##VIDEO ID:LWlTCx634wA## for this meeting is called to order in accordance with the open public meetings law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided this meeting of October 21st 2024 was published in The Courier News and Star Ledger and placed on the bar's website notice of this meeting was also placed on the bulletin board at Bor Hall with the complete agenda a copy of this notice is available to the public and a copy of this statement shall be included in the minutes of this meeting mayor Brian Gallagher here Teresa boner here Glen Deni here Tom Mitchell here Randy pittz here Gina straic here Roger room here please stand for the salute to the flag allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay can I have a motion for the approval of the minutes of October 7 so moved second discussion roll call please Teresa Bonner abstain Glen Den yes Tom Mitchell yes Randy pit yes GIC yes Roger V yes okay departmental reports there is only one and I'm sure everybody knows by now that election day is November 5th polls are open from 6:00 AM to 8:00 pm in Somerville uh I don't think I need to tell anybody that it's it's inundated everywhere um committee reports let's start off with Tom yes sir uh okay the historic advisory committee meeting which had been scheduled for October 17th was cancelled so I don't have anything to report from there but October 12th and 13th was a beautiful weekend for weekend Journey with many visitors enj enjoyed the burrow Hall and the fire Museum the burrow is looking to hire basketball gym supervisor and scorekeepers and timers for recreational youth basketball these are seasonal positions click the jobs button on the burrow web page for these and other positions and finally employees are reminded that open enrollment for medical dental and vision plans began today and runs through November 1st that is all thank you Tom Gina uh the Board of Health um County statistics uh abbreviated for you uh covid and respiratory illnesses uh responses are low uh taking uh insect born illnesses again low um so the community should be pretty healthy uh food uh recall there are several food recalls if you haven't seen uh notices publicly uh do look them up most of them are prepackaged Foods um Somerville Rescue Squad uh provided their uh three quarter year report uh so for the past three quarters they've responded to 1,9 calls responded to 155 fire alarms uh volunteers Gave Over 58 hours of riding time and uh they have participated in 30 standby events uh the average uh report time to a call in Somerville is 4.2 minutes um and they continue their training with collectively 294 hours of training uh to date that's a report from the rescue squad great thank you Gina Glen so environmental commission we met on October the 8th and uh we have just a few things going on the uh green team will be celebrating the end of the season with the community garden with a party later in October and then the Girl Scouts will be help helping with a cleanup also or in November uh as far as the committee goes they've been continuing discussions with the downtown summeral Alliance regarding the tree canopy which we covered a lot in the last meeting and they are also continuing to review various ordinances uh we continue to welcome new members and you're welcome to come to our next meeting on November the 12th at 7 pm right here great thank you mayor all right Teresa thank you um the municipal Alliance and Youth Services Commission met uh this month on October 10th uh we are happy that we'll be receiving uh $6,000 Grant from the county uh for Somerville Middle School be good Positive Behavior Support um and the vanir Vander bcks um which is an Intervention Program um and we had representation from the schools talking about how they're starting the programs up for the year and and that they've been going well uh we'll also be having a table set up at the Halloween Spooktacular this Friday October 25th so stop by for some candy and for information about what the municipal Alliance and youth services uh does we help with uh fighting addiction um and then the library Board of Trustees meeting will be held this Thursday at 6:30 October uh yeah October 24th at the Somerville Public Library great thank you Randy thank you mayor just want to remind all of our residents that curbside leaf pickup starts this Monday October 28th and will go through to mid December please note that brush pickup is suspended during Leaf season and for more information please visit the burrow website that is all all right thank you Roger uh a few things from Recreation the house Decor contest is currently ongoing so you can decorate your home with uh in an Autumn theme or a Halloween theme uh by Thursday October 24th you have to register online it's Somerville nj.org contest um and uh the folks will go around on Sunday the 27th uh for the judging winners will be announced on Halloween and there will be a variety of prizes available for that the Halloween spook tacular as was mentioned before is this Friday starting at 4 pm uh there will be uh events taking place at the courthouse law Division Street and throughout downtown from 4 to 6:00 there will be trick-or-treating music and other spooky entertainment on Division Street in the courthouse lawn and beginning at 6 PM there will be the Halloween movie Beetlejuice so bring a chair and come on down to Division Street uh the Turkey Trot registration is still ongoing currently it's $45 for registration and that will close on November 10th again the Turkey Trot takes place on Thanksgiving so if you're around and feel like running before before you eat a bunch of turkey and take a nap come on out again uh 9:00 a.m. on uh Thanksgiving morning and then the basketball courts uh have recently been done renewed and improved at Michael Park they are open uh so that's the park and park AV so go on down and check those out and that's all I have awesome all right great thank you Roger uh just a couple of things one um if you recall we had a young e uh Eagle Scout potential Eagle Scout in uh probably about two months ago 3 months ago uh and what he wanted to do was to rehabilitate the uh John Shaw Memorial in the Parklands between cliff and Grove Street and uh yesterday they held his court of honor and they actually held it outside typically they're held in the churches or in auditoriums this one was held outside so it was it was a really nice event uh the young man uh Shan O'Neal did an awesome job in rehabilitating uh the the memorial um the flood waters actually had moved The Rock a bit had shifted it around um they discovered that there was some patio pavers underneath the overgrown grass um they put in some beautiful leronda chairs and they put a permanent uh solar light on the flag pole so now the flag is lit up 247 365 and uh it looks phenomenal uh young man did a great job uh so kudos to him kudos to being an eagle scout and uh it's a great addition to the burrow so thank you um also uh this Thursday at 4M the burrow will be holding our ribbon cutting ceremony for the new emergency services facility uh located on Gaston Avenue I'm sure everybody has seen it going up over the course of the last couple of years and uh it's uh the ribbon cutting the official ribbon cutting is happening Thursday um targeting move in still is at the turn of the Year roughly Colin that's yeah yes sir yeah um but uh but we will also be scheduling at a uh a further date everybody's welcome to come to the ribbon cutting but we will be scheduling uh guided tours for the building uh between now and the end of the year so those residents that would like to get in and have a look at it uh they will have that opportunity to do so yeah exactly yep okay um and then last but not least we did hold um inspection day fire department inspection day a couple of weeks ago and uh you know it's a it's a wonderful day uh to celebrate our all volunteer services and at the end of the day we there's a dinner and uh it's it's a really nice dinner it's a it's a you know it's it's a it's a time to to allow the firefighters to really kind of uh settle a little bit you know after a hard Year's work is that a good word Rich settle okay thank you um but what I did want to say was that the fire department uh in good true fashion uh gave Tom Mitchell a standing ovation uh for his 21 years of service to the burrow uh Tom is is retiring at the end of this year from Council and uh they recognized all of the efforts that Tom put uh put into the burrow and uh it was just a very nice moment I thought it was well worth pointing out thank thank you mayor and thank you for uh bringing that up uh and that's what I have before we go into discussion I just I want to make one change slight change to the agenda uh on resolutions we have number 298 with is which is authorizing execution of the First Amendment to the financial agreement between Avalon Somerville station urban renewal and the Bureau of Somerville that actually should have been an ordinance introduction so rather than us acting and implementing it tonight we will shift that to introducing it as an ordinance uh and then at the next meeting it will then be voted upon uh I just want to make that change so everybody's aware so at this point we have on for discussion uh a uh we we had the burrow has two cannabis uh retail cannabis licenses available uh one is in the process uh um it's going through the uh the final approval process down in Trenton uh and it's it's uh finalizing the planning process with the burrow um and that one is targeted for the sonoko station at the head of Gaston in Route 22 um there is another interested party that uh that has come to the uh the Cannabis committee and made a presentation and we thought it best for them to come in and make a full presentation to Council on uh uh their property their concept um and and their proposal for uh for Burrow's consideration so I will turn it over to the folks from kav Kava and uh come on up and have at it and if you would just introduce yourselves and your affiliations thank you mayor members of council I'm Michael Turner I'm the president managing member of Burton Trent public affairs in Trenton New Jersey with me tonight uh to my left I have Sharie Jamal Matt hagquist and Sammy Jamal longtime property owners here in Somerville um and uh current continue being property owners here in Somerville and uh they're here to present uh their their vision for kinesava uh dispensary uh on 22 and um possibly talk to you about their vision and their experience certainly and of course their desire to be a positive uh contributor to the community and the economics therein so with that let me turn it over to the boss who is um who is Mickey Jamal um and he'll talk to you a little bit about their experence experience not only in um retail but also highly regulated and um you know uh type of retail that they have thank you thank you just make sure the red light's on thank you oh it popped off again testing my name is Mickey Jamal I'm the CEO of NJ energy and CPD energy from New York I just want to talk a little bit about kind of laa dispensary and uh how we do business in general we'll talk to you about you know what what how long we we've been in business since 1981 in convenience to gas station highly regulated business so uh we are in Trio state area so we do business in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut uh we have a large presence in New Jersey we have about 30 sites in northern Jersey uh we operate about 70 stores as company stores direct you know our employees our our properties our our facilities um we have been recognized in the industry for how we control and how we run our places we would love to take some of you to to look at our properties and how we manage um we actually been awarded many times by a public publication like CSP magazine and we've been awarded a lot of awards by the oil companies exan mobile shell and BP and Amo other brands we won the retail uh Excellency award which is rare for in our industry um we have our own construction company our own environmental company pretty much we run all the operations from a toz from buying the property and building the locations so we're very familiar with the renovation of building new uh sites we had de we had developed recently about 25 properties a matter of fact I came in from one today uh and we do that all in house construction I'm going to let Sharif my son talk about operation and cannabis experience uh thank you for having us mayor and uh council members uh as my dad was considerating we have 75 company operated convenience stores that we run eight here in New Jersey uh we've been doing this for a long time with over 600 employees we think that we're going to bring a uh lot of expertise and uh in the retail industry to the business um like cannabis uh motor oil fuel uh Lottery tobacco and alcohol are all highly regulated items through the state so we're used to uh an experience in dealing with regulated items uh we have an expertise in age verification loss prevention inventory control and tracking and cash management procedures with various different uh uh equipment that we use in order to make sure all that is handled properly uh for this license we've engaged with Burton Trenton and New Jersey cannabis laws and regulations to advise us on uh the direction uh upon the issuance of this license also will be engaged with H2 Talent which actually brings it's a uh head hunting firm that brings cannabis experience to the table I think from there we'll talk about our dispensary security um we'll be using uh a system called veras scan to make sure that we perform age verification on 100% of the customers uh each ID will be scanned at the door in the entrance uh We've engaged with the leading security firm win and Associates to ensure we establish strong and effective security measures in our stores uh that includes effective controls and procedures to guard against theft and diversion prohibit unauthorize access to spaces in the back rooms protect against electronic record tampering uh we will also have a state-of-the-art security system that will notify our whole entire team of management as well as the local authorities if anything were to go wrong or if the space was ever broken into and we'll have a state-of-the-art video Sur ENT system that will be active 247 so we think we're uh going to automatic safe so we the cash exposure is minimal you know this is a pretty cash intensive business and we use uh they're called Auto safes you slide the money in and that's it they're locked away permanently and then those are picked up by a u armored car service so there's minimal cash exposure um subject to theft uh I want to introduce the the or describe the the Cannabis kenava leadership team you've met Sharie and and Mickey already uh Sharie has extensive experience in retail he's been doing this since he was probably five years old um literally he's been in this industry his whole life um and and most notably uh he has already been awarded a cannabis license in New York so admittedly under a different a different set of regulations but he's involved in a cannabis operation in New York at this time so he's has a a very large depth of knowledge in that Mickey U mentioned you know he started this business uh 40 years ago with a Mobile station in in New York so he has extensive experience uh his brother Sam uh also is is in this business he's the COO um he basically establishes all the operational polic policies and procedures uh that the the chain of gas station operate under and those would translate into the Cannabis operation I'm the CFO I have over 20 years experience actually over 25 I just don't like to put that in writing and admit uh how old I'm getting but uh I have a lot of experience in various Industries uh retail and Manufacturing across a broad spectrum uh a very important member of our team is Scott Parker our director of facilities he has over 20 years of experience in uh site Development and Construction uh and he's the one who has led the 25 plus store Renovations that that Mickey mentioned earlier regarding the actual site um here in in Somerville um you know then the timing of development of that property we have full control of the site we have a tenant there we don't operate that as a chest up market right now can you just address where the site is cuz I cuz no nobody nobody knows where your site is at this point oh it's it's an ex sorry yeah it's a good point it's an Exon station at 960 Route 22 so it's right on Route 22 in in in Somerville um it's an ex it's an Exon I believe right currently an Exon yeah um we don't operate as a chestnut but we control the site we can take possession of the property with 30 days notice as I mentioned with Scott we do all of our own uh internal construction uh so we're not beholding to the timelines of of a uh GC or a construction company we're basically beholding to our own uh timelines and our own priorities prioritization uh also importantly given that this is a gas station we have an internal uh environmental and underground storage tank team who does all of our our work uh in uh remediation work and all the tank removals and dispenser removals so again we're not holding to an outside contractor to begin the rehabilitation of the property uh a few item a few properties that we've recently developed that I just want to show some of our capabilities um so I've got a couple pictures here uh this is the Hutchinson River Parkway uh which in New York in White Plains this is uh in the middle of the parkway we leased this property from the New York dot uh we recently were awarded the uh the lease uh to renew the lease we had been there previously and we were awarded a a 30-year lease uh under a new RFP uh part of that was to redevelop the site uh this is a a picture of that which was featured in CSP magazine which is one of the trade Publications uh highlighting that Redevelopment of that site uh one of the things we did there was increase the square footage of that property by uh over 40% uh and one of the key requirements it was a historical building and we were required to keep that in the same uh look of the old building and and the the the work that our internal team did it's seamless if you were there I I think you would be hard pressed to find the new the new uh Parts uh versus the old Parts uh due to the high quality of work that we do uh New York New Jersey this is a before and after of a of a property on New York new in New York New Jersey on uh Lincoln and Broadway uh so that's some of the rehabilitation work that we do ourselves uh the next one is Patterson New York oh sorry New Jersey we have one in Patterson uh New York as well uh Patterson New Jersey uh same same thing uh we did all that work ourselves uh marabo New York this was a raise and rebuild of a existing building uh the photo of the current is the current Mobile station the chest up Market is um featured in one of the trade Publications we were in a a cover feature of of uh that store in the work we did there which brings us to the kinesava design of what we have in mind for for this Venture uh for the dispensary um it says cannabis uh that was an oversight by our design uh consultant um as we can't have the word cannabis in the name uh so that will be rectified in the final uh build of course uh but you know this is the type of work that we can do I should give shareif credit for this design yeah he came up with this design concept um and I'm so I don't want to take his Thunder uh another rendering uh from a side view go ahead sh so kenava is a mountain in Utah and Zion National Park and the thought process was to make the triangle kind of replicate a mountain feel and the uh background of the building to more represent the sky to give you that Utah field uh so that's why we went with the sandstone and that uh the metal siding there and then the final slide is uh just a rendering of the store layout highlighting the security areas um the the waiting area and foyer U to do the security checks before uh a customer is allowed to enter the retail space and then also to highlight the restricted areas through the the door into that hallway off the retail space uh where no nobody from the public is allowed um and then also the secure uh delivery and storage areas I just want to mention that that we self Finance we don't need to go to the bank we get financing for the you know the rebuild the remodeling or any of the work okay um questions yeah excuse me um you mentioned having 30 sites in the tri tri-state area how many of those are uh cannabis dispensaries and how many of the cannabus dispensaries are in New Jersey we we actually only we have 75 uh sea stores so it's gasoline and sea Store retail none of them are actually cannabis yet we only have the uh one cannabis retail site in New York that'll be opening hopefully within the next month okay so this will be your second cannabis site this will be the second cannabis Venture um and we're hoping to yeah first in New Jersey and hoping for for more from there good luck thank you thank you thank you go yeah um so you're gonna work with a third-party vendor to help you set up the business they're not going to operate it you're this is going to be owned and operated by your group this will be owned and operated by us but we do always hire consulting firms within the Cannabis industry to help set up and follow the regulations based on the state thank you other questions uh yeah um you said you were going to be taking the word cannabis off the building what will be the full sign will it just be kenava or will it be Kaba dispensary Kaba dispensary yeah that was just a typo and my question is how far down 22 is this from the other uh dispensary that has already been approved so this is at the head of North Bridge Street and 22 okay and the the other one's at the end is at the end of Gaston so okay half a mile bre uh yeah yeah yeah other questions so um just a couple of things um speaking to to the uh the experience standpoint um obviously it's it's a it's a new Venture for what for what you do and I understand you have experience in in uh you know those types of uh uh issues with age and alcohol and and and other types um without having that cannabis space experience you know you said you're going to hire Consultants now is it a consultant to help you open and then they they go away is it a consultant that will help you operate is it is it somebody that you're going to partner with you know what what is that what can you talk a little bit to that so we'll we'll take a two-step approach to it we'll help we'll hire a consultant that'll help us get through the regulations and as far as setting up the store um but then we'll also be working with the company H2 Talent which uh gives us opportunities to hire people within the Cannabis industry that already have experience and will most likely hire a general manager manager to help operate the store that has multiple years or uh you know a good amount of exp experience in the Canabis industry which is the same approach we're taking with New York State as well yeah I I I've been in one store I wasn't buying I was in one store because I I was curious to see what what the uh operation was like and it is a very Tech process Tech at least the the one I was in is a very Tech oriented process I mean is that do you see that uh kiosk stations and and ordering systems and and the the typical dispensary is a kiosk based ordering uh system in place where you go to a kiosk or work with a bud tender to go over what products are available and ask whatever questions you have on those products and then select those products and then they would be transferred over to the POS system and picked from the Vault to be distributed to the customer so yes it's it's definitely tech-based uh operations that seems to be the way the industry is going so we'd follow that seat so so one of my big my biggest concern um is that you're a half a block from Somerville High School uh you've got uh a whole bunch of teens there uh who are not of legal age um to purchase um and how do you C can you talk to that because I that a very big concern that I have so because the site will have no actual uh windows that you could visibly see into the space and because it's a it's a kind of simpler bu building design um an access will only be allow you know given to people that are 21 or older uh we have if you look at the floor plan you could see on there when you enter into the space there's a security window right next door and someone will be checking IDs and scanning them to verify that they're legal state or uh us IDs that are allowed to be used to purchase cannabis and enter a cannabis dispensary so we'll constantly have security at the door to prevent any underage uh people from entering this space okay okay and we operate under that premise now with alcohol and and Lottery and um and uh tobacco in New York we don't sell alcohol in New Jersey obviously but in New York all of our stores have sell beer and we have a 100% ver age verification regardless of what age somebody looks like they have to so it's something we're familiar with with operating yeah I have to show my ID to go in yeah I don't think I look under 21 anymore correct yeah we would operate under the same premise that we do in the sea store space so so you don't see an issue you you from a security standpoint or from because kids are pretty ingenious no it would be 100% of the time ID everyone whether you come every single day or if it's your first time visiting every customer that comes in would be ided and then that would be scanned on that uh that ID system that we have actually scans and confirms that it's a legal ID and can actually uh pick out fakes and I believe it's called ver scan yeah and that system is in use now in multiple dispensaries and multiple States so we have faith that that's going to work really well and you'd obviously comply with all the state laws and regulations and policies and procedures and and absolutely I have a couple more questions that's right uh going off of what the mayor asked um would you be having security cameras in the parking lot say teenagers came up they found an adult who would go in and buy it for them but would you have security cameras in the parking lot so that you could see something like that happening absolutely prevent that it's it's an extensive security camera system where you'll have cameras covering all angles of the existing building outside as well as the parking lot to make sure that there's never any incidents okay my second uh question is actually somewhat of a statement uh the last time we were here hearing from the other company who's opening up the dispensary um one thing I liked about their presentation was that they talked about community and that they would like to help to try to educate the community of about uh opioid addiction and how uh cannabis can help to prevent that from becoming an issue because you can use cannabis medically for pain and things like that so hopefully not using opioids to for pain management as much and not becoming addicted to it is that anything that you would consider doing working with the community for Education with young people or things like that yeah Community engagement is part of the whole the whole process I just in order to keep this as brief as possible and and concise I I didn't include all that but yes that's part of the the whole program is is the community engagement and that education process then we have a policy out there that that articulates that as well thank you so this is really just a broad concept approach for for the council what is your timeline uh whenever it's the approval we' be able to hit the ground pretty much immediately you already own the building yeah we own the building yeah yeah yes we would from the time we say that we were to get the approval and get this in process which we obviously we have to go through the state approval process but once we get everything lined up um you we'd have to give our current tenant 30 days notice I would imagine the regulatory process in New Jersey is the longest part of this process yeah yeah it's not it's not overnight nine months 12 months sorry it it's actually gotten quite shorter has it it has because initially it was all the applicants that came in at once there's thousands and they went through it and it took some people you know over a year now I've seen them get approved within 90 days okay okay but it's New Jersey that's shocking tell me about it I do it for a living um will you be selling edible uh or just smokables would you be selling it as joints or just a raw so it'll it'll be a mix of all of the legal um products that are allowed within the New Jersey state laws okay question being down the street doesn't uh deter you from competition from the other no I think we're on a good corner and I think it that there's a high enough demand that it'll be supported well well on the eastbound side of the highway where you are you'll get to you first yeah we have that Advantage any other questions yeah can you can you just talk a little bit about the rehabbing the site as far as gas station going to dispensary and the environmental steps you're going to take for that as well and what that timeline could look like yeah I could speak now yeah we did renovate in the past few years 25 sites so uh part of it we uh pay attention to what's the requirement from D or de DEC which is removal of the tank cleaning the ground making sure everything is clean there's no issues if anything need to be uh remediated we do it immediately in the the spot we own our own company that does the uh tank removal tank installation and we have our own environmental engineers and house we've been doing this for the past 20 some OD years and like I said we've been in the business for 40 years so we did a lot of locations in Jersey New York and Connecticut and uh we in good terms with all the government regulations as far as that's concerned that's an easy part thank you we do we that every day any other questions I want to thank you for your interest any last statements just one one last thing I just want to clarify something um kenava is the en Zion National Park in Utah part of our theme was like wellness and Outdoors and health and if Sam was here he talked to you all about his hiking excursions um but if there is something that is Town related as far as like opot addiction we're happy to talk to you about that and moving forward absolutely yeah I'm on the liais on to the municipal Alliance and Youth Services Commission and that's what our focus is is fighting addiction in all ages so that's why I have an interest in that yeah yeah we in all our locations by the way we were very involved with with kids we're very involved with with with schools with little leagues and we have a big fundraiser that we do for Sanu Children Hospital which is we already exceeded over a million dollars and we still do we do a lot of stuff every year we give grants in every school that's in our neighborhood or where where we do business it's very nice so that's part of our our company policy thank you gentlemen thank you very much for your time we appreciate the information thank you you thank you all right Kevin next up is uh best practices great thank you very much just squeeze that in there sor so every year this has obviously been about 10 years now the state of New Jersey through the department of Comm Community Affairs provides the municipality a questionnaire this year it had 69 questions on it Paige and I submitted it we uh obviously the entire municipality is involved some way um for what they do the inventory they they the best practice inventory had 69 questions on it they really have three major categories being core competency um the best practices and and then they have UNSC and unscored questions as well the uh 41 being the core competency and 11 being the best practice which are the scored ones so when they're scored the purpose of it is to identify how well the municipality is performing basically the things that are required by law are required by good practice and some of it the DCA also takes the opportunity to kind of survey municipalities as to what they may be doing as well and that's why you have the 17 unscored areas um we did very well we generally do well um we obviously translating from the audit most of our financial practices I should say all of our financial practices certainly conform with the law and every municipality is a little different how they do things the areas that that we had noticed this year that they had put on are areas that we're we're diving into today is is affordable housing so there's a good dozen questions on about affordable housing uh particularly if you have an affordable housing trust and how you're managing that money um we don't have an affordable housing trust we we haven't had the need to do that we will you you'll see that being added into our budget and it'll be a trust fund that specifically be used for Professional Services and or for construction or related other matters to affordable housing units so that that'll be that one of the areas that we were not able to really uh wrap our hands around and and and answer those um but again most of those were unscored anyway the uh the other area we just talked about was Cannabis taxation so you know other than the fact that that cannabis is allowed by zoning there is a a uh a major financial piece of that where the municipality receives funds uh on the sale of of cannabis so we haven't had that opportunity yet a lot of municipalities have obviously you know the one isn't open up yet and this is the second one for consideration so the questions related to that um really go um you know we're not able to answer that as well the um there are some further broken down subcategories which are budget Capital cyber security environment ethics lad remediation personnel management procurement all those types of things we do extremely well on so at the at the end of the day you needed a score of I believe 35 to receive 100% of whatever financial aid I'm sorry whatever Aid the municipality gets through the state of New Jersey so we do get Aid it's not you know it's it's not like distressed Aid it's Aid that's provided back to us in the form of Taxation our score was 43 um which is much on the higher end of the scale there are some things that that we answered prospective Ive um meaning that you know it did make sense to do it and we'd like to look at that opportunity to do it as well um in in those categories uh there you know we had to look at the um the way we hire insurance so last year we did switch to an insur uh health insurance GIF which was new to us we've always been in the state health benefits the state health benefits um unfortunately two years in a row they had a 22% increase and I think this year was 14 15 18 it was up there I'm not we're not in that anymore but we did use a broker to assist us in that process so as we move forward they want to make sure that the broker's contracts are not based on based on moving into plans that are going to provide the broker a better Financial uh benefit right so so it's more of a fixed type of cost now I will tell you Brokers generally don't get hired that way so it is it is it'll be a little of an effort for us to do that um a as we transition and look at other plans in the future the um some of the minor things was was posting in our in our general ledger of how we do that um and and that was kind of the gist of it it's been submitted on behalf of of the bar already we'll provide a copy of of it on our website uh so folks can EV look at that themselves um but it is for the most part I I you know for the majority of all the questions there are things that we've been doing for a very long time you know our our hired practices are very good we post we advertise we have a diverse Workforce um ethics we do training every year so uh that is something that we do um as part of our policy manual the the capital budget and the budget conforms with all the requirements that that's ever upon us with the DCA the uh the capital budget we do spend a lot of time on um the area is cyber security we have a company uh KRS that it's an outside company that handles our security that's one thing we'll be redacting when we put on our our our on the system uh it's a very big issue um cyber security while we're insured for the deductible is tremendous so um em as we you know the mayor and I we've talked about board members having email addresses that they can receive emails directly and that's fine but there's a training component that's going to be required for for our cyber security um so and and then the um and and led remediation is is a couple years ago state New Jersey requires requires us to maintain um the process registry un Le so what happens is if you have homes that are older and they're rental homes there's a process that we have to maintain for the majority of for the majority of it it's outsourced so we have a company that that does their lead remediations and offers that at a lower rate than we can offer so most landlords if they do have to go through a lead remediation program they're doing it at a lower cost than to come through us but we do offer that as well uh because it's required and I I think I've covered um just about every area that that that oh shared services so shared services we do very well in uh we we share our CFO we share our property maintenance person we share a fire prevention officer um you know just on Personnel uh we we do have some shared services as well so so just in general we do share with the county we do share equipment um so we we are pretty active in that area B ofed I'm sorry B of the B of Ed we we Prov provide salting services for so we do we do a very good job in that area area it is it's an area where the municipal managers and sumers county has spent a lot of time looking at it it's still going to be continued an area that we look at we have you know we have some small municipalities including ourselves while you may not know it on a day-to-day basis from because of how busy it is but the geography between you know Manville and the burough of Somerville and and and and riton were're relatively small so it always does lend itself to some opportunities I know you you know the council's been very fa able to that so we'll continue to present those to you over the next over the next couple years and that's included in in the uh in the best practices as well so we're on the thumbs up side of the best practices um nothing we need to do at this point there's nothing nothing that you need to do okay uh and and you'll post that up and then share that with the uh with with the council y that's correct okay great thank you all right um um before I go to the meeting uh open to the public I will ask ask for um an I'm going to talk about the ordinance that we're shifting from the resolution into the ordinance so this is ordinance number 2748 d24 d1021 for introduction only it's an ordinance of the burrow of Somerville County of Somerset state of New Jersey authorizing the mayor to execute the First Amendment to the financial agreement by and between Avalon Somerville station urban renewal LLC and the burrow of Somerville pursuant to njsa as noted for the property located on block 123 lot 2.04 and 5.01 as shown on the official tax map of the burough of Somerville located in the landfill Redevelopment area Colin can you give us just a very brief overview of what this is yes ma'am to to the speaker to the uh yeahor just so everybody can hear can you hear me yes okay um this is um the third part of the development that this room is in right Avalon Bay built the two apartment buildings py built the tow houses that way this is going to be the final apartment building built by Avalon Bay it was anticipated in the original planning board approval it is anticipated and referred to in the redevelopers agreement but the redevelopers agreement also stipulates that certain elements of what they call phase one must be transferred or carried over to this new development that being the financial agreement or that part of it which refers to the apartments um the redevelopers agreement itself has to be amended to refer to this particular phase and also they've tightened up on um the subdivision and the block and lot numbers which were part of the subdivision as they built the project so I I hate to use the word but it's more housekeeping than it is new business okay thank Youk so the certificate hang on hang on we're not we're not at that point yet okay um so at this point what I will do is open up for public comment again on introduction I do not have to open up for uh public comment uh but I do that as a matter of course because I think uh for the sake of transparency it's always good to do so public comment on or in the introduction of ordinance number 2748 is now open hearing none I'll close and I'll ask for a motion for introduction so moved second discussion yeah uh couple couple of question you got basically three changes that are being made the block and lots and the block and lots is the physical location being changed at all or was this simply a an error in defining the block and lots when it was originally laid out it wasn't an an error councilman it was when they subdivided the previous owner's properties New Jersey Transit new blocks and lots were created and this just memorializes those two which are now to be build it on built on so this is exactly where it was originally planned for exactly and the financial uh arrangement this is this is exact there is no change it's just um adding this phase to the financial agreement which means the financial agreement needs to be amended okay but but this is still within the definition of the original Financial agreement yes sir so there's so there's no Financial change or physical change in involved in this uh in this not ordinance so how will it be amended financially it won't be it's adding to the financial agreement the new building that's essentially what the change is so the rates and dollars everything else is everything else yeah what what the council previously approved is now just being memorialized as this phase now takes over and the certificate of occupancies for the existing buildings are in place yes thank you any other public comment roll call yes yes yes yes yes yes okay at this point I will ask for a motion to open the meeting to the public some move second discussion roll call yes yes yes yes yes yes public portion is now open please state your name and address for the record and please address your comments to me hearing none I'll ask for a motion to close the public session so moved second discussion roll call Teresa Bonner yes Glen Den yes Tom Mitchell yes Randy pittz yes Gina straic yes Roger Room yes okay consent resolutions we already deleted number 298 are there any that folks would like to have pulled off for further discussion 305 please okay all right uh 29 7 cancelling uncollectible taxes uh homeowner Lawrence madama known address as 58 Somerset Street 299 approving personto person and place to place transfer of a alcohol beever beverage license by verdico Corp to defina restaurant Corp 300 approving summable Fire Department application for Alex nagaba 301 is approving Spartan Spirit 5K on Saturday June 21 2025 302 is awarding a national contract contract through uh NPP gov to Bower compressors uh under NPP gov contract number as noted in the amount of $ 87,134 303 is accepting a grant of $6,000 and approving chapter 16 159 for County of Somerset Department of Human Services for sumerville Youth Services Commission for 2425 annual grant for Girls on the Run uh also smsb good Positive Behavior Support Raffles and Vander bucks Intervention Program 304 is authorizing a re fund of $22.50 to sandre King for construction permit as noted 306 is authorizing negotiations of easements for safe roots to Schools project on Veterans Memorial East 307 is authorizing change order number one and two for contract with pav Rite for basketball court improvements at Le Park and closing out the project 308 is appointed Kevin slcas acting board secretary to the planning board and Zoning Board retroactive to September 2724 309 is authorizing a sidewalk easement between 25 West Somerville LLC and burough of Somerville at 25 West High Street 310 is accepting the resignation of Joshua bonad effective October 21 2024 and authorizing final payment for 31 a half hours of vacation time accumulated at an hourly rate of $209 cents for total amount of $635 do we have a motion so moved second uh roll call please Teresa Bonner yes Glen Den yes Tom Mitchell yes Randy pittz yes Gina straic yes Roger V yes all right 305 is authorizing the burough Council of the burough of Somerville acting as the housing agent to administer the Section 8 housing assistance payments program and adopting The Five-Year agency plan do we have a motion so moved second discussion yeah what is this what is the fiveyear plan can we get a summary of what this fiveyear plan is we're authorizing sure so let me first I'm GNA I'm going to summarize so for 20 years you've done it four times yeah so Kevin yes so I apologize that you should have that plan the the uh but the plan itself is is it's about a 10-page document that that basically um whatever HUD changes in The Five-Year Plan that's required by Section 8 that's the only revisions that take place every five years the plan has to be five years because HUD requires it um we hire the B some of hires Mullen and Lan as part of our contractor and what they do is is in addition to the operation of the Section 8 program and and the payment Voucher Program which is the same is they also Pro they also monitor the HUD regulations and the HUD requirements so technically they can't operate outside of the HUD requirements so when you're adopting a plan that meets all the HUD requirements you wouldn't be adopting one that wouldn't meet right it it basically becomes a plan so if there's any any appeals or there's anything that that um that someone could say it's not in accordance with the HUD requirements the HUD requirements in the plan are identical so for them to administer so what happens is it almost becomes housekeeping but it is required by law the way I can explain it is similar to to the parking utility like like the governing body handles the parking utility really as as as a financial mechanical arm of the burrow it's not really you know a a a utility of people and and effort it's it's the same thing with that with the with the HUD plan is is they have to adopt it every five years I mean certainly I can provide that to you if you're more comfortable to to vote on that but it is exactly what the HUD requires and meets all their regulations so we're adopting it to ensure that Mullen and Lan comply with the Section 8 Federal housing rules as it well as it relates to Section 8 we operate in the fashion that the government wants us to and the plan doesn't talk in in layman's turn about how they operate Section 8 that's not what it's about it's about the adoption the compliance with the federal requirements so of the rules and and and the federal laws how much is this costing the burrow it doesn't cost the burrow as far as Finance yes it doesn't cost the bur anything so so because we already hire Mullen and Lanigan to admin Min Minister the plan and the operations and that's all paid by Hud so so the governing the governing body is is really the administrator of of Section 8 we hire someone else who gets paid through the whole through HUD to to um to run the program for us oh okay so it's not costing the taxpayers of Somerville anything and it is providing the benefit of Section 8 uh housing so yes it doesn't cause any local taxpayer money local taxpayer that's important it is it is federal tax yes without a doubt yes or federal deficit thank you very good all right any other questions roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes all right Roger bills and vouchers I make a motion to pay bills and vouchers in the amount of 1,486 12485 cents I'll second that but I have a comment discussion yes I just want to point out that of that number that 1.4 million 498,000 is a payment to the Sewer utility which is coming from New Jersey American Waters escrow account so it's actually a little less than a million of this of Somerville money being spent here okay yeah Ju Just on Clarity on that Tom's right is is the agreement requires New Jersey American Water to provide us the money and we provide it to the to the r Valley sew that that's the way it works because we're a member of the Sewer Authority they're not okay thank you roll call yes yes yes yes yes yes Mr Mitchell I will entertain a motion for adjournment move for adjournment second discussion all in favor I opposed this meeting is ajour