot of different things you know look it up it's there but don't trust me trust Dr landrian I have uh been at conferences that he has spoken at I have um supported the organization the children's Environmental Health Center for many many years because they give excellent advice they're not light-hearted about what they get tell you not to do in fact I think there's about three or four position statements one of them is against artificial turf let's not use it we can do better we are about the environment here in Monclair I know you all are do not put anything on the playgrounds that is toxic for kids please thank [Applause] you good evening uh just wanted to say um I had a fire in my home last Wednesday and I want to express my gratitude to the Monclair fire department for responding so quickly and for their professionalism that limited the damage to my home I uh also have a couple of comments about finances it's come up a a bit this evening uh if you could add just 30 seconds back to the clock I was a CPA for over 40 years I'm an accountant auditor trained fraud investigator and expert in tax exempt organization reporting and compliance there were four years of warnings to the council by the Auditors and adopted by certified affidavit by the council then on March 9th the town was alerted that the firewall was down now there is an emergency oops the town engaged Biff Duncan based on an emergency purchase justification there were four Council meetings before the resolution was approved what took so long Biff Duncan charged 40 hours over two whole months and failed to address the emergency and this Council hid this firewall problem until June first when all systems became inoperable resulting in a situation that created a danger to public health safety and Welfare a functioning system of internal controls prevents detects and deters fraud a system of internal controls includes submitting purchase orders for authorization via resolution prior to procurement or incurring a liability for goods or services provided I hope I'm not boring anyone This Town Council approves resolutions long after goods and services are procured or liabilities incurred This Town Council fails to observe any internal control procedures there should be monthly financial reporting comparing the actual amounts for the period to date to budgeted amounts for the period to date for all departments there is no monitoring of financial information by this governing body I reviewed all of the 2022 agendas and compared them to the minutes 87% of the 2022 meeting agendas are missing resolutions missing agenda items failure to publish and approve meeting minutes on a timely basis are all tactics used by this Council to avoid accountability and transparency now I have to take a deep breath and I only have 4 seconds left um give me just one minute I'll be very quick I'll give you a couple seconds to finish up your comments but thank well it has to do with the Mills Memorial Social Services building settlement which was approved by resolution at the November just give me a minute because I thank the fire department up front so I appreciate that but but again we heard before people were waiting before I know but other people have gone on yeah all right thank you why don't you just let her finish what is the what's wrong with being flexible what's wrong with being Democratic open transparent calm down calm down what do you mean calm down you guys or something let the womanish Democracy uh Eric deato 25 Norwood Avenue uh continuing Sarah A's remarks please go ahead sorry uh continuing What Sarah Said the town incurred uh $ 29,285 uh in legal fees uh between March and July 2023 for services provided by rer Danzig in connection with the Mills Memorial Social Services building settlement agreement approved by resolution on November 21st uh this resolution was not included on the November 21st 2023 meeting agenda I have read the settlement agreement several times none of the Riker danzic attorneys that Burr consulted with have any tax expertise the Riker danzic attorneys never considered the possibility of tax issues or consulted with anyone else with appropriate tax expertise the settlement terms on page four represent that the placc Family Foundation constitutes a quote succeeding Corporation similar functionally to uh the community chest this is completely false the plactic Family Foundation is not a charitable entity of any type placc cannot make tax deductible donation tax deductible charitable contributions to the foundation and the found cannot purchase the Mills Memorial Social Services building as it does not meet the criteria of nonprofit charitable entity as per the amended and restated Declaration of restrictions is that it s yes that's it thank you okay so for my remaining 1 minute and 16 seconds um I would just like to say that uh I did not uh I appreciate councelor Cummings uh uh uh going hard and long uh on this appropriation that was made regarding the Aubrey group and uh I just looked at it I don't want to draw too many dots connect too many dots the principle of the group is a former legislative director to the State Assembly Chief it's clearly an organization that is primarily a political organization and mayor Spiller let me just ask you if I go looking through your r1s am I going to f mind a contribution from that woman to your 2024 campaign please finish I'm asking you a question and I'm letting you conclude okay well I will conclude with that question I would just like to know the second question would be at what point do people recuse themselves how much do you have to get from a vender I mean we talk about big money now is it $200 $500 $5,000 you know what's the limit what's the legal limit thank you and uh Mr Burr can refer to the new law that just passed uh with the answers to those questions correct yes and I'll just be brief is your microphone on because I can't hear you I'll be brief uh transparency act uh states that uh reporting has to be done at $200 per contribution to a municipal candidate thank you I have a question who's who is the the employee Duncan what is that person's um that Miss Avery mentioned Miss employee Duncan is that Duncan excuse me Duncan you guys signed the resolution for Duncan April 25th 223 meeting for emergency uh Services because of the um let's see because you you can you can have an emergency requisition of you you you know my understanding is you can have an emergency uh purchase when there is a situation that could create a danger to public health safety and Welfare and Tony fan produced an emergency purchase justification of uh in connection with the March 9th firewall failure and he uh that was his document was dated March 13th and that uh emergency purchase justification was not approved by this Council until April 25th there were four meetings that took place so every single audit from 2018 has a comment that you guys have to have monitoring of your cyber security and there has to be periodic reporting from your it to this Council and that never happens okay never happen thank you for bringing that up thank you you're welcome hi again this Eileen uh just to follow on that I I mean just looking at the budget I personally think that our it department is woefully underst staffed for a a town our size I think Mr laoa laapa you would agree with me I got my um dog license renewal in the mail today and I'm just wondering why I can't do that by Ma by online like so many other towns can just conveniently do um but I I do and I I do actually appreciate sometimes hearing from Mr Lolo because I think he is helping us sort of look at the what is the mystery of why um we pay such high taxes but we sit here and listen to the idea as you said Robin schager that every building in our town is falling down and every almost every Department in our municipal government is underst staffed it just something is not adding up and so I am looking forward to um a line by line budget presentation um this this um with um both the dollars and the data to back up why we spend the dollars I think that would be really important for this town um and but Mr Lola I do I do have a question for you and I'm actually asking this very respectfully because I really don't want anyone to get in trouble but um my understanding is you're retired from the and you receive a pension from the pur system and I was under the impression that you were working 3 days a week because of the Restriction the post employ uh post-retirement restrictions on on unemployment and I'm just reading the rules here and it says something like re-enrollment in your former retirement system is gener generally required if you accept full-time employment in a position covered by that same system and I believe that the town manager position here is also covered by Pur so again I'm asking that respectfully and you don't have to answer me really I just want you to I don't want you to get in trouble or anybody to get in trouble so to me it seems like it might be outside of what's allowed but again I just wanted to put that out there thank you and again I really do look forward to this budget system season because I think um it's really important for our town to start to understand where our money goes and whye thank you well can can I I don't want to intrude either but I'm on a pension after 40 years with the state and all and I knew I couldn't take a full-time job job because of that so I think it's relevant are you going to work 5 days a week or you going to be I will be in full compliance with with the New Jersey pensions law and uh working through with an opinion from the New Jersey uh Division of Pensions well that's something we'd like to see hi uh again my name is Lonnie summer Pia I'm a resident of Montclair um I just want to follow up on what Susan Shin was talking about in regards to the anti-hate community task force um so I I just have two questions regarding that um one will you decide tonight who and how this task force will be created while we are awaiting the funding to arrive and to um just you know I know some one some somebody on the council said something about Staffing and my understanding is is that this actually doesn't need to be staffed that there are community members prepared to lead on this including Melanie Robbins who was here uh the last Town council meeting or the town council meeting before to bring up this issue I believe she came to town Council meetings in a row to bring this up um and I I know it was said that this was going to be moved on and now Susan Shin is talking about it so um we have community members who are prepared to lead on this and um and we just need to know who is the point person and we will then be ready to work with the town and police department to get this going so um you know this is something from 2022 um so I have the article too um and you know so Montclair was granted $300,000 to form the anti-hate task force to combat a disturbing Trend in 2022 um so and you know I know mayor Spiller um you know this was something that was important to you you you know are quoted in the article and being very much in favor of this so here we are in 2024 it's about 2 years since that money was granted it's really a shame that this hasn't gotten moving since then and I I know that a lot has happened in our town in the last two years um but really that's $300,000 laying on the table so thank you thank you um and sure counil um also since then what has happened it's just been the last couple of weeks um we have an incredible amount of graffiti that's been um um that's decimated many of our buildings with anti you know anti um terrible things and curse words and you know real and Graphics it's it's very disturbing um I had a long talk with uh Jason gleon who immediately on the bid they um went and um you know tried to remove as much as they can as did Mr laola for the on the township side but it's still very they got rid of the bad the really bad stuff but it's still out there it's even at the U PNC building right next door when you leave tonight you could see a lot of it still up there that was mild um but you're right Lonnie it's it's it's wor2 exactly y so I I volunteer to work on the committee but I'm not going to appoint it but I'd like to see Susan Shin Anderson and whoever else you recommend get on the committee but I'm not going to appoint a committee I don't have that Authority um mayor um just just to the extent that we were all a little bit at the when this came up these couple of years ago and it's been nothing but frustrating for us as well so it's not that we are supposed to have done something it was with the police department there were things that were filed I don't in ways there wasn't access it was it was like a comedy of errors except for it's not funny and I I don't know where it is now do you have a clear understanding of where it is yeah well I think Mr laul addressed it before right the issues is I understand it too right when it was moved over and we had these discussions on um our subcommittee yeah um it moved to the police department right and the uses there Mr Lola discussed it there was a a move I believe or whatever you originated uh from our finance department to change the grant right to use those dollars for existing costs which then weren't allowed so it moved the grant back is that correct Mr Lola correct so once that happened um you know was brought back to us that this has occurred so we've had iteration after iteration where again grants have to be approved and it has to go through the state whenever there's a change or even a request for a change so when those requests are made uh and then denied right then has to be a different Grant different budget put forward for the grant Etc so Mr Leo has addressed the fact that the approval for the budget use right you you can be awarded the grant but you still have to provide the budget you're not allowed to spend dollars until your budget's approved through the state um and that's the stage we're at now there were rules about a nonprofit that was anticipated to be used by the police department and that the nonprofit wasn't eligible and had nonprofit was brought in they weren't eligible to be so you know Melanie Robbins spoke with Lieutenant Williams about it and so you know it he's aware he's ready to go she's ready he's the person who's been involved from the beginning so no no I'm just so we we know we've been talking to so let's just do it two years so um Robin I came back to thank you because you brought up the edgman park problems and then I'm sorry I'm Mar I live on Gardon house Avenue and I came back to public comments to thank Robin schlager for bringing up the issues of safety in the edgemon playground and I want to share with you uh something that happened to me there I have been using that playground since my daughter was about five 1 year old she's now five and a half I took the daughter of a friend who was a kindergarten at the time to that playground and she broke her leg and I had to drive the child somebody else child to the emergency room and then you know she was uninsured and I felt very responsible for seeing that girl through her treatment it was you know that playground is a danger to children in this town it was this is not something to take lightly and my in-laws live in emmer Massachusetts which has an average tax that is less than a quarter of hours and their PRS are beautiful absolutely beautiful their police and fire departments cost a very small fraction of what ours cost we we have a problem with safety that we spend so much money in public safety that we can't keep our residents safe we really need to reassess our priorities this department that can't get its act together to implement a grant doesn't have the appropriate Grant controls it has over $25 million like this department could easily be run by a John J PhD we are spending money in that department to have people of a really high level and we just don't right and it costs so much money meanwhile we have historically low crime rates we have very very little crime when that happens we need to move priorities it's so great that we don't have the crime that we had in this town 30 years ago let's celebrate that and spend spend our money elsewhere we shouldn't just have 112 officers forever in the dependently of what crime Trends are in this town we need to use data to make budget decisions and we need to hold every Department accountable for how they spend money and why they need the resources they say they need because it's not spending money in our playgrounds actually Keeps Us unsafe not spending money on other things makes us less safe not spending money on pedestrian safety and infrastructure makes us less safe we need to reassess our priorities when it comes to our budgets and we need to hold our department heads accountable thank you thank as you know I'm Chrissy Thomas I've been a resident for 54 years I'm a product of the Montclair Public Schools I went to Edgemont Mount heing Glenfield Montclair High School class of 87 I went to Wesley and UVA pen Georgetown I got a ba in political science an MBA a MERS in public policy and a law degree I've worked in in the white house as Corporation counsel for the City of New York and after working as an insurance defense attorney for marter in English I became a trial lawyer I want to fight for people that have no voice that's what I do some people don't realize that they're being abused because their abuser keeps telling them that they love them and that they're protecting our democracy enough with the abuse Mr Spiller you gave us 2 minutes with the hope that we would not call you out we're done letting you talk down to us and say thank you while cutting our time short it's not permissible that after the meeting after public comment you you talked about changing the amount of time that people can speak without it being on the agenda you then had the audacity to vote on it and Mr Burr called me unethical because I said he was quoting the wrong law and that the and that Robert's Rules will not and does not ever supersede opma and that those are the requirements for what you're required to do as a council when you vote you have to have a written resolution if it's an emergency you are required to tell us what the emergency is and before you vote you are required to put it down in writing and it has to be read onto the record people like and Bill and Sean and Roger and Bob should all know what the procedures are and how they make governing Fair it's so that it's not so that we can come here and call you out on things it's so that we know what you're doing and we know that you're getting money from the people you're giving contracts to that we don't need we already paid $400,000 for the Clary and study you know that it's unbelievable that you decided to vote on contracts that you haven't read how dare you it's it's obscene and when you don't listen to people like Sarah Avery and you don't listen to people like eileene Birmingham who come with facts and Figures it's offensive to us we are not your money bags that you can't just keep spending our money $65,000 in taxes is a lot and I don't I that's your whole salary for somebody that you want to hire and you're part-time I didn't mean to call you some random white guy I meant to say that we value diversity we value people that know what they're doing and most of the population of Montclair to get here had to get educated do your job [Applause] better ilar Vander 127 Edgmont Road good evening and happy New Year tonight councelor schlager made a very Salient and sobering point about attempting to balance multiple competing budgetary priorities however all of the troubling building and infrastructure issues mentioned certainly did not arise overnight and in fact have been lingering accumulating and snowballing for many years simultaneously many counselors here tonight have been in office for multiple terms some nearly for a generation so it is all too apparent and rather astonishing that more has not been done sooner to address such urgent issues truly good government attempts to anticipate and continually correct such factors especially physical infrastructure which is constantly observable to the naked eye and then lead proactively on this instead of always governing from behind in hindsight after the fact when things have reached a crisis Point as I'm sure you all know the members of the voting public who are at this very moment watching listening and remembering have placed their trust in each of you to be accountable for everything that has occurred or has not occurred under your Collective very protracted seemingly endless watch meanwhile addressing the proposal for creating an additional vague bureaucratic seemingly redundant position in the manager's office all I can say is with all due respect is that our municipal government is responsible for running Montclair not New York city so it seems like a dose of reality is needed here welcome to 2024 and let's hope that Montclair sees much better days which are yet to come thank you seeing no one else I'll close public comment thank you very much and with that we will uh move into executive session res with resolution r24012 resolution authorizing executive session without the public being permitted in accordance with njsa 10 col 4-12 B litigation and Personnel I so move all in favor please say I post exensions we sure there wasn't anybody else who wanted to come up and say something ask questions yeah it would be on them but people are asking me to raise okay thank you with that we will uh come out of executive session thank you very much uh we've got two uh items first is the appointments to the Montclair Early Childhood Corporation Board of Trustees the uh appointment's there uh clerk that you will then uh notify and I so move second uh it's appointment so all in favor please say I I I opposed abstentions um uh so appointed uh second one which we we had discussed in public uh before uh this is a resolution um expanding the hours meaning the days um for our our interim manager Michael aola moving him to 5 days a week from the three days a week address some of those concerns that we had shared publicly before and I so move second it's moved and seconded um uh Madam clerk councel Cummings absent Deputy Mayor herlock yes councel price Abrams yes councel Russo no councel schager yes councelor Terry yes mayor Spiller yes all right thank you very much on both of those uh uh Madam clerk anything for uh good to the order no no report mayor thank you okay um Mr Lola Mr manager thank you uh Mr attorney mayor nothing to report thank you thank you Mr Deputy Mayor I'm good thank you uh councilman suer happy New Year Mr Terry councilman Terry also happy New Year uh councilman Russo yeah I'm not going to say Happy New Year I'm going to say New Year's resolution um I promise to do whatever my wife wants me to do now here's what I did do tonight before this meeting I went to the county of Essex swearing it of the Commissioners and uh I gave the program here to councelor uh Abrams uh price Abrams but uh it's Carlos pomis from our neighboring town of Bloomfield has been elevated to be the the chair of the Commissioners and Brendan Gil is of course sworn in again now those two and others I spoke to in lobby for our approval of the uh speed limit changes as we've all done but I was very very visible there was introduced among all the other Mayors and council members but I made sure montclair's presence was known and that's what I went there for it was a rush because it started at 64 to 7 we rushed up here my wife drove me back so I want to thank my wife publicly for doing that and helping me get here to serve the people and I want to say again that I just do not agree with what we're doing on all these issues and I do not agree with how we cut people back to 2 minutes and I think that what's going on in parcion should be looked at because the mayor there has cut back to 90 seconds 90 seconds for people to talk and they can only talk at the end and I see how tonight we sort of modified it a little we let people talk a little more at the beginning but your new rule seems to say they cannot talk about just general issues that has to be on the agenda and then the the U comments at the nighttime at the evening were to be after the public after the executive session I'm glad you didn't do that but watch what's going on in in pany because there's a young councilman who is fighting with the mayor and the rest of the council over real restrictions on public input I think we should have an early session and a late session limit the early session as counselor Cummings suggested to two hours at the most give everybody at least the three minutes but I'm suggesting four because that's what Verona does mon Bloomfield actually does five they don't have all these lines of people coming up complaining and they're complaining because we're not getting things done we're not solving problems now there's no need for 20 people to come every week about Clary Anderson Arena about speeding or whatever they should be handled by the manager before time so that we don't have to spend all of our time answering these questions and I do respond to people some people don't like that I do that but that's the nature of my life my whole life is responding to people handling consumer constituent complaints I did that for the public advocate for consumer affairs I teach it in my classes at ruter Kane in mon state so I know people don't like me answering people but people look for answers and I didn't get answers tonight myself but I didn't pursue it and I disagree with this entire decision to hire a full-time manager when in four months we may have a whole new Council good luck to you all uh and I'll just specifically note that I think um very proud of getting a ton of stuff done including rank controls we started this meeting with uh talking about one one of the residents came forward I think that's lifechanging and impactful I'm very proud to have helped move that and been a key sponsor on that sponsor on it mayor I was the key sponsor for years for years you keep taking credit for things that not you only did you didn't do rent control alone mayor you didn't do it Renee basille Dr basille did it before you and me even thought of it once again I don't interrupt you thank you so I I I will again say very proud uh uh of rank control that we've accomplished here and C I use another example um the appreciate talking about things but the rink is another great example very proud of tonight to be moving forward not voting no not saying you know wait wait wait but actually doing things um Mr Lola very happy that we're bringing you in five days a week to get things done um that is what is the uh I think Hallmark of of of the service that we need it started years ago with getting things done around Paving streets and doing infrastructure work and we continue in that space But it's also getting things done when we talk about skate park parks and another funding that we've done over the years Robin and appreciate the the leadership and work there it's getting things done when we talk about yes the rank control and some of the other measures we've talked about adus and affordability thank you councilwoman price Abrams um it is you know when we talk about all of these pieces I I know you've been doing it for years councilman Terry so I thank you but um that is the work that we do and I'm very proud of it um and it does mean taking action not voting to not move on anything or or abstaining on pieces so I'm very happy of that with that councilwoman price a uh thanks I really just will uh say Happy New Year to everybody as well and feel uh like you know we have uh this Council has six months I think there's a lot left that we want to take on and and uh you know have our sleeves rolled up and we have a lot of work still to do so thank you I would just say Mr if I could real quick I hope I'm not out of order um I did stuff too you mentioned everybody up here but me I'm a little hurt I know it's 11:00 at night I looked right at you when I I know you looked at me but everybody's name got mentioned no one saw you looking right that was me he looked at me everyone for the C for the camera for for notice I was looking at the deputy mayor right very good point it's it's not funny mayor Robert Jackson did a lot of these things too so it's great mayor Robert Jackson the rest of us actually do like to have a little fun up here so uh appreciate it uh thank you to everybody and uh with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn all right thank you very much everybody