##VIDEO ID:crb6szenKvU## okay this l but I let let than you no we don't next week we're off and then we have the 17th and then we're off again I'll be after 17 that's right I get a bunch of weeks off but yeah oh Am I Wrong oh I'm I'm sorry did I miss speak yes I'm sorry next week it's the 13th I will not be here next Wednesday yeah we going to have a meeting on the 20th right and then so you're here next week and you guys got form without me good you guys got for e it's for you good evening this is the r the Ridgewood Village Council public Workshop the date is November 6th 2024 the time is 7:30 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by a posting on the bulletin board in Village Hall by mail to the Ridgewood news the record and by submission to all persons en tile the same as provided by law of a schedule including the date and time of this meeting roll call Deputy Mayor parin is absent council member Reynolds here council member whites here council member winegrad here and mayor V here will you all please join us in a salute to our flag iedge Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all before we go to public comment I want to just take a moment um to recognize uh uh that uh people people of Ridgewood voted in Mass yesterday and I'm so happy that they came out in large numbers regardless of who they voted for um it was so important to see uh a large Gathering of people the lines at many of the polling places were over an hour um I thought it was terrific I want to take a moment to welcome our new council member elect Frank Mortimer um and we look forward to working with you Frank I also want to take a moment to congratulate um hju quak um who has served our community for many years and uh and put in a strong campaign and we are grateful to her for having put in such a strong campaign and having served our community because everyone does not want to do this so I have the greatest respect for her and so and with that um oh and by the way those are also um forgive me those are the sentiments also of Pam perin who could not be here tonight um and has taken a much needed break so um those are on her behalf also and now let's go to public comment I I don't think it's on in is it uh now there we go good evening and loving Ridgewood New Jersey I too want to congratulate uh Mr vaganos and M paron who's absent and Mr Mortimer um on winning the election last night it was great was one of the challengers there was a huge turnout at every poll and I also want to thank you for running because I know it's not easy to run and it's not easy to serve and I'd very much like to thank Miss hju quac for running um You Know Much appreciated for the service that she's given and for her attempt to get on to the Village Council so thank you thank you an Frank Mortimer Ridgewood New Jersey we'll continue the theme of saying that I want to thank all the Ridgewood residents that voted it's just awesome when you see the number of people that went out and voted and it shows how engaged and civically minded our amazing Community is and it's the high level of Engagement that we have here in Ridgewood that makes our town so great it makes me so proud to live here I also want to congratulate Paul and Pam for getting reelected and for the incredible rible number of votes that you both received getting the number of the getting the most votes in the history of Ridgewood which you two did proves that the work that you and this entire council is doing is exactly what the majority of people in Ridgewood want awesome job to all of you congratulations and finally Lorraine I want to thank you for your service on the council you've always stuck to your principles you voed your opinion no matter what and it's been admirable to watch how you've served our village so thank you I wish you much peace when you reclaim your Wednesday nights I have it already and I will do my best to fill your vacated seat thank you thanks Frank roric halbe one Franklin Avenue first let me congratulate Paul and Pam on the reelection to the council and Frank Mortimer on his election uh the three of you along with uh shabon and Evan will form a formidable Village Council and uh I know that you'll be taking Rood to a new level of excellence in the next couple of years uh I was amazed too by the vast number of rigid residents who voted for the municipal positions a record by far I believe and it's probably worth a study by an independent group like the League of Women Voters and uh so I say kudos to one Village one vote for enfranchising rud's residents now rud residents are enfranchised as far as being active in in in local politics uh looking forward to the next two years I see two major initiatives that will require your attention energy the CBD and shedler uh the CBD faces long-term systemic challenges that cannot be solved by just fiddling at the edges you need to employ a world- class Town planner who will take a fresh strategic look where are we where can we be and how do we get there a lot of intelligent thought and energy must go into it more to come I've been giving a lot of thought to that uh with shedler start thinking of shedler 2.0 and you should approach the project and its component pieces in parallel and not in series most people are more comfortable in series they they can only do one thing at a time you really have to work in parallel if you will the priority will be a Turf playing field that R would need so badly in parallel with that you can tackle the burm the contamination issue uh and the house one last thought this Administration has set the bar for transparency and inviting ideas from the public I really uh appreciate that the other side of the coin is that you need to aggressively fat check comments by the public so when someone comes up with a crazy statement I think one of you should just correct him or her uh good luck over the next two years you have my full support thank you thank you Rices good evening H Layman 234 Union Street uh congratulations to the council members who ran for reelection and to Mr Mor Mortimer uh you are to be commended for the service you have rendered to our community during this very difficult election cycle I wanted to show my dedication to our Democratic Values I had a lawn sign made up that simply says vote and as important V on the back of the sign I wrote something that I found a few weeks ago I can't take credit for it but I thought it was important for me to read it to this Council Hans would you speak a little more directly into the microphone oh I'm sorry just want to hear you clearly can we is that better yes okay agree to disagree is reserved for things like I don't like coffee not racism homophobia sexism not basic common decency Not Human Rights not the right to be treated equally regardless of race religion color creed or sexual orientation we do not have a different opinion we have a difference in Morality thank you for listening thank you Hans Cynthia o'keef Ridgewood resident um I to like to congratulate you for um winning the uh the vote and getting reelected and to Frank I congratulate you um also on getting elected um I do agree with roor point that we need to fact check not only what residents say but also what all of us say every single person in this room just because you might be on one end of the room and we're on the other end of the room it doesn't mean that we're all experts um and that we don't make missteps and miscommunicate things so often times there are people that have you know fact check things that you know you've all said and you know me included I'm not perfect I never said I was um but what I do take issue with is misinformation that is given to the public as fact and you know Frank and I can talk about it um at a later date and I will keep bringing this up but when there was the League of Women Voters debate um and we were the topic was Turf um the answer was the EPA said it's safe and in no way did the EPA in that report and I read both volumes one and volume two cover to cover many glamors and I think Paul I wrote to you and to Pam I know you were busy with your campaign I didn't get an answer but I think it's irresponsible for anyone to tell the public that something is safe when we don't know 100% And we have doctors and other people that have done peer-reviewed studies so I believe we have to be a little bit more cautious than telling people right out of the gate something safe to me that's a dangerous road to go down um speaking about shedler uh we did talk many times about a traffic study um and unfortunately there was a car that hit a house I'm sure you all read it in the paper and heard about it um and the police were there and the fire chief was there and you know I you know it's it's scary because someone could have been killed there are people that walk in that neighborhood it was directly across the street from the shedler property where there will be a driveway and people will be coming in and out of that driveway and the car literally hid someone's house those people happened to be on vacation otherwise they would be dialing in this is a very serious issue someone would have been killed if they were on that front lawn someone would have died I don't know what more it would take um or how many times we have to stand up here and plead for safety to be number one priority thank you thank you Cynthia anyone else seeing no one go to our hybrid access Susan you're up hello can you hear me we can all right great um Susan Ruan I'm a redwood resident um I want to begin by congratulating um the mayor and the deputy mayor Susan Susan Susan we we can hear you but we can't quite understand you if you could speak more clearly into your phone um maybe we can get better um better Clarity hold on one second let me take it off Bluetooth oh here can you hear me better I'm sorry say again can you hear me better yes that's much better thank you okay um Susan ran richro resident I would like to begin by thanking um or congratulating the mayor Deputy Mayor and Frank mimer for the election um um and you know for volunteering to serve on um The Village Council as well as Miss hu quag for all her services on the board of education no one went to volunteer this year so all of them won by default on the board of education um I I have um I know I saw everyone at the foot bridge this morning I'd have loved to stop and chat but I had to run to physical therapy so I had a few questions um and I know Keith says he's going to speak about it um I just want to make sure that the ADA compliance sidewalks or Rams will be done on the um while the foot bridge is away and that you know so when it comes back hopefully the foot bridge will be more operational then um also I see there's white markers on um our sidewalks and I'm just just curious why um and stuff if the sidewalks are going to be expanded on our property to to for that I don't know um also I had spoken with um Miss Broan Miss Shaya Brogan and Dr Schwarz the superintendent about the Footbridge at a different event and they had suggested I think Dr Schwarz said he was going to reach out to you I'm not s if he did not about having Rood high school students come observe the foot Bridge being removed um they thought that might be very educational for them I didn't know if they had reached out to you for that or not um I want to Pigg you back a little bit on CY Cynthia's remarks on Susan Susan we're having a lot of trouble understanding you I'm not quite sure what the issue my husband's phone hold on can you hear me now better we can we can now but we we lost a bit of that oh all right okay I was talking about the um foot brid the white marks on the sidewalk um just to understand why they're there to to see if the Richard High School engineering student might come wanting to observe the footbitch being removed for repair and then I would like just Peggy back off Cynthia's comments um about um her hun in West Saddle River Road that particular intersections also um that's a bus stop for the kids on trun so I um also spoke at the Board of Education meeting regarding that intersection and um and also emailed Dr Schwarz and maybe hopefully maybe a bus stop sign can be put added to that um off the highway to indicate the drivers coming off the highway there's a bus stop in two blocks um because literally here two blocks from the high Susan if you could finish up um we're beyond the time okay and also um also for shedler I want to know exactly what is the process for the contamination because um I I was at a recent meeting and I thought there was a two-year wait list or waiting period after mediation of contamination and will shedler also have that two-year weight period because that to me is something that I don't think you put lay down turf or remove or burn and not do anything then for two years I don't think you can lay down the turn Susan um that's it thank you and and if and if I may say um uh we we did not catch a lot of your comments so um may I may I suggest that if you'd like to send a letter to the manager so that we can we can better understand your questions um uh that would be better because we we don't want to ignore your comments but it was difficult to understand everything okay thank you uh next up naha hello everyone can you hear me yes we can right I would also like to start off by congratulating the newly elected officials um I just need you to identify by yourself please I'm Niam marati I'm a Richwood resident thank you um so what I'm going to say today is not new or unknown but I just would like to reiterate some points um about shedler um with a hope that common people of the Sher neighborhood still have um about the large artificial tour field um so again I I've never spoken really at these meetings so that's why just wanted to speak out and I'm not against Sports I truly believe that kids should be able to go out and play but um not at a cost of destroying an ecosystem consisting of healthy mature trees and putting a plastic rug in place of that and um this plan will have significant adverse impacts including changes to the groundwater slotting concerns air and noise pollution and Wildlife impacts and I know the V Village of Richwood is advertising planning more trees to enhance biodiversity carbon sequestration improve water quality reduce flooding all of that reducing soil erosion improving health so it's it's just a surprise that the set shedler plan is like a total contrast of these scientific um Common Sense principles um again I know you know all the vot and everything but it's just just wanted to reiterate this um and there is more over this definitely traffic concern real real concern on West Saddle River Road Vehicles already do not follow the speed limits and the recent incident was terrifying many children play on the streets and have school bus stops there and this increase in traffic activity with the large field will definitely exacerbate the problem and lastly um the soil contamination is very concerning and we definitely would like to have more transparency more communication of the processes with the New York uh D and Department of Health as well and frequent updates on this issue and their mediation plan so um and I just would like to you know ask that you know everyone just in this broader Community if we would just take five minutes to pause and reflect and really think about you know if shedler was in your neighborhood um what you really you know go about doing and um what what is going to happen to this EOS system so it's just really touching uh for me so thank you thank you Nan anyone else seeing no one I'm going to close public comment and we will go to our manager's report thank you mayor um before I get into the manager's report I just want to address a few items from public session um first of all to Susan U with regard to the testing at shedler uh there was a conference call this afternoon between Matrix and the New Jersey D um there in the process of finalizing their final delineation testing plan that scope of work needs to be approved by Tom Farrell uh who is the in charge of the Bureau of solid waste at the njde um I was not part of that call today but I anticipate being updated on what the outcomes were of the conference call this afternoon in addition to finding out exactly when they'll be in the field I anticipate that the physical testing will happen in the month of no November that has always been the plan uh but they have been going back and forth with the D um on what the scope of work is going to look like um on the transparency issue with shedler I just want to stress that last week uh we posted to the Village website the public Outreach plan which has been approved by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that is now posted uh there will be letters that go out to all the residents around the shedler property from Matrix our soil testing firm within 200 ft of the property which is a typical uh range that we notify residents of we do that for land use uh hearings and that type of thing Grant applications and we'll be doing that with regard to this public Outreach plan as well um I can tell you that we have a draft of all of the questions over a hundred questions were submitted uh to the village and to Matrix with regard to the shedler property from approximately 10 residents uh we are in the process of sifting through those answers they are extensive um and we have some that we still going back and forth uh with Matrix on but I anticipate that sometime next week uh we'll be able to release that on the website and all those questions will be publicly available uh for residents to look at and review with regard to the manager's report um just a few items uh we did receive correspondents from Beck Beth mcmanis who is our um planner on our affordable housing obligations as you may have read in the newspaper the fourth round which covers 2025 to 2035 uh currently the number that has been assigned for new units in the village of Ridgewood is 427 um we've been back and forth in discussions with Beth and we are going to be meeting um with the ordinance working group relative to the affordable housing obligation uh the council will consider and adopt a resolution honor before January 31st 2025 that identifies the affordable housing obligation and the municipality must adopt a housing plan by June 30th of next year so we are going to work in that space uh we're going to have initial conversations with Beth about this assigned number um but this will be a topic as we enter into 2025 um on the grant front uh very pleased uh that we received the October report um we have been allocated since the beginning of this year um almost $225,000 uh in grant money uh that ranges from fire department grants uh to Police Department Grants open space uh Board of Public Utilities uh for planning for sustainability and local recreation grants um what is more impressive I think though is that we now top over $4 million in pending Grant applications that we have not had responses to um we expect responses to those four grants uh later this fall or sometime um in early 2025 so I want to thank uh Millennium strategies and Carol in my office and all our department directors uh who are working diligently each and every day to make sure that we stay current and take advantage of as many Grant applications as we possibly can uh with regard to Communications as I mentioned at the last meeting uh this mailer went out to every residential household here in the Village had QR codes on both sides I asked Carol to print out for me um an update we had 171 new folks since the day this mailing hit mailboxes in the village sign up for the weekly eblast we've had over 300 people download the my Ridgewood app we've had 20 new people uh enter into the reverse 911 system um which I think that number is is reasonable based on the fact that we migrated all that data into the reverse first 911 system last month and we had 14 people sign up for the library's Weekly Newsletter um so I think it's penetrating I think we're getting the word out there that we have all these means and all of these tools to be able to communicate with the public um and I want to thank Carol in my office for putting this together I want to thank all the residents who have responded positively as Susan indicated during the public hearing this morning we had a pre-construction meeting at Kingsbridge Lane we had our engineering team out there along with the contractor uh with in the next 30 days um assuming that the utility companies are Cooperative because we do have to move some wires around in order to get the crane in there but within the next 30 days we anticipate physically removing the bridge from its current location it'll be relocated uh to the shop uh at the construction yard uh for our vendor they will probably take somewhere between 90 to 120 days to repair and refurbish the bridge and then it will be returned to Kings Bridge Lane and reinstalled uh there has been some conversation and some questions about the concrete work uh concrete work will be done on either side of the bridge both both on Kingsbridge Lane and also on East Saddle River um it will not fully be ADA Compliant which I think we all knew going into this because that was one of the reasons we couldn't use uh state or federal funds to rep to repair the bridge because we were unable to make it fully ADA Compliant uh but they are going to work out uh the concrete to provide as much access as they possibly can um so we're looking forward to that project getting underway and as I said the next 30 days uh the bridge isn't going to be there but we will have um concrete barriers uh to prevent anyone from uh heading in that area until the bridge is returned and replaced um and lastly tree planting is ongoing here in the village it started with adop the sapling day a few weeks back uh we are heavy into residential planting I know we've planted a number of new trees in the shedler neighborhood um and in other locations throughout the village and just this week I think yesterday morning we started all the plant things or finishing to plant things down in the central business district uh so looking forward to uh to those trees taking hold uh just a few announcements uh Leaf season started mid October uh we're asking people to pay close attention to the schedules that were mailed out uh earlier this fall uh please remember that the date ranges on those schedules are not the days that the leaves will actually be picked up but rather the windows in which we're asking people to place leaves curbside uh Village Hall and all Village offices will be closed this coming Monday in observance of Veterans Day there will be no garbage or recycling pickup on that day Monday November 11th on Veterans Day at 11:00 a.m. the American Legion Post 53 will host a Veterans Day service at vaness Square all are invited to attend to honor those who have served in the armed forces to protect our freedoms and finally Village Council meetings upcoming uh November 13th will be our public meeting that'll be the only other meeting in November and then December 4th will be a work session and December 11th will be a public meeting all of the meetings start at 7:30 p.m and that concludes my report mayor thank you Keith uh we're going to go to council reports sioban want to kick it off sure um so I don't want to be redundant but I do want to say thank you to all of the candidates and everybody who participated in the elections but an extra big thank you to the clerk's office um I know that many people uh got up at regular time but Heather and the office was there it's the sole responsibility of their office and they did a great job and I'm very thankful to them for early reporting and thank you to everyone in your staff and um I don't want to miss anybody but I do want to say um Eko you know we are going to miss you it's going to be the countdown um and we we want to hear future plans to look so happy and we hope one time you call us on Wednesday night from some place schol so so um but thank you to everybody and I could belabor it but everybody sort of said everything already so congratulations and thank you to everyone um with respect to trees I have several uh good updates and some interesting information for all of us so um as Keith mentioned adopted sapling um has happened and it has not rained one bit a huge part of adopted sapling is having the homeowner understand that the care of the sapling is their responsibility um we are asking and frequently asking every everybody who adopted a sapling to water it water it frequently talk to it believe it that makes a difference let it know that it's being watered um if your neighbors on vacation and you see a sapling feel free to water it as well um we're very you know the number one cause of death to a young sapling like that in Ridgewood New Jersey is lack of water so again to the homeowners who adopted thank you to people who are walking please help us um and we're thrilled to announce that we have picked our next location which is going to be the Willard area um so adop a sapling 2025 based upon the gis and Dean's recommendation will be Willard um and we're equally as thrilled to say that we've picked up some members from the GW Middle School Green Team and we have a Mitzvah project dedicated to adopt a sapling 2025 so that is very cool news um with respect to trees this is just some interesting information for the council and the community to understand so um last year I'm going to use ish we had about 200 Street trees and the CBD go in and on regular like request a tree and get a tree we have no problem right cuz the tree was requested and people got it and they were excited about it we have a limitation on that on one we had several requesters want like more than one and we said nope it's just one and then we had about a 100ish that were placed based upon the survey and um Shay Tre very proactively communicated to those homeowners sent a letter and we had um several scenarios one we wanted to make sure they understood the the the tree was coming we had people opt out and we had some dis disproportionate rates of refusal on the areas that we highlighted um Hopper almost half the trees were not wanted um so that you know we had to shift to a different area within shedler there were 65 and 12 were refused and then we had an unfortunate situation that were're kind of remedying and thinking about where three were in the ground and several homeowners want them removed um you know I I want to give shade tree um a big shout out because the letters were proactively sent and we want the community to understand you know the trees are coming because it's it's an asset and it's a lot of money and a planted tree is a burdened tree now because it's got the cost of the plant that we subcontracted and the council needs to know this information the community needs to know because we could um we're going to talk about this a lot next week but maybe instead of doing you know our dedication we try to enhance the request to plant because the request to plant is like a dream right it's like I want my tree I get my tree and maybe we could amplify that but um you know certain certain streets and targeted areas we at 50% rejection rate and that then affects the canopy as well so we're going to be talking about this in shade tree I want the community to know and by the way it kudos to the people who didn't want the tree because if you don't want it and you're not going to care for it or help us and we'd rather not place it but those are some significant numbers um that I I guess can you circulate them through the council sure I can I can circulate this do and um and I just wanted everyone to be aware of it because um you know we have not made on the three that have been actually planted and they don't want we don't know what to do because they're in the ground and we've paid for the planting so everyone should be aware of it it's more information um and again thank you to the shade tree who actually took the steps to engage the the recipients before because we we got some feedback and avoided that but some of the rates of rejections are significantly higher than what we thought they would be can can I just interject on process here yeah so of the um of the three that have been requested to be removed we're going to finish out all of our planting requests including what's going into the CBD and then Parks and Recreation is going to go out and assess where those three could potentially be reloc relocated to and in addition to the balance of refusals the the roughly half at Hopper and the half in the shedler neighborhood where we can plant those trees so we're in the process of reviewing that now um if there are requests that came in lat we're going to give those some consideration uh there's also some requests to add trees in the Parks we had some that we had to remove at Graden last year we're actually removing 12 trees at Haw which are um all diagnosed as needing to be removed by the arborist um and we're doing that before the Haw project Begins the field restoration project so we are looking at this in totality as to where the balance of these trees are going to be planted before the end of this month and a real reason just to continue it's a it's a lot of talk so sorry to dominate the time but one of the problems is that we can't shift from Street tea tree to Street tree because of the markouts and the process that goes with it and yet we actually own the tree so everybody will get this information it's an opportunity for us to think you know I I love the idea of expanding like the request because then we know they're wanted and that would be a great idea so stay tuned and big thank you to um Adam and Nancy because this was a lot for them and of course Dina cat and Nancy who really this is like a lot for them this is planting season so we're very grateful to them so that's that for trees and clerks and I want to say tonight thank you big thank you to access tonight was a sensory friendly dinner at the Pancake House and it was well attended and lovely um and thank you to Jamie Davis who always makes it happen um I love the teenage table they were asking about all of us uh thank you to Mayor Paul who attended and was a cult favorite with his business cards um I just want to say that if if you haven't been to one of these everybody should go to one everybody it's a really unique thing I want to thank this Council for always being so supportive and uh of course to Jamie Davis because it's just a really unique one we're going to have the holiday private access tree lighting which is coming up no whistles no yelling Paul we're in the countdown and we hope the community joins us at that at that as well so thank you to Sunny for hosting and that's it thanks sioban Evan yeah I'll be so more quick uh none of my committees have met or I able to attend it any my committee meetings in the last two weeks there was one meeting I did miss um but I do want to Echo a lot of the comments from tonight I do want to um say um a special thank you to all the poll workers as well as the clerk's office um for any of you that voted in person there was a tremendous turnout it was um long but it was seamless um we really owe a debt of gratitude to I think the unsung heroes of democracy which are our pow workers and the folks that uh make sure that everything gets done the way it needs to get done in the clerk's office so thank you Heather thank you to your staff and to the extent that any the pow workers are still around please extend my my thanks as well um Frank I see you're still here I'm surprised you should enjoy your Wednesday nights off for the next six weeks because you're not going to have them after that um but congratulations Frank on a really well-run campaign I'm looking forward to working with you um I too want to um congratulate hungu quock um as I've said before democracy does not work if people do not show up to run for office um anybody who's willing to put themselves out there to run for office deserves all of our respect and hungu certainly has mine and I hope um as the respect of the rest of the village as well um Lorraine I'm Gonna Save Comet because I know we're obviously going to talk a lot about you the reorganization meeting in a couple of weeks um but uh of course only a couple of weeks only a couple of weeks me out early two there's not that many more either way I'm I I I do not want you to think that I'm forgetting you but I want to uh you know I don't want to repeat myself when uh we do formally say goodbye to you in January uh but I'm so glad you're here thank you so there it is um and of course uh three members of the school board who also got on again um that is also a very difficult difficult job and my thanks as both a resident a parent and another council member uh to um to the folks on the school board as well who are either elected or returning uh for this uh this next session thanks Evan Lorraine thanks um project pride is going to meet this coming Sunday at 8:30 at vaness Square we are going to be removing the mums and the cabbage and the grasses it's unfortunate we only planted them four or five weeks ago the weather has been beautiful the summerflowers would still be alive today if we hadn't taken them out um although they would uh need a lot of water anyway we're removing them on Sunday if anyone wants some mums mums are perennials if you don't know you could bring them home plant them in your yard they would come back next year the grasses that are perennials I am giving to the parks department Nancy bagos has an area where she wants to put them but the mums are up for grabs if anybody wants and the cabbages will look good for another month if you want to put them at your house um so let me know if you have any interest it should be it's going to be very quick because nothing is going to be root Bound in the last four or five weeks we should be there an hour two hours tops if you're interested in helping email me at L rennolds rdwood nj.net um what else I wanted to congratulate Paul and Pam in in her absence for the reelection and Frank thank you for running and good luck I wish you well in the next four years and to huk quac thank you for running it is not easy I appreciate and respect anyone who's willing to put themselves out there and I'm a little I'm sad and disappointed this year that between the Board of Ed and the council there's six seats open and there were only seven people running so it's conversation for another time but I really hope that we can somehow engage the community and get more people to run but like I said let's let's talk about that another time but for now congratulations to everybody that ran and won and I wish you lots of luck that's it thank you Lorraine um I want to take a moment I I I have no reports but I did want to take a moment to thank Siobhan for her tireless efforts in planting more trees and more programs to plant trees um you are always out there doing a great job on this and uh Lorraine um I am also going to save my I I have some really nice things to say and and and I'm and and I'm I'm waiting till till our reorganization meeting so um you're going to have to you know hold your breath on this but I I also want to say to you listen project pride and and I and I'm not kidding I mean this is yours and and I'm passing it along um I don't know if you read the fine print once you take on Project Pride it is yours forever for life no we would listen a as you hear me say all the time many hands make light work this is something I know you love I drive by your house all the time your house is a garden landscape it's beautiful and so I hope that if you do not want to run it that you'll at least participate in it because we can use not a chance I'll say I'll save my comments all right good good and and with that let's go to our regular agenda Keith mayor with your in the council's permission I'd least like to deviate off the agenda slightly uh we have chief judge here um he has a child care issue tonight so if uh he and Bob bruny would come forward I'd call the council's attention to item 8 C2 so this is under budget number two on the agenda which is a request for a 2024 emergency budget appropriation so just to give a little background before Bob and John Share their thoughts um this year the fire dep department has faced some significant staffing issues relative to workers compensation uh absences personal injury absences and two military deployments um it has caused us uh to take on overtime um we were aware of the one deployment prior to uh adopting the budget we were not aware of the second deployment uh which takes somebody out of the uh the shift rotation completely um so while we will recuperate some of these funds uh through reimbursement from workers comp and also uh from the federal government due to the military deployment um we um we at this point are going to need to seek an emergency appropriation uh to cover the overtime budget uh for this year so with that I'll turn it over to uh chief judge to give you a little more color on that thank you manager good evening mayor and Council uh as mentioned during the planet but planet budget planning for this year uh we forecasted the one-year deployment we knew about and one retiree however even making the appropriate hes for those two positions it took until the end of September for those two new hires to even count so we had we started the year off with nine and a half months of having to cover overtime here and there uh secondly with this profession the only substitutes maintain our minimum Staffing are overtime personnel and we did as much as we could on the management side with transferring Personnel but there were times we were down over five people at a time which just made it there's nowhere to transfer it from right so pretty much the three main categories in addition to the retiree we already had the first was the military deployment we had one member out for the entire year who's still currently deployed and secondly we have a second member who's been deployed and has gone to the end of the year as well uh in total that second member was gone for about onethird of the year in total for a number of days uh secondly for workers compensation we had three personnel contributing to over one years worth of shifts that were out so we were down a whole person more than a person for those three personnel that were injured um and lastly we had four significant personal injuries this year um obviously unexpected those range from people being out from one month to over four months uh overall I went back through the months and looked in the months of February March June August we were down five people we just couldn't absorb that on the job or or off the job uh the workers comp were three were on the job injuries okay and the four significant personal injuries were off the job gotcha uh and currently we are still down four members through the end of the year I'll pass it over to Bob for the finances thank you so although we recoup some of the funds on workers comp issues through Insurance on Military repayment we get partial payment for uh time served we won't see that money until next year uh and even when we do see it is not significant I think we're estimated right now through this year roughly $32,000 uh so again it's not a lot of money that we get back uh so we have a short full right now of approximately $130,000 projected before we hit the next payrolls and with the next payrolls we're coming up about another 120,000 so that brings me to the $250,000 these this money will be needed to pay the salaries this year to be in accordance with the state law and the $250,000 will be raised in next year's budget as required by law questions so we're shy at quarter of a million dollars we expect to get about 30,000 back next year uh right now at least 30 I'm going to say best guess would be close to 50 60 okay but it varies by Officer it varies by where they're located so there is no fixed amount there we we get back it's very hard to predict predict what you're going toce back from military deployment time I was just trying to get a feeling for how much it is and so next year we're going to have to increase our budget by by a quarter of a million dollars presumably if we have if everybody's healthy and we don't have more deployments we should see a savings next year which I then what I think we have to wait two years before we get that $250,000 back that we can use for General budget am I remembering that correctly yes the one thing you have to remember though um he's uh fire is going to be short Personnel to start the year off they only have they're looking for several firefighters to fill the ranks um it depends on the timing as to when they come out of the academy so we're going to have to budget for those costs as well going into next year and remind me What's the total budget for the fire department annually ballpark salary and wages are roughly $6.5 million okay so we're off a quarter of a million dollar I don't know what the math is on that but it's not all right with any of the injuries preventable was anything that could have been done clearly people are getting shipped off you know to go fight and you know be in the military we're going to support that no doubt um this is still feels like a lot I get it stuff happens um but could something have differently been done here are there lessons to be learned in terms of ways to avoid this big a budget shortfall unfortunately with the personal injuries I don't want to get into the specifics of them but there were some significant events that just happened you I've never had we've had it where we had one person out we've never had this kind of injury pool if you will so what I can say is we we sat together I guess late last week um first of all we couldn't recommend a transfer until after November 1st statutorily which is why it's on tonight's agenda but uh we went through each case and each person that has been out because the conversation that the chief and I have had all year is you know none of this other than than the one deployment which was planned for by replacement albeit that person needed to be trained um none of this was known at the time that we adopted the budget um that we would have this series of injuries both on the job and off the job um what I can tell you is that we have another retirement which is slated for December 1st which was um somewhat of a surprise it wasn't wasn't pre-planned um and we are going to have someone in the academy for January to backfill that position and and I think there was a tendency here for whatever reason that sometimes there was a delay between retirements and new hires and I'm trying to eliminate that so it's seamless so when we have somebody who's going to retire we're already planning to hire that person's replacement even if the academy and some in-house training needs to take place once we know that person is actually going to hit the the retirement button and Bob I know that we always put a certain amount of money aside as reserves for the these type of unplanned expenses um have we tapped into any of that this year and do we have any issue we think with maintaining those reserves so we do put aside terminal uh terminal pay uh reserves some of that will mitigate the retirement um the by the end of the year but it's still not going to get me to cover what I need to cover right now but my my question is though we don't have any issue endangering the amount of reserves that we have in other words if there's another issue there's still money left over am I correct correct okay anybody else yeah I just so you had the two now how many more do you think you're going to be asking for for next year and then how does the Academy have a cycle or is it like you know it must have like is like a College semester where you enroll as so unfortunately this year with the academy the reason we started them in March in the academy was we couldn't get one in January February okay we end up going to County find them toake okay uh as of now the only thing I know about is the retiree and the one uh workers comp injury I still don't think we'll be back for January 1 okay how long is the academy six months so From perspective by the time they do fire one Fire 2 EMT they started March fifish and we got them end of September ready to go so six months and the the class in the class in Bergen is the January date uh yes and you still have deployments on the list too right isn't that we have one yes the one who's out and the other one who's currently out and they are both still active so I there's no foreseen deployment for next year but John John had one in the middle of October on a Friday the individual got notice that they had a report to Texas on Monday that's how quick this this happens and you just can't plan for it I'm gonna I'm going to say it I one of one of my son's friends was on the list and he was further back and he's now a fireman and that was exciting but he saw the list because of the deployments it's interesting and just the process can move so quickly when it works but it can be so long as well anybody else okay everybody good with this thank you Chief thank you um and if you'll indulge me we'll move Mr Rooney along and I'll quickly call your attention to E2 which is the best practices inventory you can go me for E5 I'm sorry do you need me for E5 the thermal imaging camera donation no accept Okay the grant so we're going to move to best practices which is thank you John under operations item number two um so Bob you just want to give a little background on the state's best practices inventory and our responses that have been submitted every October the state mails out best practices to all municipalities and counties and it is used to for a couple of reasons one is to determine the amount of state aid that you will be receiving from the state so there's a grid that requires that you get so many yes answers in order to get 100% of state aid so out of 35 which is the the nut for the 100 we have 41 also in the survey are what they called unscored items so every year they they pick out topics that are new to the survey but they're sort of putting feelers out to determine how municipalities and counties coordinate their efforts in certain areas this year they started with affordable housing and I think they had um three or four pages of questions related to affordable housing no yes or no you know the answers weren't critiqued but they were asking you what type of plans you had in place how you approach it and so when that happens when we have these different areas that are unusual we I send it out to all the department directors ask for their input this year we also said sat as staff meeting to discuss the answers so everybody has some input as to what we do and we some engineering may have had input into it we reached out to Beth mcmanis who was very helpful in getting us answers to what we needed uh so every year we do have some of these topics that that run through that we will probably see next year and we'll need to have yes answers in place for them but as far as that goes we're getting 100% of state aid we filed it on time so open any questions and there's probably a half a dozen questions that we're we're working on um for example one that comes to mind is the multifactor authentication under cyber security um on page uh question number 17 um Dylan is working through that process right now with the joint Insurance Fund uh to to get that um so that we do have that additional um cyber safety precaution in place but that's just one example of items that we're moving towards that if these questions are asked again next year we'll be able to answer yes questions other questions um pamaran had several questions about this and she sent them to me and so I'm going to go down the list and she says may mayor just so you know Bob responded to her with those questions but if if you want them on the record that's that's fine to if you responded to her then we are good he he responded and she was satisfied so yes then then no need all right good thank you good thank you Bob thank you sir did you also want to do the transfers uh uh yeah if you want to do that too um again I apologize for jumping around but is it Bob's got a long drive home so we'll go to budget one C1 which is the uh the budget transfers first round totaling $89,500 uh you can see which line item uh the money is being taken from um and added to there's any questions on that Bob can answer it before he excuses himself anybody all good right thank thank you Bob thank you have good night you got it I appreciate the council's Indulgence on that okay moving back to Ridgewood water um the absence of Mr calby tonight uh we have a request uh to retain the services of Hunter research for the stage three archaeological data recovery uh study at Cedar Hill treatment facility uh this is a Prof Professional Services contract uh back in March Ridgewood water awarded a contract uh to Hunter for the complete uh to complete a stage one archaeological survey um in November Ridgewood water awarded a contract for the stage two survey um and that was completed and the results and the findings required a stage three so this scope of work is for a stage three archaeological survery survey uh summarized uh here to in uh this is for the As mentioned the Cedar Hill posos Treatment Facility in the township of woff um and he is recommending it in the amount of $158,200 a research of Trenton New Jersey questions this is required by the D so everybody good well good let's go all right next is the infrared ashall service repair um back in September Atlantic infrared was awarded a 4mon uh $100,000 service contract to provide infrared ashal services uh to um replace areas where Ridgewood water needed to improve the service lines um at this time they're looking for an additional $1,629 as a change order um they've already restored 144 locations throughout the service area uh they're pleased with the work um but they have some additional work to do and he's recommending that out of the water utility operating budget questions this is this is the way we want to repair the streets with with infrared rather than uh rather than patch all right uh next up is the memorandum of agreement for the Cedar Hill pasos treatment facility again in woff uh this is a draft mou uh between the US EPA and the New Jersey historic preservation office uh this relates to that archaeological project uh regarding the cultural resource actions that must be implemented for Ridgewood water to proceed with the construction at Cedar Hill um comments were due back to the NJ are due back to the njd by November 23rd uh the agreement with the recommendations that have been discussed with Ridgewood water the cultural resource consultant at Hunter resources um and the posos engineering firm of M McDonald who is our Consulting engineer on this project uh approval of this agreement is necessary to proceed with the construction of the peos facility and maintain compliance with the njd consent order uh contract to Hunter to perform this work is outlined in the Moa and rich is recommending that we adopt a resolution next week regarding same well good okay okay let's move on to budget and we're down to item three this is Award of contract for the removal of the underground fuel storage tanks at the North Walnut Street parking lot uh we received bids on October 16th there were nine bid holders six replied the bids ranged from $16,493 46 632 um there was a flaw in one of the bid packages so ultimately after review by engineering illegal uh the lowest bid with the correct forms is TR Winger of Piscataway New Jersey with a quote of 197 800 copy of their uh proposal is attached and this will be funded through the North Walnut Street Redevelopment District funding everybody good great yeah I just have a question so that that'll be awarded officially next week and then when will the work begin we we'll once we sign the contracts we'll issue a notice to proceed and have a a preconstruction meeting um I anticipate that if it's a mild winter he would like to get in there after the holidays okay all right next up is a recommendation from our director of Health uh with regard to Valley Community Health they've submitted their 2025 Community program service bid they provide nursing Services uh for communicable disease investigations child health clinics adult health clinics School Audits and flu clinics cost to the village is 12,6 $99 uh which is zero increase uh for the hourly nursing services and there has not been an increase in the last four years uh hourly charge for public health nurses is $51 and Valley bills for hours which in the previous years has averaged under $10,000 perom any objection all good okay uh next item I um spoke about tonight uh now that we have the um approved plan for the community outreach uh public Outreach plan for the shedler property uh this is a proposal from Matrix to execute that plan uh this will provide a the administrative requirements for the remediation um at that location and the NJ dp's public notification and Outreach guidance document uh as I mentioned there will be letters that go out with regard to this uh but the public Outreach aspect of this contract is $3,960 questions that'll come from the bond for the for this open so uh Matrix does the communication and then it comes to us do yeah so so like for example the first round of questions right because some of this is underway which we're obligated to do whether we're under contract or not uh they will Pro they answer the questions that they could answer we'll answer the questions mostly historic questions that we historical questions that we can answer um but they will have to continue this process as we get into the final testing what the remediation plan looks like there's going to be some public Outreach that's going to be required with regard to that um and then they will need to maintain that public Outreach during the process of any soil being removed from the site okay so this is through remediation this communication okay and with the they're going to consolidate questions or on on the public Outreach plan doesn't cover remediation it covers covers the public um are they taking questions literal question to question or will there be consolidation of like question one to like question we developed an in house time period for people to submit questions there is a rolling process but we took the first set and as I said earlier there were over 100 questions that were submitted um Matrix sent me on Friday uh their draft uh we have some minor holes that we have to fill in uh locally and I'm hopeful that we'll have that out to the public next week okay okay let's go okay um next item is an interlocal agreement uh for fuel uh this is formalizing the agreement that we had previously discussed uh between the village of Ridgewood and the burough of Hocus uh to use their fuel station um at their Public Works Yard during the course of the project that's happening on Chestnut Street with the replacement of the fuel tanks at our youal garage good oh good okay uh the next is a resolution uh from our tax collector uh to partially cancel taxes for a property on Prospect Street um it is owned by a nonprofit organization and seeking an 84% property tax exemption uh which they qualify for by law good okay uh next item is a proposal of amended building department fee schedule uh from our construction official Anthony Marino uh this is to amend uh the fee schedule moving into 2025 uh we at at my direction uh he was asked to compare uh local quote enforcement other quot enforcement agencies uh that were comparable to Ridgewood um and he use Summit Westwood and Montville um as comparative municipalities the spreadsheet in there um outlines what the current rates are um if there's any notes relative to those rates and then you have Westfield Summit Montville all delineated there and then to the far right on the spreadsheet is the proposed changes uh that Tony is recommending do you know when the last increase was to these I do not I would deal to Heather she may recollect that um it was when Tom yaka was here it was probably about 2015 or 16 okay so it's time and again we're we're not looking the the directive to Tony was we're not looking to you know jack up prices here we're looking to remain competitive with comparable municipalities yeah no if if it's been you know since 15 16 it's time okay all right um the next is um D1 which is the draft ordinance for the driveway and fence ordinance amendments this came from the recommendations through the annual report from the Zoning Board of adjustment um in this as far as driveways go the proposed amendment uh will permit multiple curb cuts um circular driveways for properties within at least 100 feet of lot Frontage and established front yard setbacks that meet the ordinance requirements and on the fence side the proposed amendment will prohibit fences in front yards with an exception for Corner Lots or a fence may be necessary for privacy and safety in a site or rear yard area that becomes a technical front yard on a corner lot where offence is permitted in this type of corner lot a 10-ft setback from the property line will be required the ordinance introduces diagrams to assist with the interpretation of the language and then the draft ordinances are attached so I don't know if you have any questions on that Matt may be able to F them as well he's he worked with John Barry on this project anybody all right we're good okay all right uh the next item is the revised storm water management ordinance um I am actually going to yield to Heather on this because she sort of facilitated uh the submission of this to the Bergen County Soil Division and subsequently the de so Heather okay so we revised the storm water management um ordinance and adopted the ordinance June 26 2024 it was sent to Bergen County Department of planning and Engineering on July 5th 2024 according to the njd regulations Bergen County Department of planning and Engineering had 60 days to review the ordinance and make comments or give their approval um on September 30th much more than 60 days the Bergen County Department of planning and Engineering um returned to us with their comments there were four minor edits required for them to be able to give their final approval those edits have been made we now have to re adopt the complete ordinance with all the revisions made so this is so that we can introduce it um next week and then adopt it in December and it'll be effective um come January it will also go to njde as well questions anyone did did Pam approve the edits yes she did okay just want uh with a red pen and I will just say that um uh Pam along bless along with members of her committee J beras David rkin refkin and myself spent many hours going over this and the the uh DP standards were a minimum standard that we believe many um municipalities simply adopted um ours were clearly more stringent but we think reasonable not nonetheless so um and talking to some colleagues I actually believe that once this is adopted we we may be the the uh the gold standard for stormm water ordinances and trying to create a balance between uh the need for proper storm management yet not burdening residents um there was a lot of talk about balance in the seven or eight meetings we had about this so B balance what balance was the key yeah and and I and I and I am optimistic that we achieved that very good and passive voice okay item three under operations is a report uh some from cividini Consulting uh this is a structural engineering group that we had come in and take a look at the bus station downtown um I want to thank uh Robert Schult and Bruno um from cividini who came out and did a full evaluation um after a few false starts with some professionals that we were we were trying to work through um to take a look at this and ultimately um in this document after inspection um Bruno is recommending the replacement of the main structure uh components need to be removed and replaced as soon as possible and based on his overall assessment of the structure is his recommendation that the existing structure be demolished in its entirety and replaced with some sort of new building whether that be a modu building or something that gets rebuilt um but there are serious concerns on this and just to give everyone a little perspective um this came up last spring okay maybe even before last spring even lastek winter um our goal was to try to pursue some funding through the New Jersey Department of Transportation uh which we actually had a commitment from the commissioner of do uh to help offset some of these costs um I think we were looking for 125,000 from the do support from the legislative team uh we were we were in we're on our way we tried to evaluate inhouse when Rich Charlton and uh Chris ruteshouser went out there to evaluate this building uh there were some significant red flags that went off about just trying to fix it um and that's what led us to open up a dialogue with both a a licensed architect and a structural engineer uh which has now brought back this recommendation so and Siobhan was kind enough to give me the heads up this was on and thank you Siobhan for drawing my attention to it um it's a little disappointing because I know it's a historic structure it's it's you know has a fair amount of History to it um but when I read the report especially those photos it's it's clearly a safety Hazard it it needs to come down and I don't say that lightly and I not say that happily um but I absolutely 100% agree should come down immediately because from some of those pictures that we have of some of the deterioration especially at the base I am concerned especially if we have bad snowfall this year even just won the weight on it um you know any and just I you know if if somebody got injured because we didn't Mo quickly enough that that's on us so I 100% agree with taking it down as unhappy as I'm about it I know sioban I don't know if you wanted to Bro some ideas about what to do when it comes down but I think at the very minimum we should move ahead with with um agreeing to that tonight so so if if I may if there if there is agreement with removing the structure um once Leaf season is over I'd like well I'll have the conversation now but we would schedule it for after Leaf season to possibly have the streets division remove the structure um if they're not able to do that then we'll get quotes similar to how we handled the barn up at habal um but I agree I think that first of all this it serves no current use um people aren't standing in it to to wait for the bus they're not shielded from the elements or anything of that nature also has you know based on current conditions it's an isore um but again I just wanted to make sure that we had Council support here to move forward with this because there is a sensitivity to this building there is a certain historical place for it downtown um and that's what we're seeking here tonight um Keith what would be the plan once we take it down uh I know we talked about that's going to be up to you too thanks so much um I know I know we're we're you know can we begin that discussion yes um sooner rather than than waiting because I know you know there's uh you know the idea has been floated to so I I have terminal to to the train station whatever I I don't think it's a it's a hard lift M to have um engineering come in to our December meeting our work session because these plans for what the options are downtown have been presented to Prior councils there's discussion about you know getting the traditional New Jersey Transit bus stops placing them there do you want something that we would do we want to come up with a design to actually rebuild something to replace what is there now um those are really your two options at the existing location and then there was a a major discussion some years ago and I'm sure Heather and Matt can shed some light on this too about moving the the bus bus stop the bus station over to the train station I don't know if that's something this Council would be inclined to consider but I think what we can do is in December have Chris come in and make that presentation that he made to Prior councel and show you what all the options are and then have a fruitful conversation about what the path forward is going to be that's exactly I'm sorry that's exactly what I was hoping for to have that conversation for all the options okay and again Siobhan was kind enough to give me a call on this I feel like I'm taking all your thunder sioban um but I agree completely I would love to explore the idea of moving the bus station into the train station area um first of all to have them next to each other to me makes a lot more sense in having them separated the way they are now um and again I will I'm going to give credit to chiffon for also reminding me that if we do move it to the train station we potentially get the buses off of rwood Av which I think would be tremendous move to Franklin where I think they'd be it's much safer there um I've been living in this town now 12 years and I think sometimes we're more lucky than than anything else that we haven't had an incident on RAD given how close the buses come to those parked cars um I would love to see an idea to maybe do something temporary at the train station and see how it works out and then explore putting something fulltime up but just to be clear I agree with taking down the the the current structure immediately having Chris come present us some ideas for where it could sit because I'm trying to visualize where in the train station we would put the bus stop running that for maybe a couple of months as a temporary um as a temporary fix and if we like it to then put something permanent there or some reason doesn't work out at that point we could always put something permanent in a place of where the station is now right and and there are pros and cons to both sides you know months ago Chris walked me through you know what the thought process was when this was last presented um you have the potential to lose a few parking spaces at the train station but you have a potential to pick some up at the existing bus station um the removal the potential removal for buses from Ridgewood Avenue seems to be something that's appealing to a lot of folks um but we can have Chris come in and and present all those options to you again there are Draft plans multiple Renditions of Draft plans uh to do just this and um you know I think right now the priority would be with your approval tonight to move forward with the removal of the structure that exists and then start to plan for for what the future of downtown is going to look like from a transportation standpoint and just one more thing there are two stakeholders that I want to make sure we speak to um we and have Chris report back to us I'd be interested first um if we talk to any of the business owners if they do see any foot traffic between the two and if we think there's an advantage now to separating them because we have people walking between the two and potentially shopping I don't know if that happens but I'd be interested in their views on it and the second historical preservation committee um I'll brief them on the plan to you can actually share this report with them if you like yeah I was just thinking the same because I think when they see the pictures in there they'll understand why we're moving so quickly on this um but I would like to start getting them involved with whatever we build wherever we build it I'd like the HPC to have a say in in the structure design I don't want whatever we put up I don't want a generic New Jersey Transit looking thing like we have do something special um so I definitely think the HPC would be perfect to kind of take the lead on some of those designs okay so well I'm sorry no so I mean I agree it's got to come down it looks it looks terrible um but I'm trying to think Heather do you know did this come before Council or did it go before the planning board last time I think it was planning to move it you mean to move the move it it came before the council it was the council yeah and maybe the twice maybe the planning Bo I mean I know I was I was there when it came to us and I can't remember whether it was when I was on the planning Council okay I I know there was a lot of wasn't there a lot of opposition from the residents in the area well I think also the businesses because the the um probably the parking that's going to be taken is for the businesses but perhaps it could be reconfigured in a way that that wouldn't affect the businesses M so okay good I just want to say um three things well one I want to make sure that we don't blur all the issues um and I want to say thank you to everybody who went through this process Keith Matt multiple Architects M multiple structure Engineers our friends at the state who were helping you know really everybody really wanted to see what we can do and the structural engineering report was super upsetting you know so it's got to come down um it's it's generally unsafe and you know I happened to be at the meeting and I was kind of having a panic because the roof is slate so there's extra weight on it so I think that's one decision that we're all in agreement with the secondary decision you know I I called Evan and I did speak with Lyn Brady we can talk about that afterwards because I wanted to make sure she was lovely during this process as well um there's a lot of emotion tied to the building but you know I think we need to have it come down and then think about our next step very thoughtfully for all those reasons and lastly um we a bunch of us have been reporting the lights that are out and right now the area if people go by it's even darker than expected so don't go at night because there's three lamp posts out and police and engineering and Keith have been chasing that down but they're the old school lamp post so they're taking 12 weeks to order so if you look at the median mile so the area is in need of a lot of love and attention and I think the first step and and in community engagement will be to take it down and then see where the discussion yels but I just don't want to sometimes when we have this discussion it all gets bundled all up and together and regardless of whether it stays or moves or we think about it and decide to stand still the actual structure sadly has to come down and and I can't overstate the efforts that have been made here to try to figure out how to preserve this existing building I mean we you know we had Buy in from the dot we had Buy in from our legislators we were I don't want to say we were looking for an architect to tell us it was okay but you know that was always the Hope was that they were going to come up with a solution but after talking to to three different Architects two of which you know volunteered to to just take a look at it and share their professional opinion you know this is this is this is the end result unfortunately it's a shame but I think we know where we're going so we'll put it on for December and move on very good thank you okay and um lastly um we have a recommendation for Surplus property uh list from Parks and Recreation Department well good all right I take that back it's not last last one is the donation resolution uh for the award from the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation we reported out on this grant at the last meeting uh this is for the thermal image and cameras uh permit firefighters to quickly detect heat signatures um read a resolution on that questions okay well good that's all I have mayor this concludes my section of the agenda let's go back to public comment good evening Cynthia halby Ridgewood uh congratulations Mr Mayor Mr Mortimer and to miss parin In Absentia um interesting that you are talking about the bus station that's a a place that's dear to my heart since the Conservancy worked so hard over at vanest um certainly not providing Travelers with cover in inclement weather and not not enough seating is really a disgrace and an embarrassment and I think this has gone on for too long so I'm delighted to see it continue uh you're talking about possibly moving the bus uh station up over to the train station again I think this is something that we've got to consult a town expert on a planner perhaps it should be over at the Town garage perhaps the buses should just be going along Franklin Avenue and not Ridgewood Avenue I don't know and I'm not sure that we're all experts so that is a suggestion I think it was brought up last year when this was discussed um anyway it's just food for thought um and at the same time I would like you to address the fact that there is no public restroom in the CBD area and this would tie in well with a new bus station or perhaps it should be over at the garage um there is absolutely no public restroom as we all know in the CBD area many towns have them they're now designed for safety and for cleanliness and I think it's something that we really should look into and provide to our Travelers our visitors and absolutely our residents thank you thank you Cynthia anyone else uh good evening mayor and Council boy a loving from Ridgewood I'm really sorry the acous sticks tonight were very bad and we're having a lot of trouble yeah they terrible we're having a lot of trouble hearing what was going on going on in the back of the room there and uh there was some discussion about the trees and people rejecting the planting of trees that concerns me because if too many people start to reject trees being planted in front of their house we're going to have a problem later on so I'm trying to understand does somebody have the right to say that the village can't plant the tree on Village property I don't understand how that happens that shade tree goes out identifies areas where trees are needed and then a homeowner says well I don't want a tree there if again if that happens too often I fear that the canopy is going to drastically reduce and I don't know why we would allow that to happen now I know councilwoman winegrad was talking about this but again there was a lot of difficulty Hearing in the back of the room so if we can just add a little bit of context to how this is happening and why we are permitting this to happen I would appreciate it because I'm flustered as to what could happen nine on Hopper Avenue and I think 11 in the shedler neighborhood that were requested not to be planted again why do they have the right to say that the village can't plant the tree on Village property so maybe when my comments finish we can just add to what what's causing this uh the mayor uh when he opened up the meeting today talked a little bit about the process of voting um I just want to speak about that a little bit granted this were was a very unusual election but a lot of people did turn out and I know I voted at the high school I'm in District 13 and there was a very long wait there all day long next year it's a gubernatorial election and I'm thinking that there may be similar voting patterns then and I'm wondering if the Bergen County Board of Elections is going to do any sort of evaluation and try to place more machines in areas where they might be needed I know that that it's a budgetary issue machines cost a lot of money but I'm just wondering if there's any plan to go back and take a look at areas where there were long wait times throughout the day and perhaps add an additional machine additional poll workers uh again this may have been a once in a-lifetime number of people who turned out the vote uh the clerk hasn't uh revealed yet what the percentage of turnout was in comparison to past years I know she has the number but she hasn't said it uh we may not see that number again but still a gubernatorial election next year uh 2028 May produce another wild one so if we could just get some sort of evaluation and make sure that we have the right equipment in the right place that would be a good idea thank you very much and appreciate hearing any comments about what's going on with the trees and why we're allowing that thank you thank you good evening again Ann loving um on the on the subject of the election process I don't know that you have any say so over this but the boxes that the paper ballots went into at the end of the night when those boxes were open it was the most third world chaotic thing I have ever seen the papers were all scrambled around folded mixed up three people hunched over grabbing them out putting them into this bag it was unbelievable those of us who were there for that you know as Challengers were in shock including the police officer who was there it was just crazy I don't know if somebody you would think that those papers that are going into the box were going to be landing perfectly lined up like you know like a ream of paper you might buy it was insane um another Challenger and I took a couple of videos because the the El the um voting was over so you were allowed to take pictures at that time I don't know if you guys have any input on that but you might want to look into that also on the subject of Elections um it was brought up uh from the day is that only seven people ran for six positions between the Board of Ed and the council and that really is sad but I want to say that the cost of these campaigns has become staggering uh the the uh amount of money that is spent is public information and uh I have seen some of it the sources of the money coming in from out of town in fact from all over the State I mean the average citizen who might just want to run for office C can't you know necessarily come up with tens and tens over $100,000 to you know to do all that has to be done and endorsements coming from all over the state for our little town it's just you know not everybody has political connections like that so I think that may be one reason that we only got seven people running for six slots because people simply are going to be floored at the amount of money they would have to spend in order to be competitive and the number of Jazzy endorsements from State and County officials as opposed to just endorsements from local residents the last thing is regarding the bus station I realized I know the the building is closed but there is still an overhang that you can stand under when the weather's bad so um I guess it sounds sounds like the building's going to come down very soon and like it that it needs to but I don't know if a temporary some sort of leano shelter or something could be put up because maybe one day it will rain again um it hasn't rained in years it seems but uh the there is an overhang that you can get under at this point and I guess that's going to be gone thank you thank you in hi Frank morer Bridgewood um I want to talk about the fence um ordinances coming up that I know that there's some residents in town that they have autistic children and so that's why they put a fence in their front yard for the safety of the child and so I think that in that ordinance we either need to um make some sort of exception for that or maybe just rethink doing it all together but I just because of those families and the importance of that one um I know and I just so I just want to make sure that we're thinking about them when we present that ordinance that's all thank you thank you Frank anybody else let's go to our hybrid access Susan can you hear me better now we we can and I'm just going to ask um again uh as Boyd pointed out the Acoustics tonight are not very good for whatever reason if you could just speak as clearly as you can so that we can understand stand thank you okay um excuse me um just let me know when you can't hear me okay um Susan um Ruan um whatever Bridgewood resident um congratulations again in case you didn't hear that in the beginning to everyone um I the I had a question in regard to the sidewalks I mean to Kingsbridge and that's um there's markings on our sidewalks um is the is the grass area on the sidewalk going to be removed in front of our house um for the foot bridge I just was trying to understand with the markings on the sidewalk me I also see markings in the street um I had said that about the rwood high school engineering students coming to observe when the Bridges removed as just part of something educational that was discussed with Sheila Brogan and um the superintendent um Dr Schwarz um as for trune to add us some places have like bus stop ahead and um you know because it's off the highway maybe putting a signning a speed ramp I mean mean a uh whatever rubber mats or um a speed bump and but also a signage to let people know that there's a bus stop a school bus stop ahead so people might clue that they have to slow down um on trune um I've been overhearing the bus station about moving it to the train station I grew up in Lancaster County Pennsylvania um they did do that they added the bus station to the train station granted the bus station is a extremely beautiful historic building but the um the Ambiance of both being there is very pretty so I would say maybe look at that because it is does add um some sort of convenience for um commuters to get to um and I think I also asked about the um the shadler oil when it's remediated if there's a a waiting period for that and that was pretty much it thank you thank you would anybody like to respond to anything yeah so oh excuse me I have thank you um uh and I'm going to close public comment and now would anybody like to respond to anything sure lorine did you just want to close or you want to go first no go ahead okay so Susan what would be helpful because it might be me is if you could just send pictures of your questions and that's probably the best way for us to address them the white marks I think you want us to coordinate something with Richwood High School and I did glean that there is no bustop signage which seems pretty easy so um on all three of those I have them circled here okay I know I know that during the preconstructed construction meeting this morning Chris Rutter Houser requested that the um the vendor call in the market outs so I'm assuming that those white marks don't have anything to do with this project because they haven't called in the markout CH got it so that's the first one secondly um there was a letter email from a resident in the shedler neighborhood to Chief lions with regard to recommending a school bus stop sign be placed in that neighborhood Chief is looking at this entire situation obviously that accident uh there was some other factors that went into why that accident occurred Police Department's investigating it traffic division's looking at that request already so that's in the works um and finally tonight was the first I heard about inviting um students from Ridgewood High School to participate in this but I'll certainly reach out to Dr Schwarz and see if there's interest anybody but then I add other things um so with respect to the trees so this is a work session and this information is new I I sort of I have that concern that you have as well and I want to answer the question and then there's two sides to this like which way to go and and the reason I'm bringing up is I actually don't know or have any Authority so a shade tree is a village asset we have total control over it it's our we have the legal right to place it it's ours we you know can go out and place it that being said when I joined shet Tre we did have um a fair amount of feedback that the homeowners get involved in this process quite a bit right some don't want it some want it moved onto a gas line and for our general staff who sits like dein sits there uh this has all been discussed many times with us so we proactively sent a letter we wanted to see if we had 200 trees how many were rejected right and so a big thing that I like and you sometimes people tease me but we wanted to deal with the facts of the trees if 200 trees were offered how many were received so we've been so we can create statistics because now we have the G and the gis says roughly there's 4,000 is trees but if we have an average rejection of 20% from a budget standpoint that takes us down a bit right and then we can begin to think about that so um it's not really about me but that's the way my committees like to offer because trees become highly emotional so we sent these letters we wanted to engage them the other thing is that watering is such a part of it and while we pay for the first year if the trees aren't watered the asset dies and that's like a waste of money money effort and and a perfectly good tree so the homeowner is definitely responsible for it we hear a fair amount I would say all of us about trees the sidewalks because the burden it places on the homeowner so the initial thought from shade tree was let's get our hands around this let's see how many people proactively rejected the letters went out and we didn't have a ton of proactive rejecting we had a little bit like hey I don't want it and we just moved that and we put that in that when we went out to plant um we now have an employee in a situation we have markouts and this came up like in a day right during because we we were planting and we didn't know what to do um but I don't have any authority to tell anybody what to do so there is the one thought of it's a village asset in the village right of way and here's the tree and that's it the likelihood that that tree is going to survive is significantly less which isn't advantageous to the tree or the money so um we're going to have to think about this this is a call you I hope this is all making sense I know I'm talking a lot about the trees when you have a street that you know which is in a flood zone and we gave them trees and their rate of retraction was 50% we're going to have to think about that but in the meantime we have employees out there and they don't want to get hostile with a homeowner so we're going to think about it we might want to amend like I said the request list I had two homeowners who wanted more than one tray and we said to them only one tree on the request list it would have been way better now that we know that to give them the two trees so I think the summary takeaway is you are correct technically we could just place the tray and say it's there but then there's no victory in that because with this unbelievable weather the likelihood that the homeowner will help that tree in the need of watering or love or attention is significantly less so or worse yet heard it or wor and and we did of the numbers that I read so we we have them three people actually had the tree planted and like literally said they were going to take them out and I I was like well you like in a tizzy you can't do that right that's not you can't do it it's our tree so we were hoping to Circle back to them next week you know and make a plan because you know it's the end of October now it's November plant the trees and then Circle back but this was definitely a situation and by the way I am grateful for the homeowners who don't want it and are honest about it because it is an a tree with the burden of plant is is expensive and then I'm also grateful that when we go to fund it you know when we look at the gis we might not need 4,000 trees because we might actually be you know we might have something like shrinkage of 20% so I know I just said all these words I'm hoping the audience can nod with me that that somewhat made sense if anybody has any other questions let us know if anybody has any other ideas like we would welcome them the best plan that we would have is if we are stuck with a ton of assets and rejections at the time of plant they'll go into the parks which need them as well did the people that rejected them in the in a flood zone did they realize how important trees are to soak up water yeah I I mean I don't want to make anybody feel bad for their decision uh one Street in particular uh Pam and I visited and spent two hours and we talked about this how it is and they weren't that's no one had requested a tree we went back and checked and we said oh we're going to give them I think the number was 20 trees or 18 and we said this is good you know we'll put 18 trees there uh it was great and they they rejected that street at 50% now we may go back and write them another letter but we went there for flood mitigation storm water purposes Pam and I and we talked about trees I mean we talk Petri a lot you know because it is it is an option so we were a little bit surprised with that and you'll you can call me I'll show you the detail I mean obviously it's just new information right and um you know I love my shade tree community and they like they were stunned and I think I was a little taken aback but we we have had this with adopt a sapling you know I thought it was going to be I thought we were going to drop it in Orchard and like in 42 seconds 100 people were going to adopt 100 saplings and it takes a little bit of hustle and buy in and um you know I thought a full-blown tree would take less buyin and we're finding now the good thing is we have the numbers which is good are people not wanting them because of not wanting to rake the leaves in the fall for the sidewalks being raised the sidewalks are a big big issue um there's also other legal issues which Matt can speak to and I know what the legal answer is some people have irrigated where they're not supposed to and they get very worried about their improper irrigation uh no it's that's real that's actually real I experienced that during adop adopt is very um so we have a whole scenario uh the other thing is some people visually like the aesthetic of the streetcape being bold in front of their house um we we have all different reasons the cost issue always ends up the biggest cost contributor is the sidewalk though for sure I I think the moral of the story is is that before we budget for additional tree planting next year we have to identify the locations right and we we are going to to the point we are going to have to think about the policy because what if everybody decided like I don't want to tree in front of my house that's going to be a situation but trees are so important like we really we can't allow so many people to say well I don't want it like it's for the benefit of the whole Community to plant more trees it again I it's all information found out here in like a when you have a one I don't have any authority over staff and two I do love that Keith got yelled at during adop the saing too first it's true story first we we had a bunch of um well this will make everybody laugh because I've gone as far as I can uh a husband signed up for adopt a sapling and the wife came out and yelled at you know like wanted clarification from Keith and we had a couple marital situations where people had to go back into their house and find out who had done it so um it's they take a poll the family and we do you do have a lag you know people lead very rapid lives so adop sein closed in May and the execution was October and you know that that's a lag that's like six months so it is some information to think about I agree with you but when we have our employees I'm not going to be like okay make that person take a tree that's a terrible situation for Declan um and we're just going to continue our messaging you know we're just going to continue it and keep offering it um it was just slightly disappointing everybody good only thing I was going to add is you know um an I think you raised a really good point about the bar for folks wanting to run for office um the money thing though is not a rwood problem that's a that's a a United States of America problem every every Community every office has that issue where it's just really expensive to run for an office and it spends a lot of it takes a lot of time having to fund raise to do the things we do but candidly to me the biggest barrier to getting good people to run for office is not the money thing it's it's the nasty vitol comment you see online um that's really it um a lot of folks get ear muscles when they're sitting behind their computer screen and have the anonymity of a of a Blog or a website or something that they could you know make personal comments about people and I would just caution everyone that you know when you do those type of comments to the politicians you don't like it really disqualifies a lot of smart people who say you know what maybe the politicians you would like just say you know what that's not for me I don't need that abuse so I would say that if you really want to have a community where we have a lot more people step up like hungu like Frank like others regardless of whether you agree with them or don't agree with them I think we got to work on online bullying and the Cyber stuff um it's protected speech it's free speech you absolutely have a right to do it but just because you have a right to do something doesn't mean you should um I I sorry I I completely Echo um evans's comments um I spoke to lots of people um in terms of you know wanting to run and the and the response from so many people who I believe would be good productive council members is why would I want to do that why would I want to put my family through that it's a it's this is this is not an easy gig and um you know when when when people go after um sitting sitting council members and and candidates personally and there are personal attacks it's it's it's no longer about issues and it should stay about issues and you know we've talked about this many times um and again your your point is well taken um it's an expensive it's an expensive Venture um but um if we can if we can calm that vitriol and and have it have it just as robust about the issues and and the positions that people take as opposed to the people I think that that would encourage people because as Lorraine pointed out seven people running for six positions that's not good for anybody um so I just have a question Matt is there any way because I mean I I agree with you guys that social media plays a part in it absolutely but I think financially that's probably just as big a part is there any way that we as a community could say for our Village Council or our Board of Education you're only allowed to spend EX amount of dollars I you know I've never seen that issue raised by anybody legislatively or by regulation political speech is the most protected speech that you're that you have in this country and to limit it by cost I think would be flying a face of that aspect of of free speech you wouldn't I don't think you'd be able to do it at all yeah and actually I know that there there have been significant US Supreme Court cases that's that's really where it's been decided that that um the amount of money spent is considered speech okay and and that's that's the issue is that because because money spent is about messaging it's about getting your message out and by by limiting money the sup the US Supreme Court has determined that that would be limiting speech and um that has been decided by both conservative and liberal courts that that is not something that they want to limit and for the same reason we couldn't limit only you know only Ridgewood donors can vote can donate to Ridgewood elections you know what would be interesting and I would love to see us explore it we have one debate and thank thank goodness for the legal Women Voters but now that the Ridgewood news isn't really around local media is kind of dead um you know if you have things like debates that are sponsored by you know by the community that's free publicity it doesn't cost any money that would be something I would love to see if you know the next election cycle if uh another group besides A League of Women Voters somebody else would sponsor more forums um where you know there's built-in publicity that would be a way to equalize some of the playing field around the money issue um I know other you know M I don't think municipalities have done this other places have done like matching funds things like that I don't think that's realistic for a place like Ridgewood or or municipality that's that's our size but more forums more public debates more things that give candidates the ability to be heard without having to pay for it that would really help democracy and if and you know I would challenge folks yourself like like you an or others who feel I think as strongly as all of us do um to maybe think about that for the next election cycle to try to sponsor that type of stuff I think that would help quite a bit so I just want to say a couple things um you know obviously I ran an independent campaign and I want to say two things about cost it is financially expensive and it is emotionally crippling at times for you for your family um and that is really sad um I will say that you know I I raised my own money I have a different set of skill sets with the marketing background so I was able to do a lot of my own content um campaigns are expensive uh you need support of a lot of people and during this campaign you know and everybody knows this a lot of money was spent lot of Flyers a lot of information it was a lot and when we start talking about limiting people's ability to raise funds the concern that I have is then you're really only encouraging wealthy people to run and that is a concern self-funded campaigns are only available to a select number of people so I had concerns around the whole thing um my campaign I was very proud of I ended up having an overage of money which I donated back to the rid public library and I was lucky with it but this campaign Evan and I weren't running and being campaign adjacent to the negativity was awful and let's be honest this cyber stuff that goes on it affects you it affects your family uh if you're me your children will be drawn into the discussion by people it won't be shut down and for those who work in modern-day technology it affects your Google search the more that people talk about you in a hateful way on social media platforms the more it appears and so if you go to a job interview and you are an activist which I'm very proud of and my kids are and they bear your name it will be discussed it will be brought up being campaign adjacent and watching you know I I respect all four people here and Keith Matt Heather it's it's not fun and when you live in a community you're like me I have family around here they read everything and you can tell when something's particularly awful because people check in on you the rhetoric has really disincentivized regular people from volunteering up here and it's also made it hard to be on a committee I can't tell you how much fighting there is on the committee and when a committee's leaked onto social media how negative it is um so I think I I'm very proud of the campaign I'm very happy we have elect and there are disclosures but without fundraising you're just going to have wealthy people running and that's not good either so um I think the best way is to just be a little more human to each other here recognize that people want to serve their Community I mean all of us that's what we want we want to serve our community and we shouldn't make it so incredibly impossible hard um so I hope people you know take a step away from the computer go out and meet some of the people they're talking about and I really hope they start leaving people's jobs and families alone agreed everybody good motion to adjourn so move second second second what I do when you're gone all in favor I anyone opposed okay thanks thday excuse me one second so sorry