recording in progress ready yeah we're ready when you are okay we're going to get started um mayor Freda is is uh delayed so um just going to be filling in for him till he gets here uh Raina um would you like to read the meeting notice yes notice of this meeting was provided in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings Act and the state regulations governing govern govering remote meetings remote public meetings including the time date and location of the meeting and clear and concise instructions for the public for accessing the meeting and making comments in addition the agenda and all related materials were posted electronically and made available to the public on Princeton's meeting portal in advance of the meeting can we have a roll call Miss Peron lambrose here miss Neer gang here Mr Cohen here miss sax here Miss Fraga here Mr nulan here mayor Freda Zade you have Quorum councilman Cohen would you like to read the land acknowledgement thank you Yes We Gather today on the land of the Lenny lenapi as members of the Princeton Community we aspire to show appreciation respect and concern for All Peoples and our environment we honor the lenapi and their indigenous caretakers and other indigenous caretakers of these lands and Waters the elders who lived here before the indigenous today and the generations to come can we stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay we have a proclamation May is walk and Bike to School month and councilwoman Neer gang and councilwoman lambrose are going to be reading our Proclamation thank you proclamation of the office of the mayor Municipality of Princeton proclaiming may as 2024 walk and Bike to School month whereas state and local governments and school districts encourage and promote healthy and active Lifestyles for students and residents of the state of New Jersey and whereas a lack of physical activity plays a leading role in Rising rates of obesity diabetes and other health problems and being able to walk and bike to school offers an opportunity to build activity into daily routine and whereas private motor transport to nearby schools contributes to traffic congestion and air pollution and whereas all stakeholders strive to inform assist Inspire Foster and encourage children and their parents to walk in bikes safely to to and from school in an effort to boost physical activity and exercise and whereas this commemoration shall provide an opportunity for students in Princeton to walk and bicycle safely to and from school with a strong effort to promote and encourage healthy and active Lifestyles and to create safe environmental conditions for students and residents to walk and bike to school and around town whereas May being bike and walk to school month includes National ride a bike Day on May 5th 2024 National Bike enroll to school day on May 8th 2024 Bike To Work Week 2024 on May 13 through 19th 2024 and Bike To Work Day on Friday May 17th now therefore I pretending to be Mark Freda mayor of the municipality of Princeton and the Council of Princeton County of Mercer state of New Jersey do hereby Proclaim may as 2024 walk and Bike to School month in Princeton New Jersey and urge all students parents teachers administrators schools and school districts and Prince to participate in walking and biking events and to consider the safety and health of pedestrians and bicyclists this day and every day given under the mayor's hand and seal this 29th day of April [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 2024 thank you sorry to be late I had a work engagement that I could not miss okay so I think we have another Proclamation now yes thank you L thank you mayor yes we have another Proclamation from the office of the mayor Municipality of Princeton this Proclamation is in honor of the 55th annual professional Municipal Clerk's week which begins May 5th and ends on May 11th 2024 it reads as follows whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk a time honored and vital part of local local government exists throughout the world and whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk is the oldest among public servants and whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk provides the professional link between the citizens the local governing bodies and agencies of government at other levels and whereas professional Municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality rendering Eagle service to all and whereas the professional municipal clerk serves as the information center on functions of local government and community and whereas professional Municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of uh the Affairs of the office of the professional mun municipal clerk through participation in ed education programs seminars workshops and the annual meetings of their state provincial County and international professional organizations whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments of the office of the professional municipal clerk now therefore Mark Freda mayor of the municipality of Princeton and the Council of Princeton County of Mercer state of New Jersey do recognize the week of May 5th through the 11th 2024 as professional Municipal Clerk's week and further extend appreciation to our municipal clerk Raina E Harris Deputy municipal clerk Don Mount and our administrative staff Grace an Scher G and Alejandra huarez and to our professional Municipal clerks for the vital Services they perform and their exemplary dedication to the communities they represent given under his hand and seal this 29th day of April 2024 thank you thank you we don't have to do that thank [Applause] [Music] you okay let's move on to announcements and reports council members with with announcements or reports Michelle thank you um just wanted to mention a couple things uh one is that April and May is uh the bloom local campaign month uh which has been underway and going really well um we uh shade tree commission gave a lot of saplings away during porchfest uh last week so I want to thank the shade tree commission for all their work I didn't know what went into that but it was quite uh quite an undertaking and very well organized there's a lot of other events happening still in May uh and you can go to experience Princeton website for more information uh I do know that there is a sale coming up at petrolo Gardens a flower sale and I also want to mention one of the other objectives to bloom is not just the flowers and the saplings and the trees and the plantings but it's also just a pride in ownership a pride in our community and um striving to be kinder and something that Leighton um inspired us with and uh there's a great uh new sign that came up uh to walk your wheels and take a walk with us so it's um it's really nice to see a lot of really good positive uh energy happening behind Bloom local so thank you to Craig dinwoody uh communications director and to experience Princeton for all the work and all my colleagues uh the second thing I wanted to mention and today really reminded us that pool memberships are available and um so you might want to uh start thinking about the Summers right around the corner yeah that's it thanks thank you Michelle other council members with announcement Lon thank you mayor good evening again uh announcement next week there will be the mental health awareness month flag raising at Monument Hall on Tuesday May 7th again an awareness month for mental health month awareness for mental health month the flag will be raised at Monument Hall on Tuesday May 7th at 12:00 p.m. the event is open to the public and will be performed in conjunction with Princeton integrated Behavioral Health Services and Nami Mercer that's a National Alliance for mental illness the hope is that raising the flag for the month of May will increase awareness that mental health is part of overall well-being and that no one needs to manage mental health challenges alone Princeton's Health and Human Services departments will be on site to promote the event thank you Jeff grer row and the entire Human Services team thank you other any other Council announcements or reports yes yeah we had an amazing event over the weekend with our valued Community partner the Arts Council so Leighton I just thought you might want to talk a little bit about that thank you Madame President yes uh I don't know if many or all or some of you were able to get out this weekend for what is becoming a great annual community building song dance culturally enlightening event called uh porchfest um we had a group in front of our house at 230 Birch Avenue and we worked in tandem with groups across the street from us and I got a chance to ride around Princeton in the middle of the day to see what was going on at very various venues and what was amazing we even had a patrol officer outside of our house and the patrol officer was beaten to the sound of the music it it it it is an amazing uh testimony to to the the culture the and and the cultural awareness and the way we are striving to build community here in Princeton so again I look forward to porchfest next year and I just want to thank the Arts Council and everybody who came out and participated to make Prince and the great City on the hill that it is thank you thank you madam president special thanks to Adam Welch and everyone at the ARs Council for making a a really amazing day for the community so and just to to mention uh Princeton University is the largest financial sponsor of that event and without the University's support that event would not happen so we actually Bernie and I had a chance to see a couple people from the University earlier today and we just kind of made sure we made the point about hey your support is pretty critical to this this CommunityWide event that so many people enjoy uh to that happening so yeah yeah okay other I'm sorry E I just realized since we're talking about one flag raising I'm going to bring up another flag raising which is a little bit away but uh we will have the raising of the pride flag on um Friday May 31st at noon at Monument Hall so we'll remind you again but just wanted to put that on everyone's agenda thanks and and we are also on uh next Tuesday the 7th uh having a mental Mental Health Awareness Month flag raising at Monument Hall at noon I believe right Jeff I got that right sorry at 12 o'clock yep yep okay any others any other Council announcements reports all right staff thank you mayor uh just want to remind everybody in the public that we do have open housee on May 2nd at the Princeton Public Library to get community feedback on Hines Plaza uh so please join us May 2nd from 5: to 700 p.m. for that uh we also want to highlight to the public um on the municipal website on the main page there is a section called news and uh news and alerts and within that section on the website is a weekly update on the known traffic impacts from construction um and so for this week highlighted on that page tomorrow Chamber Street will be closed for some work related to the hotel um and then in next week's update we will be uh announcing that there will be another closure of Chamber Street on May 10th and that that is for Paving the roadway um and weather permitting the ideas that the road will reopen before the date of May 17th that was established by ordinance so uh but we do want to highlight that with the public I know it seems like there may be um a lot of information that's not getting out to the public but it's always available on our website we keep it up you know daily if we need to if there's changing circumstances related to Traffic um and then just a highlight from sustainable Princeton while we do have the group from sustainable Princeton here tonight to talk about their recap uh they had the second annual party like it's your Earth Day celebration on April 20th it's estimated that they had over 400 members of the community in attendance and it was the first year that they partnered with the Princeton Public School District um so that was very exciting for them they also have a project that's UPC coming at uh the battle monument by our one Monument Drive building where um they are partnering with groups of neighbors to revitalize the garden beds that are around the Princeton battle monument and that work will start next week uh the idea is that the beds will be in bloom and a established in time for the um celebrations in 2026 so that that is uh our update thank you thank you very much Eve thanks I just want to add something to uh uh Dean's update thank you for that um while the the reports of uh construction projects are everything that we know about um so all of us received an email uh yesterday about something that happened on on Friday on Witherspoon Street where people were unable to reach uh community park school and this was because of an unknown project by Verizon where they came in and they closed the street and the municipality didn't know about it so just a heads up that we will put everything on the website and in our newsletter that we know about but there are multiple entities working in town and sometimes they do not do as good a job of communicating as we would like or adhere to our standards such as the roads must be open so that people can keep up pick up their children or drop their children off at school so just should something anomalous like that happen just bear in mind it it may not be the municipality's uh responsibility or fault okay I think we're good any other staff reports at this time all right uh I don't see Isaac here so I guess we're not going to have a no there was a mixup he didn't know he was on the agenda tonight all right sine so no experience Princeton the police the police chief got called away on having to deal with a a certain matter so he's going to try to get back but until then we'll uh we'll have to hold his uh his report because he's not here to give it um all right so I'm going to move on uh next up is comments from the public for items not on the agenda if there's anybody in the audience that wants to talk about something again that's not on the agenda this would be the time to jump up and come to the podium uh if you do you just come up you state your name your address and a timer is going to pop up behind me and you get you have three minutes to uh to share your thoughts with us okay cool greetings uh mayor council members and administr ative staff the people that make the town run hi my name is Larry white and I'm a member of voter Choice New Jersey we're a Grassroots citizen-led Coalition that's hoping to bring rank Choice voting to the Garden State rank Choice voting or RCV is a fundamental election reform that will allow us to have more democratic and representative elections reflective of the voting population and its diversity RCV is quite simple all candidates who get the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot are grouped under the office voters then rank the candidates in order of preference one through the total number just a few or even one candidate per office as the votes are tallied If no candidate achieves the 50% plus one majority then the lowest vote total is eliminated and the second or later choices of those voters is repopulated into the remaining candidates until a majority winner is reached it's often called an instant runoff election I bet Trenton would be interested in that it also ensures that your vote stays alive through the process until a majority winner emerges the benefits of RCV are Myriad a single general election held in November when people are most used to voting maximizing turnout and minimizing election expense it eliminates the county line without removing party affiliation it eliminates the spoiler effect so you can vote your heart all the way through the process rather than convoluted calculations about harm and benefit and it quells campaign vitria because campaigns will pivot to similarity rather than difference in the hopes of getting a voter's second or third choice if you think about the recent New York City uh mayil election Eric Adams positioned himself sort of in the middle policy-wise so that he was similar to the other popular candidates and managed to eek out a win through the middle of all of that um increases the number of women and people of color to elected office and decreases the power of County committees to anoint candidates that don't have popular support finally it's fun to do RCV is finding increasing support in the US with Alaska and Maine fully on board and other states coming online soon or using in limited fashion Australia and Ireland have been using it for over 100 years there are currently bills in both houses of the state legislature that will allow permitted use of RCV for local and Schoolboard elections Senator zwicker is the principal sponsor of the bill in the Senate and John Allen of Hoboken in the assembly the voters of a municipality must decide through referendum that they wish to switch to this voting method I come to you this evening to ask that you pass a trigger ordinance that states that if Governor Murphy signs these bills into law that you will put a referendum on the ballot the following November to ask voters if they wish to switch to RCV for local and School Board elections I need you to you're about done I'm almost done thank you so we're asking for a show of support to demonstrate to the legislature that there's desire by the electorate to use this voting method and thereby gain votes for its passage now we just got word today that Senator wicker is interested in I need you to okay I will finish he's introducing this I need you to end 16th I apologize for taking we're good too much of your time luckily we have all heard and I don't mean any disrespect but we just I understand but we all we all very aware of the message so thank you thank you yeah thank you very much yep are there other members of the public in the room that want to come up and again it's your name your address and three minutes plus a few seconds can you hear me okay just try to get close to the microphone sorry what try to get close to the microphone even closer oh okay now I can hear myself too so uh my name is Monica mamp I've uh been a resident in Princeton for over 10 years and uh yeah I'm here to support the rank Choice voting initiative I grew up in Germany where we have a parliamentary system and uh even after living 30 years in the US this whole uh plurality when it takes all system feels alien and uh yeah it's often obvious that it doesn't produce the results that you that the electorate really wants because they in rank Choice voting Like Larry explained there is for example not the problem of a third spoiler candidate did it right you just say I like the spoiler but that doesn't come that person doesn't come through and then you have your second choice and then that vote counts so you can you don't lose your vote when you vote for the spoiler candidate and uh there is a way mathematically objectively to play through different scenarios so uh and see what the different voting systems produce and Bank choice voting simply produces better results that are closer to what the people really want so I very much would like to um ask you to work on a trigger ordinance Like Larry described so as soon as Governor Murphy gives allows rank Choice voting for local offices Princeton will put a referendum on the ballot the next coming November after that happens and then the electorate can chy whether they think rank Choice voting or plurality should be the way to vote for school board members Mayors and so forth and yeah I'm very much in favor of that I think it's a good direction to get better results better also better feeling for like people knowing that they're represented in the way they want they will never have the feeling of having lost their voice because if the First Choice doesn't come through they can still influence the result of the election so yeah and um yeah the other thing is that like Larry said Senate Swicker is supporting this uh there is a hope to get a law on Governor Murphy's desk in the summer so the sooner you start working on that ordinance the happier I am so there you go that's all I want to say thank you uh there's a question do you have a question yeah I think it's actually for our Council um I you make mention of the trigger ordinance is that the way to get a referendum on the ballot we we can pass an ordinance that puts a referendum on the ballot or is it something that has to be done with signatures from the public or are there multiple ways to do it I'm just curious I'll get back to you it's the the most effective way to do it there is a method correct yeah there is a method for the voters to put a referendum there is but there's also a way for the council you don't have to yeah you the voters don't have to initiate it I just right so the actual right so the actual voters in the town can petition the town with a there's a formula for how many signatures you need and everything and so the a a referendum could happen without the governing body taking an action at some point there's Al yeah it has to have a specific question there's a whole statute on okay great it's a process y let us thank you thank you another gentleman I think you want to come up same routine name address and watch the timer thank you very much good evening Mr Mayor and steam members of council my name is Avery my name is Avery Doran uh I am a resident of 400 thanet turle um and I'm proud to call Princeton my home I grew up in Robinsville uh but Princeton was the center of my life my education from 3rd through 12th grade was here first at Prince and friends then at hanon uh I grew up attending services at The UU Church uh and walking around town with friends and on more than one occasion spending a little more than I should on chocolate at lint so when it came time for for my wife and me to find a place to Settle Princeton was the obvious choice I want the best for Princeton and everyone who like me is fortunate enough to call Princeton home as such I am here today to advocate for the adoption of a rank Choice voting measure uh trigger ordinance a measure that embodies the principles of democracy choice and fiscal responsibility this proposal offers a pathway to a more inclusive Equitable and efficient electoral system for our community RCV isn't just about changing how we vote it's about advancing social justice and equality in our electoral system far too often our current winner takes all system disenfranchises marginalized communities and suppresses diverse voices communities of color women lgpt Qi plus individuals and other under representative groups face significant barriers in our traditional electoral process rank Choice voting presents an opportunity to address these systemic injustices by creating a more inclusive and Equitable electoral system by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference RCV empowers communities to support candidates who truly represent their interests without fear of Sting the vote this is particularly significant for communities that have historically been marginalized or under represented in our political landscape moreover rank Choice voting eliminates the spoiler effect which disproportionately affects candidates from smaller parties or independent backgrounds this opens the door for a more diverse range of candidates to participate in the electoral process and ensures that voters have meaningful choices on the ballot in addition to promoting diversity and representation Frank choice voting has been shown to Foster more civil and issue focused campaigns candidates are incentivized to appeal to a broader spectrum of Voters and build consensus rather than resorting to to divisive tactics and negative campaigning this shift towards a more constructive political discourse benefits everyone in our community regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs the social justice implications of Frank Choice voting are profound and they extend beyond our local community across the country cities and states are embracing rank Choice voting as a means to Advocate fairness equity and inclusion on our democracy just recently Jersey City passed a similar trigger ordinance signaling a growing recognition of the transformative potential of rank Choice voting by adopting a rank Choice voting trigger ordinance Princeton has the opportunity to lead by example and demonstrate our commitment to social justice and equality let us not only recognize the importance of this electoral reform but also take action to ensure that every voice is heard and every vote truly counts thank you for your attention and consideration great timing thank you that's amazing anyone else in the room uh public comment okay did we have anybody on line yes we do okay can we bring in uh first person with her hand up please okay yes hello Meredith yes hi can you see me or can you at least hear me no Adam I think we need turn the volume off a little higher uh looks no yes can could try it now hello can you hear me yes there we go now we can Adam it would be good to just bring it up a little higher there we okay thank you uh have my camera on um if you can hear me that's great uh good evening mayor Freda council members Princeton community and future viewers of this meeting my name is Meredith Murphy and I come to you this evening with concern for the innocence of of the community it has come to my attention that a child experienced molestation with an accompanying threat should they disclose the abuse committed by a faculty member at the Princeton day school and that that faculty member continues to have access to Children unfortunately the Princeton Police Department did not conduct a victim centered investigation including further traumatizing the victim by requiring a duplicate testimony the investigator circumvented the DCF institutional abuse unit interviewing the victim with no other Witnesses present when DCF requested the questioning take place when their investigator could be present instead the police rushed the interview traumatizing the victim which required a full repeat of painful details the victim provided an approximate date range of the abuse but the investigator refused to proceed with the investigation unless the victim narrowed the date range this may not have been developmentally appropriate given that the young child was still learning calendar accuracy this also was not victim centered there were many additional concerns regarding the investigation including misleading the victim about video and audio recording and insensitivity with follow-up communication I am calling upon the community to write visit telephone chief of police Christopher Nash Mercer County prosecutor Tim Ward to immediately reopen this investigation and give the victim an opportunity to use their voice to identify the offender in a physical lineup something they have refused to do to this day thank you for your attention to this grave matter and for those of you who will act on behalf of innocent often helpless children thank you Meredith thank you y do we have anyone else with their hand up uh on Zoom all right not seeing any hands up we'll close the uh comments from the public section of the meeting and move on we have two sets of minutes to approve February 26th and February 27th thank you Eve is there has got the second any questions or comments on the minutes all right seeing none all in favor please say I I I okay there we go next up Municipal budget ordinance 20241 and ordinance of the municipality of Princeton to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank would someone move that please thank you David leighton's got the second our CFO is here Sandy do you want to tell us what that means yeah that means that it allows us to bank the excess of the 1 and a 12% for the next 2 years in the event that we need it for our budget cap or spending cap this allows us to do this every year we can go up to the three and a half% and it helps us in the future if we need it thank you do we have any Council questions on that explanation just making sure anybody from the public any questions for our CFO on that bless you thank you okay hearing none could we have a roll call vote on that please miss Peron lambrose yes Miss neang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss Sachs yes Miss Fraga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you next up is the public hearing on the 2024 Municipal budget so we need someone to move the budget so moved thank you David Michelle's got the second any let's start with any Council questions or comments uh uh I think Sandy has a little presentation so why don't we do that and then see if there are questions that would be great Adam if you could uh bring my screen up here Adam's a guy in the background doing the technology just so you don't think we're talking to some imaginary friend of ours just so you know okay so I'll start our with uh the budget impact so we have our budget is going up a little over a million dollars we we have about 931000 of an increase in salary and Wages that's for both the non-contractual cost of living allowance plus the increase to the bargaining union members it also includes a couple of new positions it includes a fire chief position and it includes uh the dispatchers that were authorized by Council um over I guess toward the end of last year um there's also a small increase in the other expense budgets which we'll go through in some more detail but it's all the you know the same things we talk about every year it's the pensions it's the insurances so um you know it's it's mostly what we what we mention every year and I'll I'll just chime in and remind everybody that the salaries for the dispatcher offset by savings and an uh uh you know an agreement with an outside provider that was not salary so it makes it look like it's a bigger increase than it actually was and also just mention if you do the math this million doll plus increase is about 1.4% so it's um you know I just think testimony to the good work that staff did in trying to keep costs um in check good way to put it y so we'll cut right to the chase you know what does this mean for taxes if you uh the average assess value is $853,000 this means your Municipal only your Municipal portion is going to go up about $191 which equates to about $16 a month um if we add the library into that it becomes $218 which becomes $18 a month and we point out just the municipal because that's really the only the only one we have control over we don't know where the school is yet I don't know whether they've uh introduced their budget and the same way the county at this point so what drives this budget you know we did a similar presentation at the introduction so we really wanted to scale this down significantly um one of the biggest drivers on our Revenue side is that we lost the ARP funding we had it in the 2022 budget and the 2023 budget so that's $2.9 million of Revenue right off of our budget before we even start looking at anything um and you know we've had some areas uh of what we did to mitigate that which David will talk about in a later slide and on the expenditure side we have the police other expense budget going up um quite a bit you know during Co they struggled a lot to um continue you know the the vehicle maintenance or not the maintenance the uh replacement schedule for their police vehicles um so this is trying to bring them back to the level of where they would have been had Co not not prevailed um we have again the normal players the group Insurance the workman's comp and liability pensions are up again and I know at the end of 23 Council authorized um the agreement with the Mercer County Improvement Authority and that increased our recycling um program significantly as well um we also have a little over a million dollars in debt service to cover a lot of the projects that we've authorized by Bond ordinances you you authorize them and then I have to find a way to to pay for them and and make that happen and so um we issued I issued a note at the end of December um for about $20 million so that we can move forward with financing on a lot of the projects and some of the budgets that were reduced by the administration um we spent a lot of quality time going through all the operating budgets um Dian can tell you Jeff can tell you we you know everybody was hostage when we when we went through these um but but mostly I think the point that I want to make on a lot of the reductions that we did they were true budget reductions over what they had in the 2023 budget we looked at what was expended in all the budgets and you know people are coming in they're asking for the same budgets every year and they're not really looking at what they're spending and so this kind of held everybody a little more accountable than we have in the passed and by doing so we were able to reduce you know $1.7 million off of our budget on the expenditure side and I would be remissed if I didn't mention a lot of that also came with um with the cornerhouse um you know moving away from the municipal uh budget yeah and I'm thinking that um Jeff gross or uh wins the award for the most impactful change to our budget this year and I'm going forward I'm thinking of really establishing that have an award for the for the Department that does the the best ractive if you [Music] like and then these are some of the things that we did to uh mitigate a tax increase yeah and I I wanted to to talk to this slide a little bit um the $2 million that we additional that we took from Surplus I just want to emphasize we took that because the Surplus was up I think over the 2 million um so it was available without eating into our credit rating but I also wanted to mention that one of the reasons why that Surplus was up was that we had filed some tax appeals uh last year with commercial property owners we felt were uh underpaying their taxes and so um you know that's that's really important part of um what we do you know on Council and on the finance committee is to look for uh areas for new revenues um you know that won't hit the the homeowners uh directly in the pocketbook um I also wanted to point out the $599,000 from Avalon Bay that's um a pilot payment they're now occupying their um property at at Circle and the pilots are starting to come in and it's important to recognize that because those in those uh funds are sort of have been identified by Council and by the finance committee as going to cover some of those extra Capital costs that Sandy made reference to earlier so our you know our debt service is going up but we're covering it with these new revenues that are coming from from some of the those development uh projects so those are the two things I really wanted to emphasize yeah and the one thing I wanted to mention also was interest on investments and deposits I mean we all not only at the the local level but also personally I mean the interest rates have been you know in the tank the last couple of years and we're we're investing in the New Jersey Cash management fund which we have not done in a number of years because just a few years ago their rate was about 1% so it just wasn't worth it for us and now they they've been up over over 5% so we're doing really well with the Investments that we have and so making sure that we're conservative in what we're you know and where we are investing okay and uh this last slide is about non-discretionary budget Appropriations and it really brings us full circle because if you look at Several of these items which are well above you know or up in the 10% plus range increase year over year so we these are the things that are State mandated that we really have no choice about and I just when I say it comes full circle I'm going to remind you that the total expenses for the year went up 1.4% and when you look at these non-discretionary expenses and how much they went up it just underscores again what a great job uh staff has done in um tighten tightening their belts and helping us to control costs thank you David Sandy any other comments thank you all right let's see what questions we have m not a question I just want to thank Sandy um for doing yet another uh phenomenal job this year of uh keeping the municipality in in goodi uh Financial shape with the triaa rating and which allows us to borrow it you know um very advantageous rates um also really want to thank councilman Cohen who took over as chair of the finance committee this year and worked with Sandy and uh David and Mark and Sandy spent many days meeting with each department and and going over um what you know what was essential and what was not and so we really all three of them um you know are very grateful for all three of them and all the work they did with staff to bring about this budget so thank you thank thank you thank you m thank you Leen just wanted to Echo what council Sax said and thank everyone uh Finance Dave Mark Sandy and the team for getting into the weeds and keeping us out of them thank you thank you thank you Eve I just want to mention something that um first yes I Echo everybody's uh thanks uh Sandy Mark uh a David um for really you know bringing in a budget that given given the drivers of of costs is is really extraordinary and how how little we're increasing uh taxes on on our residents I know that that's still painful for for many people but I just wanted a little bit later in the agenda we're going to be uh voting or I think it's a resolution approving a resolution and this is I just want to highlight this as an example of what uh we call unfunded mandates from the uh State sometimes it's Federal in this case it's the state government it's for a good cause we have to make changes in how we manage our storm water so we're spending I think about 150,000 a little give or take um it'll come up a little bit later in the agenda to change the grates on our sewer uh intake so that you know uh we don't get more materials in our uh sewer system that then need to be expensively cleaned and and removed um and we have to do that uh by 2027 so we'll be doing some this year and some over the next couple of years but it's just one example of a small change in state law that requires us you know over the course of a few years to come up with half a million dollars there's no uh you know money coming from the state uh for this it's something that the municipality has to find money for and we don't have a choice about doing it and that's just one tiny example of many many many things like that that come down again in this case I support this 100% it it's a really good thing for the environment but it means that we have to ask our residents to cover these costs so that is just to highlight how terrific it is that given those unfunded mandates that our staff uh Sandy Finance uh committee is really working hard to minimize and mitigate those drivers that come externally so just wanted to give a little example thank you any other Michelle S A big thank you to it's it's always a pleasure to work with Sandy and the finance team um you just you do it an amazing job and um so really appreciate everyone's Bell tightening well where we can uh someone asked me yesterday as always like what can we do to um lower our taxes everyone wants to lower taxes but there are a lot of services that we provide to our community we talked about Mental Health Services and other other services um like our library there's so much that we have to offer our community that you know to just look at what we're raising taxes it's really just a cost of living increase when you look at all of the unfunded mandates all the price uh prices going up um but I'm also really glad to hear that we're making Mone on those High interest rates right now because that's that's a really good um positive benefit to um to the high interest rates and um and anyway thanks for a magnificent job again this year appreciate it okay so why don't we get to the public part of the discussion if anyone in the room is here to ask questions or comment on the budget this would be the time to do that okay great is there anybody online on Zoom that has any comments or questions concerning the budget all right Adam I see a hand up if you could bring them in are youall able to hear me yes go ahead hello um hope you're all are doing well today um my name is Noah I'm exp at tcj and I'm just here because I was really interested in seeing how like Princeton is op ating in terms of like how you know we're doing and right now I'm currently looking at the uh current fund Appropriations for 2024 um and I was um kind of curious just about the um appropriation like some of the funding for some of the stuff going on so I was just curious if you guys could like just like maybe just like for a minute just like kind of expand on some of the like increases in funding that's going on if that makes sense do I just want to make sure I understand the question are when you say increases in funding do you mean increases in revenues or you're asking about increases in expenses uh increases in expenses okay so do you have a a more specific question related to I mean we just gave a general overview of that so I'm just trying to think what yeah I think one example that I was curious about just because because like it's a big change in number I'm looking at the uh police uh salary and wages on the public safety section of the uh current fund Appropriations document that's x3c um in 20123 the expended I guess cost of like salary and wages was $4.88 five million and then the requested amount for salary and wages is uh $7.89 4 million which is a pretty large change so I was just really curious about that um so just to jump in real quick uh part of what councilman Cohen had said when he was going over the budget was we used to have a third party provide dispatch services and we paid or the projected expense if we had kept on to them was over a million dollars so we dropped that third party service and instead we went out and hired our own dispatchers to work the dispatch desk to dispatch police fire in first aid so that cost essentially got transferred from one line item into the budget into the uh salary line item uh but overall the cost for that is projected to be less than it would have been if we had stayed with the third party service so even though it looks like it's a large increase which it is in one line item there's an offsetting decrease in another line item oh okay yeah now that makes a lot more sense thank you yeah sure that's a good question all have a good day guys yeah no thanks all right is there anybody else online that has a question all right I don't see any so we'll go to the resolution to actually approve the budget I'm assuming right Council you're all good no other questions or comments okay all right so it's uh 24-24 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton to adopt the 2024 Municipal budget and if someone would move that Mia thank you Michelle's got the second um and that's a roll call vote please miss Peron lambros yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss sax yes Miss Fraga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you very much and now we have a presentation by sustainable Princeton thank you for your patience and the floor is yours while we're setting up um Michael Chung from our Board of Trustees is going to uh make a few comments thank you Christine for those of you that I've not met prior I do know some of you my name is Michael Chung and I'll just keep with past practice I live at 17 fiser Avenue in the Littlebrook neighborhood my wife Valerie and I we have a son who's a junior at Princeton High School and as well a little one um who's at the Princeton Cubs daycare here I grew up locally from Montgomery Township and Princeton has always been near and dear to my heart I just wanted to start by saying good evening and uh thank you um to council and Christine for tonight's opportunity to represent sustainable Princeton's Board of Trustees um I've been doing environmental and sustainability work for plus 20 years um locally and in New Brunswick where I work and one of the things that I've learned is that the challenges that we face as a society and the opportunities we have as a community to lead in this area now not only in climate but across the whole host of other complex issues requires nothing less than the highest levels of collaboration and partnership no one Organization no one team no one business no one individual can do it themselves and drive the type of change that we want to see we're thankful for council's desire to tackle these complex issues headon climate included as it relates specifically to climate I want to thank Council for integrating aspects of climate planning into council's priorities ities and for trusting sustainable Princeton to Define North Stars and guide the municipality towards delivering the vision of Princeton's climate action plan I just want to close by saying that our collaboration and our results the outcomes make um so many of us so proud and like we say I'm in my household all the time it makes us so proud to live work and play in Princeton and with that I'll turn it over to Christine and the team um to do to to go over the climate Action Plan update appreciate it thank you very much Christine thank you y thank you Michael thank you Michael Adam are you able to allow our presentation to be shared I believe I am connected ah there we go okay just a second to get oriented I know trying to all right well it looks like it's not going to let me read my comments while I do this but um for those who don't don't know who we are um we are sustainable Princeton and I'm joined here by my colleagues I'm the executive director of sustainable Princeton and we are um uh very pleased to be able to give our Council and our town an update on where we are in our Town's climate action plan our role was toight community members to develop the goals and actions for the Princeton Community to reduce its emissions and be better prepared for climate change and just as the plan was the product of many individuals so is the work being done to achieve the plan so please note that while we are the ones speaking tonight the progress we're sharing is the work of many people Municipal staff elected officials boards committees and commissions volunteers other nonprofits businesses and our schools and our objective tonight is to just give an overview of the progress towards achieving the plan and a more detailed report will be available later this week and we have done our best to include as much as we know is being done in Princeton so uh before I hand out over my colleagues I want to share the timeline that was established when the cap was adopted in 2019 we are about four years from 2028 which is the point where we said the community would update the plan and now I'm going to turn over to Alex Dill my colleague uh is going to present the next few slides thank you Christine um so the Princeton climate action plan is informed by uh greenhouse gas inventory so this evaluates and estimates greenhouse gas emissions within the municipality um and then also provides a baseline for tracking emission Trends every year this inventory is totaled up um and here you could see the well [Laughter] um you can see the numbers you could see the totals from 20122 back into 2018 um when the cap was first created um y sorry it's not um generating on the screen there um you are still able to see in 2020 the dip down in greenhouse gas emissions um this was during during covid but just because you see less emissions here in Princeton doesn't mean that was everywhere um those emissions could have been allocated differently as people switch from working in the office to working at home um it's also important to note that we don't want to have another pandemic just for the sake of reducing greenhouse gas emissions um we want to make consistent uh lifestyle and habit changes um to maintain the greenhouse gas emission reduction um then we have chart that shows our uh observed greenhouse gas emission reduction compared to the climate action plan goals so these are 50% by 2030 65% by 2040 and 80% by 2050 we believe that by taking all of the actions in the plan we will be able to achieve these goals um the cap was uh split up into five different categories 13 objectives within those categories and then those are further broken down into 85 Plus actions um the first of which we'll go over a few updates is uh the energy category uh this starts in our built environments with our Energy Efficiency in our homes and our buildings so 493 uh Princeton households and 57 Princeton businesses have completed energy efficent audits uh this is expected to increase as the municipality is partnering with sustainable Jersey and psng uh to promote these Energy Efficiency programs um one of the completed actions is requiring large commercial buildings to Benchmark uh their energy and water usage if they are over 25,000 Square ft um this came from njbpu but sustainable Princeton helped Princeton Property Owners complied with this requirement by holding a webinar with njbpu um another action that has a lot of progress is residential solar installations so there's 33 um which is a uh 73% increase since 2019 um and this is promoted in many ways um one of which is the greenhouse tours that the Environmental commission and sustainable Princeton work on together where residents can tour other sustainable homes in town um and the date for this year is September 28th if you want to put it on your calendar um I will now turn it over to Christine yeah and I want to apologize that the um graphs aren't rendering here um the the slides were in the packet and you can look at that to see just how much progress there's been for uh solar installations in town so want to make sure you don't miss that okay land use and transportation so I want to preface the progress and highlights in this next section with a reminder about why land use and transportation is a section in the cap and that's because our built environment and how we get around are the biggest drivers of our direct emissions and the vision of this section is for all Princeton community members to have access to Safe affordable low carbon housing and transportation and the objectives and actions in this section are based on evidence-based planning principles that solve our carbon pollution problem and are accepted by environmental and sustainability leaders across the US and these actions follow smart growth principles which allow our community to make the most efficient use of our resources and be a more Equitable town because when you give people a place to live in an area of opportunity they thrive so Princeton is expected to grow over the next decade and if Princeton meets this growth with inefficient land use and transportation policies per capita ghg emissions will increase so New Growth if managed well can support Princeton's efforts to reduce emissions land use policies that support this location that support location efficient pedestrian and Transit oriented and mixed use development represent major opportunities to reduce Princeton's greenhouse gas gas emissions additionally reducing the number and length of vehicle trips increasing the number of people moved per vehicle and increasing the number of clean vehicles on the streets will significantly reduce Princeton's Transportation related emissions and the combination of compact development built with Green Building features close to Transit and supporting zero emission Vehicles has the most potential to reduce energy use so list on the slide is progress to promote lowc carbon ways of getting to where you need to go and this slide and the next one should really be presented by Deanna this information was provided to us by Deana and her team and it represents the list of completed and in progress work that are a result of her team executing on the town's bicycle Mobility plan and uh pedestrian improvements and I think that's a a really um notable stat there completed is 18,700 Ft or 3 half miles of bicycle and pedestrian improvements and upcoming are 22,200 ft or 4.2 miles to be included to be completed in the next two years so thank you to De and her team for providing this critical work and this data and I just want to pipe in that there's also the university has a really fantastic plan for Washington Road as well um and you beat me to the punch here are three items of progress coming soon uh Princeton's second dedicated bike Lane and First buffer bike lane uh will be coming electric shuttles will be incorporated into the town's mun Transit service and the university will be adding an off-road cycle track and onroad two-way cycle track on Washington Road W and on enabling vehicle electrification uh Princeton has 20 public charging uh EV charging stations to make switching from a gas powered vehicle to an electric one easier and um I'm not sure if the members of the public are aware but New Jersey passed a law in 2021 that requires new development to install EV charging stations based on the number of parking spaces and so you will will be seeing a new development there will be EV charging stations because it is required by law and before we proceed to the next cap section I do want to say that there is still work to do to make our community Less Car dependent some say we're not moving fast enough however I feel it's really important to recognize what has been accomplished okay the next section of the climate action plan is the natural resource section and its vision is that all Princeton community members benefit from a healthy and resilient ecosystem and no conversation about natural resources would happen without recognizing or should happen without recognizing all the organizations and Municipal dep departments working to achieve that Vision everyone listed on this slide is doing tremendous work to achieve the actions in this section it's also important for the community to know that we're very fortunate to have a full-time arborist and open space manager having an arborist allows the town to devote resources and bring in expertise to take a data driven approach to monitoring and stewarding our tree canopy Princeton now has a street tree inventory thanks to the arborist and um and the municipality and that inventory is used to Monitor and plan um to maintain a healthy Street trees and later in this evening's agenda I believe you are contemplating an urban tree canopy inventory which sort of fill is the next step you've got your street trees in an inventory and now you need the rest of the trees in town this is a big step for the natural resources section of our climate action plan and uh also notable progress is the preservation of the final landwind track that happened um a few months ago and this helps to achieve the climate action plan action 64 which is to protect and expand connective corridors between habitats and open spaces and um our organization is working with the Landscaping Community right now um to provide resources and opportunities to the Spanish-speaking Landscaping community so they can participate equally in the transition to a more sustainable landyard and storm water management practices and I will now turn it over to my colleague Jenny lmer for the next two sections thank you Christine um Princeton has also made two significant achievements within the materials management sector um the Community Vision of this sector as you can see is that all Princeton community members are aware of the carbon emissions of the resources they use um the first achievement we want to highlight is the um cart-based Solid Waste um system that Council implemented last year year um that we like to call this a pay you throw system and um it's been very successful in reducing Princeton's waste as you can see from this grant compared to 2021 2023 um saw 1,000 less tons of waste so it's definitely something to highlight um the second achievement within this sector is pointing out the food scraps pilot program um that was launched last fall uh Princeton now has two different drop off sites and just within the first five months of the that program five tons of food scraps were diverted um that's the equivalent of 2.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent um and you can visualize that by thinking about for every five tons of foods scraps you're planting 45 tree seedlings and letting them grow for 10 years so it's something to to recognize um moving on to the resiliency sector Princeton has also made a lot of significant progress that we want to point out the Community Vision of this sector is that all community members are prepared for the impacts of climate change um the first achievement to note is the climate change related Hazard vulnerability assessment that was included in the master plan this is an important step to identify the priorities and better prepare um to exp uh respond to our extreme weather events um the Princeton engineering department once again is heavily engaged in storm water analyses and this includes um uh the mapping efforts as well as um moving through phase two of the storm water util feasibility study um both of these are efforts to manage our storm water more responsibly within prinston and then of course we want to highlight some key staff the Princeton Health Department um has brought in a local um Outreach coordinator which is an important position to reach our vulnerable um populations another um key piece of resiliency in the climate action plan and with that I will hand it back to Christine okay so looking ahead what should the council be aware of in the near- term and factor into your annual goals and priorities um we want to ensure that uh you're aware of the list of current and upcoming state and federal plans and programs that have opportunities for local governments to help fulfill their climate action goals um this is a list of the state and federal programs and policies um the federal government is providing billions of dollars to States and local governments uh for climate action initiatives and we recognize that resources are required to take advantage of every Grant or opportunity and that they do need to be weighed against the full workload that the municipality is responsible for um so we should be uh looking towards these as potential funding sources but recognize that these all do come with time um to have to apply for and manage grants because if you've ever done a Federal grant they are not simple all right it's not forwarding but um I will just uh close by saying you know we've recommended we have a couple of things that we think the town should look at when it updates the climate action plan in 2028 and one is to really look at the key performance indicators that are in the plan um when the plan was adopted many of those kpis uh wen't established there was so much that we didn't know um in order to create what those kpis uh should be uh I think we're going to do a better job of achieving the climate action plan we should re-evaluate what those KP kpis are and make sure they're achievable um things have changed since those actions were developed and who is assigned as the leader and so we should look at those actions and determine who should be the uh organization uh taking the lead on those actions um we should keep our emission goals uh aligned with what the ipcc says we must do uh as um a globally reduce to avoid the worst impacts of climate change ipcc is the intergovernmental plan panel on climate change um other things we recommend is perhaps adding a per capita emissions uh goal to The Climate action plan right now that 80% by 2050 is um not based on you know how many people are in Princeton um but other climate action plans that towns are adopting do include per capita goals we should evaluate what the environmental justice priorities are of our community incorporate them better into the plan so before we get to the questions if you have any I'd like to end with an acknowledgement that as a community we are experiencing a time of great change at a global national and state level all the way to our own neighborhoods and more changes coming and my colleagues and I are committed to helping our town achieve our climate action goals in a way that that really brings out the best in one another and ourselves so thank you thank you very much let's start off with Council questions or comments okay were there any great questions you were hoping we'd ask that you have an answer for that we I just want to make sure we cover everything you want to cover um I was expecting David would ask me the same question he asks every time which is is you know if we were to update the plan like do we need to wait four years what should we update um so I don't know if that's still a question or if I adequately answered that the last time you asked it well I mean I think it was clear that you're envisioning doing that with the 2028 evaluation so I I think um that's really right around the corner so um we probably and you have started working on it in a way by making the suggestions you've made um we we did talk about a per capita uh metric even when we were doing the original action plan and I think that's a really good idea um but I guess um you know the other thing I would be interested in thinking about is when we initially did this it was all supply side right and not demand side right well it's um scope one and scope two emissions so scope one and scope two emissions are direct emissions from the activities within our boundaries and from the emissions from the uh Power Generation uh in our community it does not include scope three which is the Upstream emissions from all of the goods and services we consume and so um you could look at a per cap emissions that include scope one and scope two or you could also include scope three um and that is really scope three emissions really involve you know individual habits and organizational habits of how you consume Goods um and there's a little bit less that a local government can do to make that change that's really individual change local government has more ability to affect the scope one and scope two emissions mostly scope one somewhat scope too for sure but the action plan is not just a government document as we all know it's a community document and I think uh it's well worth thinking about how we can better educate residents and you know I would love to see us um enhance it in that way thank you Eve I don't have a question very atypical um but I do want to say I have a bunch of questions about the uh the community solar I'm saving up for that I just want to say um thank you to everyone on sustainable Princeton staff and board everything that you know so many of the things that I do I rely on you guys to educate me to to provide data to provide support to provide counsel to uh work with the community I mean this is such an important partnership that we have it is really uh just absolutely crucial to everything we do on the kind of sustainability and environmental uh front and uh just want to say to everybody just thank you for for all you do and I never feel like you know we're alone in this we always have you know you you to call on and um so so many things so just a big uh shout out of appreciation thank you Michelle thank you I just um I wanted to mention a couple things so one is that um The Pedestrian and bike advisory committee is putting together some recommendations to come before Council hopefully the next meeting or two um and we hope that it be even more aggressive in terms of where we can put bike Lanes uh and bike boulevards we have the opportunity with psng doing a lot of work right now in town when they are done they can restripe so you know we don't have to um do a striping contract and we can hopefully get some things done uh so that's um one thing I'm hoping that that will be an even longer list um and then the second thing is I'm really interested are you planning or having you done any workshops or any Outreach about rain Gardens CU I think it's something people are like really and we talked about this at the shade tree commission and I don't know if it's something to could be collaborated on but there's just a lot of interest in town like what's a rain Garden how do I build one um and you know I don't know if that's something that is an undertaking that's not an expensive undertaking or um that is something um we have been doing most recently we had a rain Garden 101 workshop for Spanish speaking landscapers we um we view this as like a a a dual effort to educate the community to want rain Gardens and understand the importance of them so we have done uh some of our sustainable Minds events talk about uh um rain Gardens we brought in the Watershed Institute to um help some of the neighborhoods in town do an assessment of where uh it makes sense to have rain Gardens and on the other side we we feel we really need to help build the professional expertise in the Landscaping community so they can provide those Services um so that is something we're going to continue to work on um in the coming years that's wonderful thank you and thanks for a great presentation appreciate it thank you okay l oh I'm I I just want to also say that uh to congratulate you and acknowledge that sustainable Princeton and the work that you do always seeks to acknowledge uh Equity social justice and environmental justice and you pay attention not to just some neighborhoods but all neighborhoods in Princeton and the the difference that you make in in people just understanding the importance of sustainability and climate change has been intense and intentional and it really is appreciated by the people in Princeton and I know particularly by mayor and Council thank you thank you Leon um and thank you for being a leader and showing us why it's important to incorporate equity and tour work um also a little sneak preview we'll be sharing with the public we did just get a grant to install 20 downspout R uh Planters in our underserved communities and we'll be working with Lon Princeton community housing and housing initiatives of Princeton to install some downspout planners to help with storm water runoff Thank You Sure Mia um so I also want to thank all of the sustainable Princeton board members who came out tonight to the council meeting um to listen and support and participate in this and um as most of you know sustainable princeon is something that I was involved with for many years before I was involved uh in doing this and um tonight is one of those nights where I am just you know feeling so proud that not only is the climate action plan a thing but it's far enough along that we're evaluating the progress and I am remembering all the years and which there was discussion on the municipal side and and on the sustainable Princeton side of how how much we needed a climate action plan for Princeton and would it ever happen and how would we do it and what would be the process and you know there was Outreach ongoing Outreach from community members who said when is there going to be a climate action plan for Princeton and now not only is there a climate action plan but it is making significant progress um thanks to the staff and the board members of sustainable Princeton who are ambassadors in the community for sustainability um and and the staff members who are really the glue within the municipal operation who um are able to help us to connect and prioritize sustainability throughout all of our um Municipal operations and we're we're so grateful as my colleagues have said that we can rely on you and that takes the form of daily phone calls emails um and and um you know really you just um we are so appreciative and I am so excited that we are making really remarkable progress with the climate action plan and that we're already even talking about the next climate action plan so um it's just an encouraging moment to know that sometimes dreams do come true so thank you Christine in particular so oh thank you to my team it's me team effort ni you yeah thank you no I too want to express um my gratitude and appreciation for all that sustainable Princeton has been doing uh for our community it's uh I especially want to uh uh express my appreciation uh for it's just evident not just in the presentation that you made tonight but uh evident in the initiatives uh the workshops you present to ensure that also reaching out to our vulnerable population our Spanish-speaking landscapers uh if I didn't say it before uh was very proud of uh uh when I think you you were I believe you were the first uh of Our Community Partners that actually applied the equity toolkit when uh developing an initiative and so uh if I haven't said it before I I truly appreciate all the work that you you do and that you apply Equity lens to uh all the initiatives that you move forward thank you okay thank you very much okay have a great evening thank you all for attending it's very nice of you thank you okay now we have a number of public hear uh public hearing on a number of ordinances first up is ordinance 202 24-20 and bond ordinance amending Bond ordinance number 2019-21 of Princeton in the county of Mercer New Jersey finally adopted May 6 2019 would someone like to move that thank you David Eve's got the second Sandy do you want to tell us about that yes of course um this Bond Bond ordinance amendment is to include um smoyer Park in the funding for the Mercer play Grant which also included Hilltop Park so we're adding smoyer par to this ordinance thank you very much questions or comments from Council Members Michelle yeah so um that will include an Adaptive playground for smer Park uh that the merer at play money can um be stretched to so that will be coming before Council soon thank you any other Council questions or comments anyone from the public in the room room that wants to comment on this one all right anybody on Zoom that wants to comment on this all right seeing none we'll close the public hearing and a roll call vote Miss Peron lambrose yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss saxs yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you ordinance 202 24-21 ordinance by the municipality of Princeton concerning probationary terms and promote promotions within the Princeton police department and amending chapter 26 of the code of the burrow of Princeton New Jersey 1974 the TC has got the motion David's got the second Council questions or comments right see none any public questions or comments in the room all right anybody on Zoom with a question or comment I see none I'll close the public hearing and another roll call vote please miss Pon lambrose yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss Sachs yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you ordinance 202 24-22 an ordinance by the municipality of Princeton regulating loading zones and parking on Chamber Street and amending the code of the burrow or Princeton New Jersey 1964 leighton's got the motion the TC has got the second Council questions or comments I see none any anybody in the room with any questions or comments this is basically us uh uh sending Chambers uh Street back to two ways right yes so for people who were taking bets about whether it would actually happen when when they said it would happen it now has to happen yeah yeah and as de said earlier it's likely to happen a few days early right and this is establ this is reestablishing the loading and parking zones when it's a two-way roadway mhm okay uh was there anybody on Zoom that had a question comment all right seeing no one I'll close the public hearing and we could have a roll call vote please miss Peron lambrose yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss sax yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you ordinance 202 24-23 an ordinance by the municipality of Princeton regulating motor vehicles and traffic and specifically the exclusion of trucks over four tons from certain streets and amending the code of the burrow of Princeton New Jersey 1974 is there Eve's got the motion Michelle's got the second any questions or comments from Council I do have a question is the municipal bus a 4 ton because I I know that they're yeah okay all right yes it is um over four tons and they have been um directed to utilize Elm and okay 206 all right yeah there's they're still cutting um okay this is this is a good good step in the right direction and this was in response to neighbor Outreach from that neighborhood about um through traffic so I'm glad we're doing this yeah thank you okay any public questions or comments nobody in the room anybody on Zoom questions or comments all right see none I'll close the public hearing roll call vote please miss Peron lambrose yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss saxs yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes Carri okay ordinance 202 24-24 an ordinance of the municipality of Princeton authorizing license agreements for Hermes of Paris Inc and farity clothing for Block 20.06 lot 87.0 got to let Michelle do this gotta let me move that wait a minute let me finish Princeton tax map pursuant to edj sa 48 12-1 etc etc etc Michelle were you making a motion thank you ever so much I wasn't sure is there a second uh David thank you very much Council questions or comments all right none anybody in the room with a question or comment all right anybody on Zoom with a question or comment seeing none we'll close the public hearing roll call vote please miss Peron lambrose yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes Miss Sachs yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes Carri thank you ordinance 2024-25 an ordinance of the municipality of Princeton accepting a conservation easement on a portion of block 2802 lot 1.01 Princeton tax map and authorizing the execution of a banked parking agreement with Mount Lucas Properties Inc pursuant to njsa 481 12-4 and is there a motion on that one thank you David 's got the second Council questions or comments Eve first and then David Eve you had a question or was your hand still up sorry David yeah I just wanted to um comment that this conservation M this is the property that some may have noticed is under construction um along Poor Farm Road in Mount Lucas um there was it was developed I don't know 30 40 years ago um and was supposed to have a conservation easement on a portion of the property which never got filed so this is rectifying that goes back to the 1990s when Commodities Corporation developed the addition to their building agreed to conserve that back property okay and uh the the other piece of it is uh this Bank parking agreement um we really like to see these um at the planning board whenever somebody doesn't need as much parking as the ordinance says they need they can say well if we if it we don't need it but if it turns out we do need it we'll put it here and I just reduced his impervious coverage it's a really it's a win-win uh both for the applicant and for the municipality so other Council questions or comments we just like to add that when we bring our parking requirements into what they should be that we won't need this sort of banked parking Arrangement anymore may still occasionally need it but yeah okay thank you for that okay anybody in the room with com questions or comments anybody on Zoom questions or comments all right see none close the public hearing roll call vote M Pon lambros yes Miss Neer gang yes Mr Cohen yes M Sachs yes Miss froga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you very much which resolution affects I'm try to figure this out you guys are all here for one of the resolutions right which one is it sorry somebody help me huh yes which number 24 d130 130 okay let's just jump right to there so you guys don't have to keep sitting here sorry about that we need a motion to agend no I think it's within the perogative of of us to since we have a group here we can move the resolutions around we're still going to cover them all so we're going to do 24130 first 24130 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton reaffirming Princeton's participation in The acos Cooperative pricing system and Ace Plus program for renewable energy Consulting Services awarding Consulting agreement to the Gable Associates Inc and authorizing issuance of a request for proposals for Community solar developers I think Mia is going to move that yeah and is there a second Eve thank you very much questions or comments from Council Members David yeah this is a question I know we've tried uh previously to get a community solar agreement um it was a pilot program which has now rolled into being a a permanent ongoing program but I'm curious that there's will also limit on the number of awards um and whether we may run into similar uh issues as we've had in the past where we we can't get one uh I think the microphone is yeah I I don't this is my only question so I don't think it'll be hi hi good to see you good to see too yes instead of on Zoom uh so yes a few years ago we wanted to enter the pilot program I'm sorry yes just yes get the microphone close because the people on Zoom can't hear you and then just if you'd introduce yourself yes I'm Bel Gable I'm a senior associate with Gable Associates um a few years ago Princeton did attempt to get into the pilot Community solar program now the BPU has moved to the permanent Community solar program which instead of doing a competitive application process as in the pilot they are instead doing a registration period they open for for a a month about and the municipality or the provider whoever else can apply during that period so it will be a different situation than in the pilot program fantastic thank you uh thanks I I do have some questions um about H how this works it it there so reading this it seems like it's a competitive program in which Princeton may or may not get a chance to do this um could you explain a little bit about like what is the level of competition are there you know 100 municipalities competing for three spots or is it you know 99 municipalities well like is the expectation that we will get this or yes the expectation is that we would get this we are uh planning on doing the whole RF PRP process which is in the resolution which would result in I believe very competitive level of savings and since that is the main consideration for the BPU I feel confident that uh we would be either either able to apply and succeed or through an alternate method we could also uh partner with an existing program where we wouldn't need to do the application process at all so we're leaving the option open for for both those paths okay thank you and my second question is uh can we in the process of looking for uh a solar installer uh focus on Equity issues and make sure that we if there are uh solar installing companies that are women owned owned by people of color I mean that was something there was a lot of equity in the proposal and I appreciate that this was one place where um there wasn't any reference to equity so whatever we can do to get the word out it would be great to uh really have that uh have Equity reflected in that effort as well yeah absolutely and uh once we get into Divi designing the RFP we can include those kind of requirements or extra points for any proposers thank you any other Council questions or comments okay it's been moved and seconded all in favor say I I there you go thank you very much for hanging out so long all right jumping back up to the top of the list 24125 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton counseling contract with National Auto Fleet group for a 2024 Chevrolet Silverado truck with liftgate and snowplow authorized by resolution 23257 and authorizing new contract with National Auto Fleet for a new SL unused 2024 Ford Superduty F250 Lariat for $ 63,9 126 utilizing sourcewell National Cooperative purchasing contract number 0915 21- Naf and leighton's got the motion David's got the second Council questions or comments seeing none all in favor please say I I I 24126 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton counseling contract with National Auto Fleet group for 2024 Chevrolet Silverado truck authorized by resolution 23258 and authorizing new contract with National Auto Fleet group for a new unused 2024 Ford Superduty F250 for $566 2338 cents utilizing sourcewell National Cooperative purchasing contract number 0915 21- Naf thank you David for the motion and was there a second on that thank you Eve uh questions or comments all right all in favor say I hi hi 24127 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of a contract to Asphalt Paving systems for pavement preservation on Bertram drive and Codwell drive for $127,600 62 cents utilizing New Jersey state contract 17- gnss sv2 sorry 17- gns v2- 00181 thank you Laticia was that a no I was scratching sorry out of the corner of my eye I wasn't sure if you were would somebody want to move that thank you David is there a second Thank You Leon questions comments mayor just quickly I just want to I think I'm right in this this regard I think this is the first time that the the town of Princeton has looked at our roads and Paving if I'm right and not necessarily looking at the roads that are in the worst shape but these are roads that are in very good shape and we are are going to uh redo them while they're in very good shape because that is the best way to maintain our roads at the greatest savings uh so it's a new look and it's a new day for us I just wanted to acknowledge that yes thank you David and then Dean can jump in yeah so I did have a question whether these two roads are in that category of very good or good uh in terms of receiving the uh life extending treatment that is being proposed here because there were two categories in the memo that were mentioned yes they they are in the good to very good condition good to very good yes sort of okay so we are proposing a micr surfacing treatment as Leighton indicated this is uh the first of hopefully many installations of this type of surface treatment uh rather than the traditional method of removing the top two to four in of asphalt uh we are leaving that in place and then putting a thin layer over the top which is a mix of materials and stone um which will improve rideability as well as extend the pavement life for those roads so that the idea is that that the uh the major reconstruction work whether it's a heavy Mill and overlay or a full reconstruction can be put off for a longer period of time and we're able to do this now because we went through the roadway condition inventory last year and that data that was produced out of that inventory is able to inform what we do in addition to the other methods that we've used in the past looking at where we have additional potholes where we need to do underground work that type of thing yeah so I I missed the meeting where the the report was presented um so this might be a an ignorant question but is there a list of the roads that they're recommending be prioritized for this treatment in other words can we or even members of the public go and see um you know how high on the list or low on the list their roadway might be for receiving the treatment I don't it's it's more prioritized in terms of um you know the very good good Fair poor condition um it's not that this road needs to be done ahead of that road but as I said it's one piece of information that we're using um in conjunction with looking at what sanitary sewer storm sewer work needs to happen where we want to implement um bicycle infrastructure do pedestrian improvements um we do have the data it's not available on the website uh we do have it in an Excel spreadsheet as well as a GIS map the gis map needs some cleanup but we can definitely share that with you okay and um just in layman's terms um if there's anybody still listening um you know what does it mean to be in good versus very good condition you know are there going to be visible cracks and stuff like that or is that already starting to put a road into fair condition Oh no you're you're moving from very good to good at the point where you start to have cracks okay yes and and that's that's really going to be the first um way too approach pavement preservation is to do the Intervention when you are moving and starting to see those cracks appearing so maybe 2 to 3 years after a road has been resurfaced that's really the time it jump in because you you try to do the crack ceiling and then when that stops being effective that's when you bring in the uh the micros surfacing and other treatments thanks M okay any other Council questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I 24128 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the admissible auction of certain Surplus property no longer needed for public use by utilizing the services of gov deals thank you Eve Leon's got the second Council questions or comments I seeing none all in favor please say I I 24129 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the continued use of a portion of Community Park South for a temporary dog park Mia might and does want to make that motion thank you very much lettis has got the second any questions or comments see none I gotta say something ju it's just a great success it's really a great success so MIA council president thank you so much for your leadership on this it's just been wonderful I I just want to make sure that Raina got this for the minutes I think I heard someone say ARF yeah that was we'll check the minutes to make sure it's there all right okay all in favor please say I I 24131 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing a shared service agreement with Princeton library for information technology Support Services thank you Eve is there a sec lon's got the second questions or comments Eve just uh great to see uh shared services uh Provisions uh like this so I hope we continue to encourage staff and our Community Partners to uh share services with us okay any other question questions or comments all in favor please say I I I 24132 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton amending an agreement with R&D Consulting LLC for information technology Support Services would someone move that thank you Eve David's got the second questions or comments seeing none all in favor please say I I I 24133 resolution of the mayor and Council of Prince and authorizing the award of a contract to Campbell Foundry Company for iron bicycle safe grates and Cur piece face plates for $141,900 979 for catch Basin castings inlets and manholes of course Eve's got the motion M's got the second questions or comments Dave yeah I'm just curious whether um any of these are actually replacing non bicycle safe uh inlets or is it more about keeping stuff out of the drains um from the storm water management standpoint uh yes we will be replacing the non bicycle safe grates um there's fewer of them uh than the the face plate piece that needs to be done but that is so that's why the difference in the numbers correct because I was wondering about that right so that's part of our inspection process to look at the entire surface area and make sure that we're bringing it up to standards thank you Eve um thanks uh I was just wondering um do non-municipal uh entities also need to make similar Replacements not at this time um but I would see that that's probably going to be forthcoming if they are doing work um where they're making repairs to an inlet at that time they do need to bring it up to standards but they do not right now they don't have this 2027 deadline to make the upgrades like we do thank you okay any other questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I I 24134 resolution of the May and Council of Princeton authorizing an increase of $4,850 to the not to exceed amount for the Professional Services agreement with French and pello Associates for professional land surveying services to establish a new permanent easement resulting in a new contract amount not to exceed $1 16,6 128 leighton's got the motion Eve's got the second questions or comments which easement is this it is a permanent easement uh related to the Red Trail foot Bridge at Mountain Lakes uh we found that this historic structure partially spans onto private property so it's a permanent easement to facilitate construction but also our long-term maintenance of the structure granted to us by uh the property owner we will be working through the details of the easement itself but this work is to allow our surveyors to put together the necessary maps and description of the land okay great good question any other questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I 24135 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing shared service agreement with the township of Hamilton for clinical Health Services not to exceed $4,000 thank you Leticia uh was there a second Leon thank you questions or comments I see none all in favor please say I I I 24136 resolution of the May Council Princeton authorizing change order number one to the contract with Seagrave fire apparatus LLC for a Seagrave model TVO HCT Mara 95 ft aerial scope non Quint for an increase of $585 resulting in a new contract total of 2,862 188 where is the remote David thank you for the motion I'm sorry actually Michelle made the motion David has the second questions or comments which one is this is this the one that we're getting some assistance from the University for this is the tower truck this is the the the the big one the tower truck the big one big truck okay the big truck the big truck big truck many big trucks an even bigger truck which we we actually got we're going to get early or then if we had ordered it now and waited because somebody canceled a contract so got it it's good we're giving assistance y any other questions or comments I see none all in favors please say I I okay 24 137 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of a Professional Services agreement to Davey Resource Group for an urban tree canopy assessment for an amount not to exceed $445,500 Eve's got the motion Michelle's got the second questions and comments David and then Eve um actually I'm gonna let Eve go first oh go go ahead oh uh so I think I understand that the previous uh uh dve re source group survey was tree streets and this is the entire canopy throughout the municipality um this this is the forest not the trees how long have you been waiting to say that no I'm not often glib so I appreciate the appreciation I walked right into that um I just want to say that that reading through this proposal was I really appreciated how much Focus there was on environmental justice it was very uh refreshing um that really the emphasis is to understand you know how we can do better to implement equity and make sure everybody in the community has access to the benefits of of trees um the question is will uh this I know we're paying an annual fee for the software is this something that is only available to our staff or is it something that the public might have access to I think it should be able to be viewable on through the municipal website like the treekeeper data is that would be great because I think our you know open space groups and other interested parties would be you know really benefit from having access to this so thank you yeah and well I joke I mean it really is this is looking at the canopy and the change in the canopy throughout the municipality it's not just the public streets it's all lands whether it's private or public they are not individually collecting data on every single tree like we did in the inventory so it it really is more of an overview of the forest rather than the individual trees but thank [Laughter] you Michelle yes so this is important companion to um creating uh incentives and um programs and really looking at how we can preserve our tree canopy is to get an idea of what we've lost we know that the ash boore um has you know taken a big toll on our tree canopy um so there are things that we're doing both as a council committee to look at policy as well as this will also inform shade tree commission so it's really a good first step it's expensive expensive um but I think in the long run it's an investment in something that's really essential for us any other questions or comments I'm sorry Mia and then letisia no not me oh that's just a sorry geez I'll get it right one of these times with you so um I see Rich Ryan is in in in the virtual audience so I just want to say Rich your article um uh inquiring about how we uh what we're doing with our tree canopy how we assess how we monitor actually it was Caroline Jones so just want to um say that that uh gave us impetus to really do a deep dive into what we're doing and and how can we do it better uh not just to preserve but to enhance our tree canopy both the forest and the trees and the trees in the forest and um so we this year it's a top Council goal priority and we uh have a a a tree canopy group ad hoc um focus Council group this this year that is working on that um and they'll be making recommendations and so um stay tuned for recommendations by the end of the year of of how we can really jump start the process to um preserve and enhance our our tree canopy so it we'll also be working later this year on on the community forestry management plan so this is an important piece of data that will help um Council as well as this ad hoc Committee in establishing what the goals are for the next five years and that that is a requirement from DP or you're not required to have a community forestry management plan uh but it does make certain grants available if you do have that um accreditation yeah thanks M okay any other questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I 24138 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the sale of a 2001 kme midmount ladder fire apparatus to the city of Trenton city of Trenton Department of fire and emergency services for $80,000 Michelle's got the motion is there a second thank you Mia I have a question of our attorney I know they've offered us 80,000 are we allowed to reduce that number and sorry not to have asked you prior I don't know sorry I don't know the answer to your question I can't I'm sorry I bet I do not know the answer to your question are you're not sure sure okay um the reason I bring it up is city of Trenton is in severe financial difficulty this is a piece of apparatus that is of well we're replacing it with the Seagrave truck that we just talked about a couple resolutions ago um the city of Trenton is in dire need of a piece of apparatus like this and us having this piece of apparatus available to them is like a godsend so if there's anything that we can do so I wonder can we make a motion if there's enough interest to make the number lower and you can make sure that we can actually do it and that then we'd be positioned to let them their city council will vote on whatever we find out we can legally do I think their next meeting is next Monday night so we have okay can can we just table it then and get the information they're going to vote on it next Monday so they they do need to know I think is what the mayor say it would be important for us to make a decision to try to no I'd be comfortable with that mayor and I mean yes I make whatever motion you guys want to make tonight we and then Sarah oi and I can work on this tomorrow but okay okay if you want to go for a lower number yeah the worst casee is if we can't do it we can I was I thought that 880,000 was the reduced price so I'm a little confused originally we were going to ask for 90,000 on gov deals and see what the heck happened we had no no strong feeling that we'd actually get that gov deals takes a 7% cut so if we had gotten the 90 we would have gotten 83 so they Trenton made an offer of 80 because that was close to the 83 so they rounded it down a little bit but Trenton made that offer of 80 it's on the table y i i just going to say I had the same thought reading through the packet that uh you know can't can't we do something for for Trenton here and and give them a break on it so I absolutely would support uh you know some some kind of effort to to lower the price um you know if uh if this is acceptable uh legally right I would so if there's enough interest and I know I didn't have a chance to warn anybody of this but if there's enough interest somebody can make a motion to lower the number if that gets approved great and the worst that happens is trishka comes back to us and says oh she couldn't have done it and then we would have to come back at a future meeting but if we can do it then it's already done Trenton votes on it next week and they probably take the truck the next day to be honest I'm I'm not making a motion and and I of course we always would like to help those who are in need um I just might first of all for something like this would be helpful to have this not sprung on us right in the moment when we're voting on it to discuss it because I always feel like with something like this there are implications so if you know so we're going to help Trenton there are many other places in New Jersey that are in need you know where where where do we how do we um you know are we setting a precedent in terms of you know how we do what we do and um so anyway I mean I'm I'm I just um you know don't like to do do things on the fly like this yeah yeah and I just um would like to understand more about what it would mean for Trenton to get this break in other words you know the money may not be entirely fungible um and it you know it may not go to uses that we would like to see it go to you know um among the the universe of possibilities so I don't know you know I don't know how how it's being funded in Trenton and you know whether the fire department already has this budget and whether it's not going to give the money to another department that might need the money more there's just so little information to make the decision plus as uh you know chair of the fin committee and really wanting to be responsible with our money um I have concerns about it and I also have concerns that it's really a mood point because it sounds like something that we're probably not going to be allowed to do not knowing the answer for sure but knowing how purchasing in general works both on the for sale and and uh for acquisition side that you know just giving away taxpayer dollars is not generally considered kosher so right I would not term this giving away taxpayer dollars since there's no guarantee you'd get this 80,000 from anybody else but that's fine that's that's just your opinion but I just need to jump in and say that I'm not suggesting we throw away taxpayer dollars but I'm saying if we can do something for the good of the city in our County that's the capital of our of our state that's probably not worth that's probably worth thinking about but if there's not enough interest that's fine the more important thing is we'd pass something tonight and if we pass it at 80 that's great that's still a great favor to them Michelle and then we'll work down the other way so they're voting on it on next week I mean I believe their meeting is next Monday night so they're waiting for us to do something tonight so I I know that sometimes we um we donate equipment um that you know we I think we've just bought some new uniforms for the firefight maybe there's something else we can give or give a discount or give to to um to Trenton uh in Li of you know changing the price on the fly like this just because we don't have all the all the maybe we could do something like that because I would be totally in favor and I would have been in favor of looking at this as a reduced price but it's just an awkward situation now because they need they need to they need to buy it too and I I did think we were I thought we were doing this at a reduce price but yeah no all good all good Leticia then think so I I don't uh I'm not sure what the implications are but I do recall years ago where one of our officers actually uh travel to I I don't remember the country uh but to Del make delivery of a fire truck I believe Nicaragua correct Nicaragua and we gave it away that's correct so I just not understanding the implications but if we could give a fir trck to Nicaragua I would assume we could also do that for Trenton yep okay any other I'm sorry Eve I'm just wondering uh mayor are you looking for like us to come up with a number here to to to offer to to uh Trenton yes I I mean I guess the first thing is is are there enough people who want to want to do this and if so what would our number be I'm right d I have an alternative suggestion which is they may have it on their agenda to vote on it Monday night but they can table that as well and let us get some information and come back with a more informed decision and then they can vote to accept whatever we are able to offer them at at that time but this feels really R really rushed and operating you know we're we're we're flying without instruments in a PE PE soup fog right now and I think um I would like to get some instruments or let the fog lift um before we have a vote well I would strongly suggest we do not put off a vote on something tonight since the city of Trenton did not formally ask me to try to get the number reduced but I just thought it was I I thought it was a no-brainer myself but that's fine it doesn't appear that there's enough support to change it so I think it'd be in Trenton's best interest to approve what's on the table Mia I just I I would say I wouldn't characterize it as not enough interest we do care about Trenton but we are elected officials in Princeton and we are right now like we have very needy people in our town like at the housing authority and there are certain requests that have come from the Housing Authority that have not been granted by the town that were less than this and so you know I just want to make sure that we are prioritizing the needy residents in our town um when we can and you know if we have money like this to you know I mean that is let's say we we cut it by 20,000 that's money that we are you know then I don't want us to say to for example the Housing Authority that we can't do something for them because we don't have it I'm just you know in the whole scheme of things that's that's fine I mean yeah I don't I don't I don't agree with that logic but it is logical well we have limited resources but but most importantly I just we we agreed they offered us a price which I think was a reduced price we agreed on it we were here to vote on it tonight and it just to all of a sudden out of the blue bring something else up it's all good seems it's all good I know Tron never charges us when they come into our town for Mutual aid but that's fine so there's a motion to sell the truck for 880,000 that's been moved and seconded no further questions or comments I assume at this point all in favor say I I I okay great 24139 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton appointing members to the Princeton advisory committee on affordable housing Human Services and racial social and economic equity let TCF please and then Leighton and I do have I moved it late second it but I did want to make some comments uh I think a most uh most everyone in our community is aware that on January 22nd of this year we adopted an ordinance establishing the affordable housing Human Services and racial social and E economic equity advisory committee I am proud to share that the recruitment application review and interview process for our advisory committee was conducted with careful consideration and attention to detail we took the time to ensure that each step was thorough and deliberate allowing us to select a group of members who bring a diverse set of Knowledge and Skills to the table this thoughtful approach will undoubtedly enrich our community and enable us to better serve our community I wish to thank all who participated in this process tonight I am thrilled to to be able to announce the appointment of a dynamic and diverse group of individuals to uh our new advisory committee and if you allow me to uh just mention the names of all the individuals since this was published later in the day because we were finalizing and being able to reach out to everyone who was being appointed uh the resolution is uh that is going to uh be that's on the agenda tonight A points Edith huarez arifa candala Rene oon bernardet Alexander Leana Jan Ari Mel Willow Davies Tamara Franklin priia payman Ming Quang and Stephanie Longo this dedicated team will bring together a wide range of backgrounds ethnicities socioeconomic statuses and lived experiences this will ensure that we have a com comprehensive understanding of the needs of our underserved Community per the ordinance adopted earlier this year uh this committee is made up of nine regular members and two alternates on the initial formation of the committee and as required by the establishing establishing ordinance three of the regular members are being appointed for oneyear term three for two 2 year term and three for a three-year term two of the selected candidates are designated alternates for a term of one year by staggering the terms we ensure continuity so that the terms don't all expire at the same time selection of one two three two one two and three and Alternate terms were made Fairly and Equitable by drawing names I mean literally out of a hat I think it was the Hat you're wearing correct uh as terms expire individuals interested in continuing to serve can then be considered for reappointment and going forward appointments and reappointments will be for a three-year term we are excited excited to collaborate with this talented group as we work together to address the unique challenges and opportunities facing our community my colleague uh councilman Leon Newan and and I are in the process of working with human services and the affordable housing departments to organize the first meeting of the committee please stay tuned for updates on our progress and initiatives thank you lsha L thank you mayor I just want to share very quickly with my colleagues those who are gathered here in in the uh municipal offices uh and anyone within the sound of my voice voice the following text message that I sent to my colleague Leticia frager this was today at 10:50 a.m. and I said mman gracias for your teamwork guidance and friendship during this process and I mean that I want to thank you uh I learned a lot through this and I am very happy to have participated in this initiative I have a short statement I will read um that talks about it this action is an overarching and collaborative initiation or initiative that will address critical areas of stabilization for the least the Forgotten and sometime the Lost Among Us summoning our better Angels asking everyone within the sound of my voice and in the town of Princeton to support Embrace both the people and the mission statement of those who have stepped up and stepped forward to provide the human and social infrastructure that will build lives and opportunities for the vulnerable underserved and under represented among us we will move forward with a great sense of urgency competence compassion and commitment thank you thank you any other comments questions okay all in favor of the uh the resolution please say I I I I there we go thank you it's a big step to get that done the consent agenda is next if no one needs anything pulled off the consent agenda somebody could eat moving the consent agenda thank you very much is there a second thank you Leighton all in favor please say I I okay David do you have a motion I move to a turnour is there a second thank you Eve all in favor say I I we are done thank you thank you thank you Miss Leah Khan for always being here with us good job I'm GL