##VIDEO ID:I8YTnAoJdEc## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e scary mad second all right welcome everybody to our uh common council meeting this evening uh Madame clerk uh would you please read the adequate notice of compliance statement yes adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated December 18th 2023 which was properly distributed and posted per statutory requirements please be advised that fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room the city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired if anyone needs hearing assistance please obtain the system at the days and return it thereafter thank you uh take a roll call please Mr Boer pres Mr Miss Hamlet pres Mr benigar here Mr palaski here Mr Smallwood here Mr bartan present C council president McAn present all right um at this time uh pledge of allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance uh Chief Evers would you please lead us for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Chief thank you all right uh Madam clerk like to read our note regarding close session a close session meeting as authorized by state statute statute was announced and held prior to the start of this meeting and the known items for discussion were listed on the published close session agenda please be advised that Council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channel 36 and Verizon channel 30 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on httv on Comcast 36 and Verizon 33 when invited to speak please come to the lecturn clearly state your name and address spell your last name and speak into the podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement please give or email a copy to the city clerk at city clerk at city of summit .org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or needed for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you thank you um do I have a motion uh to approve the closed session and regular meeting notes of October 8th 2024 so moved I have a second second all in favor I I I oppos osed motion carries all right we're now on to our report uh part of our meeting uh Madame mayor thank you I have a lot to say I'm sorry I will Breeze through as quickly as I can um the Westfield Regional Health Department is providing appointments for free flu vaccines for those who are Homebound and their caretakers regardless of insurance status you can call the health department at 98789 470 extension 4074 or 4472 to make an appointment a reminder that fall curbside leaf collection is ongoing through Friday December 6th or the first major snowfall Lord help us if it's before that um leaves should be placed at the curb and paper biodegradable bags for pickup on household trash collection day Property Owners should not rake or blow leaves into piles in the street do not include Twigs branches or any other yard debris in Leaf Bags the shade tree advisory committee is seeking volunteers to help with the removal of tree suckers which are small branches that grow at the base and on the trunk of trees from the city's tree population volunteers will receive training and can work on their own schedule there will be no climbing on ladders or use of power tools sorry for those of you who like power tools um please contact John Kilby chair of the shade tree committee at John W Kilby and that's JN W Kilby at gmail.com or 908 27344 to volunteer early voting for The November 5th general election starts this weekend on Saturday October 26th and continues through Sunday November 3rd more information on all of those items can be found on the city website from our department of community programs the DCP will once again offer a fully supervised camp program during the New Jersey teachers convention on Thursday November 7th and Friday November 8th at the Summit Community Center they will be doing all of your favorite summer camp games and other fun seasonal activities program will be held each day from 8:30 to 5:30 and be sure to register early to save your spot for your child um on Friday at noon this Friday all Summit seniors are invited to have lunch with me please don't make me have lunch by myself um at the community center I'm looking forward to this opportunity to meet with any members of our senior population please be sure to RSVP to Gretchen at the summit recck which is G Master Foo gmas s r f o cityofsummit.org and last um I would like to address some something that came up at our last council meeting during public comment an individual raised concerns about how the city handles issues related to homeless individuals let me start by affirming that we deeply care about all of our residents whether they live in a mansion or are housing challenged in fact during a recent incident our EMS responders were assisting a homeless individual when a third party intervened delaying their response to the person in need as we do with all concerns we thoroughly investigated the matter the facts including police body cam footage reveal a different version of events than what was described at the meeting the bottom line is that Summit is an out has an outstanding EMS team and they responded swiftly and appropriately to the individual in need additionally our Police Department prioritizes responses based on the severity of the situation if they are handling an emergency non-urgent matters such as reports may need to wait Summit is a compassionate community in June out of concern for our homeless population we established a Tas Force dedicated to addressing this complex issue since then multiple organizations and individuals have devoted countless hours to find meaningful Solutions few towns in New Jersey are dedicating as much time and effort to this issue as we are we reget regret that this individual felt that the event did not meet our high standards of respect and dignity and professionalism in all of the years that I've lived here I've been proud to see our First Responders consistently meet those high standards and we will continue to ensure that everyone in our city is treated with the respect they deserve thank you thank you madam mayor all right moving along uh our city administrator thank you president a couple items more announcements than report I just want to announce that the search for the new city administrator has begun officially today we're accepting resumés I'm sure we're going to get a great pool of candidates to represent this city in the future and we look forward to the process moving forward second October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month all of our homes we all know people in our houses outside our houses are affected by this horrible disease and we urge everybody to please go get the anual appropriate checkups uh when you go through this horrible process in your own home that's the only time you really know about it and feel it so having it happen in my home I'm a little bit sensitive to it but I just want to bring everybody aware of that fact it's very important go get your checkups you know don't be bashful just do it and I know preaching mqu May uh next uh we've had a longstanding issue to resolve on Ashwood Court and I'm happy to announce that I think we've come to some resolution the property owner and uh the city have come to an alternate resolution and hopefully this resident is going to be happy with the end result I had her in my office this morning and uh hopefully moving forward the next time somebody speaks to you they're going to tell you the project is complete and everybody is satisfied as to where we are lastly I'd like to remind everybody this is the holoween season you have to make sure that our children are safe and this is a little fact that I came across today that was a little disturbing uh did anybody know that children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car on Halloween and any other Hol so all I say is please observe what's going on out there watch our children protect our children and just keep our eyes open that's all I have to thank you thank you Mr Tucci um well said uh I so for my comments I think um it's great and to see an issue that if you've been following Council meetings this issue on Ashwood Court's gone on for a long long time some sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to think about it a little differently and um we'll go into the details but it was a very eloquent solution to a long-standing problem so I credit Mr Tucci um and our engineering people to kind of come to this idea that hopefully will'll resolve this issue so credit yeah um me too um so uh Mr Tui did steal my thunder a little bit about Halloween uh sorry no it's great uh but again you know we Halloween is in nine days and it is a big deal for kids so um we can do our part by making it fun but we need to make it safe so please if you're driving around dusk Drive slowly your lights on um let's make it a fun event for our children but a very very safe event as well um and then the last thing I would say is this is our last meeting before the election okay so we got a couple of less than two weeks to go actually two weeks from today that's right um I hope everyone is passionate about the election process they should be um participatory democracy is important people should vote they should have their opinions heard they should be very open about persuading other people U of their opinions that's what participatory democracy is all about it's a great thing but let's all remember we're we're neighbors too okay so we should able to disagree about who we may support doesn't make us bad people it means we have a difference of opinion and I would hope that while we are voting we all remember we are all Hill Toppers and we will be Hill Toppers on November 6th as well and so I hope people go out there and do their darnest to support the candidates of their choice but let's be civil and let's remember we're neighbors so thank you okay uh we have one award uh this evening I believe Madame mayor okay my Vivid stage friends come on up please hello welcome Hi how are you thanks for joining us side of me is perfect okay dance with the microphone a little bit thank you for joining us thank you so this is a city of summit certificate of recognition awarded to Vivid stage in recognition of your contribution to the cultural health and enrichment of the Summit Community for the past 13 years the residents of summit and the local businesses all benefit from the presence of a professional Arts organization within the city this is presented to you on October 22nd 2024 at the Summit Common Council meetings thank you for coming thank you appreciate so much you thank you micophone get in the way and then right [Music] [Laughter] here thank you have anything um you know I never met a microphone I didn't like but I will be really fast I just want to say that um we so love being in Summit we've been here for 13 years we're at the Oak Center if you've never been please come see us we've been in existence 30 years um and and 13 of them here at the Oak Center so we appreciate everyone who is supportive of us in town and we we love we just love being here so thank you so much for this recognition thank you I will simply say thank you and come down and see our shows they're great [Applause] got a wck faceks thank you um okay uh moving along we now have our historical minute councilman palowski we have one for this evening I do awesome done to a tea that is the condition of our bread there is no sogginess from insufficient baking nor lack of nourishing qualities through too much baking The Summit Bakery uses material of fine quality and offers custom bread rolls customers bread rolls and biscuits of most delicious flavor in high grade another ad of the time for the Summit Bakery reads our bread will be delivered to residents at any time desired we make all kinds that's good uh these ads were in The Summit Record newspaper uh published in 1902 for George W Baldwin and Sons bake shop which was located at 466 spring field a with the telephone number 123 who was George Baldwin at the time of the ad he was our mayor the second mayor of summit he held that position for two years which was the term back then a Democrat Baldwin also had been a member of the first Common Council in 1899 living on Elm Street and representing W 2 the first ordinance introduced and passed at Baldwin and the first Common council meeting held on April 22nd 1899 provided that the mayor and coun and common Council would serve without pay it's still on the books today and we do not get paid uh in 195 President woodro Wilson appointed George Baldwin as summit's postmaster an esteemed Knight and founding member of the benevolent and protective order of Elks Lodge Number 1246 in 1931 George Baldwin and and his family have been fixtures in Summit for over 150 years take a tour of the property maps around city hall and you'll see no shortage of Baldwins George Baldwin begat Clinton Baldwin Clinton Baldwin begat Ralph Baldwin and Ralph Baldwin begat our esteemed CFO Tammy Baldwin there go thanks thank you councilman palas that was a great historical minute I love the tie in to today it's fantastic um very good all right um we do have the pleasure of having one presentation uh today uh this is uh from Lisa hibs who's the VP of operations and government relations from uh GAA is that correct from government that's government energy aggregation I am with uh commercial utility Consultants um and with me tonight is also Vicky Malloy uh with Concord energy Services we partner on these GAA programs yeah and and so councilman Smallwood you would you like to give a little introduction before the presentation uh sure so uh I met with uh via Zoom of course uh Lisa and Vicki uh several months ago I believe we first met in maybe May sounds right early May um and with also Donna P Donna Patel introduced me to them from the environmental commission and they thought it would be nice to have a conversation to talk about our energy costs that our residents have to pay on an annual basis to jcpnl and they were very accurate in the fact that they told me that in July JCP jcpnl were going to go up on their energy costs and this is an alternative to jcpnl in terms of purchasing power I don't want to steal your thunder but steal away um there are alternatives to purchasing power with other municipalities to lower our costs and JC but not replace jcpnl as the delivery so um I'm going to leave it up to you and you can I'll I'll you the regulatory rationale behind um all of those statements um made by by councilman Smallwood thank you so much um so yes uh this is a program um that is regula ated by the Board of Public Utilities division of rate Council and Department of Community Affairs all have a hand in this process all right so I just want to backtrack for two seconds we want I want to talk to you about um the way that energy is delivered um and the separation of delivery from Supply um in 1999 New Jersey deregulated separating out delivery from Supply the only only thing the energy aggregation program addresses is the supply side of the equation so unfortunately we cannot provide any savings opportunity on the distribution side of your jcpnl bill but certainly uh we would try to do so on the supply side so utility rates are set in the state of New Jersey uh through the basic generation Service auction which is regulated by the Board of Public Utilities it's held every February and rates accepted during that auction take effect in June of that same year so right now um energy suppliers in the state of New Jersey are these folks so right now these are the awarded suppliers from February 2024 um we would be looking to replace these folks with a different third party supplier it's the only thing that changes we're just replacing the basic generation service suppliers and that higher price with a lower price with a different licensed third party supplier in the state so what is community energy aggregation the community energy aggregation so it's um sorry the energy aggregation act uh of 2002 um was passed allowing municipalities um to aggregate government accounts to achieve savings if possible over what was being offered by um utility if we can achieve a lower rate for the government accounts um you would go with a different third party supplier at the lower rate saving taxpayer dollars right making them stretch a little bit further in 2013 um sorry in 2012 uh New Jersey Administrative Code title 14 chapter 4 sub chapter 6 deals with um the government energy aggregation programs it allows the municipality to aggregate the residential accounts to see if you can get lower rate for the residents accounts um versus what they're currently paying through their utility through the basic generation service suppliers if you go to auction and an award can be made there has to be savings for the residents otherwise you can't move forward um then an award if if we receive um pricing that's favorable you can make an award that is up to the municipality or the Cooperative that you join that is not something that we as energy Consultants um make those decisions we can certainly make recommendations but the ultimate decision is up to either the lead Agency for a Cooperative or the municipality itself if if you're in a standalone program so again it's an opportunity to offer savings to Residents um we do have um in our energy programs now the option for residents to opt into a 100% renewable energy product it is an opt-in option an opt up option if you will um I know that a lot of folks um go into a third party uh Supply contract for additional green energy um this way they have all of the protections offered through the energy aggregation program and oversight by the Board of Public Utilities budget stability all of those things offered through the program but they get the 100% renewable um energy as well so this is the toe in the water um conversation with you all um we do have um four cooperatives right now two under contract uh two are not one is a renewable energy program um that is sustainable Monmouth they have required additional renewable baked into um their standard offering so that's a little bit different um but we do have uh 26 towns right now under contract um through the cooperatives we also have the city of Hoboken also under contract at present um the energy Market has been um a bit of a challenge over the past few years um our programs uh sort of all ended at the same time in November 2021 that was um sort of at the tail end of um the covid um issues and and the shutdowns and things like that and then the energy Market just really took off I do want to touch on one quick slide which uh we talk about renewable energy right now the state in the state of New Jersey this the minimum required renewable energy baked into the basic generation service so any supplier in the state of New Jersey be it through the Cooperative or be it through basic generation service is it 27.5% that does I'm sorry 29 a. half% that does jump to 37.5% and it goes up exponentially from there there are challenges on the market um for that additional renewable it's getting expensive and that's part of the reason that you're seeing the basic generation Service rates go up it's also um becoming a challenge for us to be competitive um in in in the current market for for those additional um renewable energy demands as Supply lags a little bit behind we're building we have we have things in the pipeline but building them out and connecting them um to the power grid is uh a bit delayed so with that um I I will um let you know that in this packet there is a lot of information we cover and I believe that this will be shared with council tomorro is um so it we talk about our Cooperative experience there's savings details in here for each of our cooperatives there's the name of the towns um in each of the cooperatives and these are sort of builtin options um should the city of summit want to move forward with joining one of these cooperatives um they already exist they already have a history of saving residents money um and a lot of them have been around for quite some time 2016 2017 2019 and we just started the Garden State Community energy co-op in 2023 there were three towns already signed up for that one so with that um next steps would be if this is something that you do want to consider um Next Step would be an ordinance the ordinance allows authorizes the city of summit to offer the GAA program it does not obligate you to do that it if you don't have the ordinance you can't participate if you do have the ordinance it just allows you to to go ahead and go to auction if you wanted to join one of the co-ops um that would be a resolution and we can provide all of those documents if and when you are ready for them thank you um I'm going to open it up uh right now to questions from councel Council president thank you this um just a couple of uh questions for you um so I I try to do the 100% renewable but I realized it was I'm I think I'm buying it from really far away is this this would allow us to buy New Jersey generated 100% renewable if we wanted you could it's going to be as expensive as you're seeing it in in your individual it gets very expensive the closer you get to it being generated the pricier it gets because there's so little of it okay the 100% renewable is sort of Ohio um wind that it's the same thing that you're seeing probably in your third party supply contract we certainly could look to pjm grown or pjm generated or New Jersey generated but that adds um cost oh okay Y and then I know that's an option for people um is that the Cooperative that allows that or is that the GAA that allows that or both that is that's a combination of both so the um the regulations themselves allow for it and also it is up to the Cooperative or the municipality to offer that to Residents if they want to we have just seen over the past five years it's just a no-brainer to offer it yeah um this is an opt out program that means that if the city moves forward everybody in town that is with jcpnl would be included in the program they can opt out there's a 30-day opt out period at the beginning of the launch of a program during which we would hold Town Hall style meetings there's a mailer that goes out the um the material in those optout kits or information kits is regulated by the Board of Public Utilities um that gets mailed US Postal Service um to every eligible resident um I would not suggest doing that at election time because those kits get mixed in with all sorts of campaign materials things like that we're experiencing a little bit of that with the city of Hoboken right now um but we would do Town Hall style meetings um and we would really lean into um the city experience with best ways to communicate with residents um some some towns use nixel um some towns have a a newsletter something like that um senior centers libraries places like that where we can really get in touch with the residents to talk to them about hey everyone has to be in it's part of the regulations that govern the program not everyone has to stay in we do have a permanent opt out feature as well meaning if you do join a co-op um one that's been around since 2017 they tend to have you know a 12-month program a 15-month program so there's new program information coming out each time for a resident that does not want to be disturbed there's a permanent opt out feature they will not be notified or have to opt out of the program each time they would have to opt in instead during that 30-day window no accounts are enrolled with the third party supplier everybody's just sort of kind of making a decision after that 30-day period anyone who has not opted out opted up done something um that's when we send that list to jcpnl to say hey please include these residents in this energy aggregation program jcpnl then sends a confirmation letter to the residents saying hey it's we're we've been informed that it's your intention to participate in this energy aggregation program if this is a mistake let us know within 7 days and you won't be included so there's a sec there's a the second mailing in case they missed the opt out mailer there is the confirmation from the utility that goes out as well residents can opt in and out of this program at any time for no reason for any reason during the term of the contract no fees or penalties ever okay and then my last question um is it really is it or do we have the ability to I know I'm probably getting really ahead of myself is it really easy to convey the savings that people will get because I know that's a really complicated thing when it comes to like we have an online savings tool so all residents have to do is go online set up their password and they will see uh month-to Monon their actual savings through the program it's also on their jcpnl bill each month but rather than have residents have to track that on their own figure out how to read my bill I get it online I don't know we um actually have an online savings tool to make it as simple as possible um we also would Prov IDE um the city of summit with their own login and password where you could see the aggregate savings for your residents you would not be able to see individual savings other than your own um but you would be able to see how the program is performing that's great thank you other questions through you council president yes please first I wish we could get all of our 22,500 residents on board um but a lot of people just don't you know they don't know they don't pay attention they you know they go about their lives I can imag waking up one day and say the city enrolled me into something that I had no clue about um why not have an opt in and as opposed to it was originally written that way and the Board of Public Utilities changed it because in order to offer these programs you have to have the aggregate usage there's a 20% opt out I mean people I mean overall there's a 20% opt out people proactively opting out of the program um um but the city of Hoboken has 24,000 residents we're rolling out their program right now for the third time they actually clammer for this program at this point so yes first time through there's going to be that initial hey how how can you make this decision for me we're just taking what the state does bringing it down to the local level it's the same auction process we have the same oversight that the basic generation Service auction has um through Department of Community Affairs um it's just by bringing it to the local level we achieve a savings again they can opt out the worst thing that's going to happen is they save money those few months that they were in the program when if they realize hey you did this to me I don't want it we opt them back out they go and pay the higher price through the basic generation service worst thing that'll happen is they'll call they call they'll call you but then you tell you tell them to call me um but again you we have references as well that we can provide to the city so um we work with 99 municipalities on this program so you are not um the first town to have to um decide whether you want to make this decision for your residents and it's okay if you don't want to offer it that's fine we just wanted to make you all aware and and last question uh I know that you were talking about savings I mean we we all want to want to talk about money savings um in just in general what is the average savings that's a difficult question to answer because the market right now um the city of Hoboken is their savings has to be around 8% um for the two Coop higher well now yes now it is it's about to come December it's much higher um but that just you know we hit the market on a great day that's per household uh yeah okay yeah that that is that's a universal the price to compare with the basic generation service is here our program rate is here that's the delta between the two so someone um I always say there's no average savings because you could have two of the same house next to each other and two completely different usage patterns you could have somebody who's not using a lot of electricity and then somebody who's got every light on every Appliance plugged in and running at the same time so even the same siiz house you will see quite a difference in that usage so we always look to what is the difference between the price to compare and the rate that we achieved and that's sort of where we start on the day of auction is there's a 5% saving there's a 7% saving sometimes there's a 133% savings on average I would say comfortably 8% since we've been doing these programs since 2014 um it's it's right in there to 10 sure thank you other questions for you council president yes please uh as far as the auction process how does that work with the municipality because the commodity has to be at the time of the auction correct award so that means the governing body would have to be on standby that day when you do the auction to make the award is that correct correct unless you are in a cooperative and then the lead agency is making that decision on the on behalf of the participating members of the co-op yes second question on an average bill the bill will show transmission cost and supply cost separately so assuming that the transmission is going to be through jcpnl line or transmission is included in the in the basic generation service price in your supply charges but distribution yes is separate let me find my sample Jon there it is so yes so on your jcpnl bill right now distribution is separated from your supply charges the only thing that changes through the program on the um jcpnl bill is where it says basic generation service charges right now it would be replaced with supplier XYZ for your energy aggregation program and then in the message section there will be a message that says hey you're in with a third party supplier if you were on the basic generation service this month you would be paying X so you can see it so you can see the supply charges through the um the supplier for the the energy aggregation program and you would also see what you would have paid if you were on the basic generation service with JCP now if I heard you correctly you said you have to be in an opt out program there is no optin program there is no opt in it's only an opt out okay thank you so much council president I do have yes please um how how do you what's the mechanism for opting out is it is it portal is it paper it's everything it's paper in that um information packet there will be an opt out card with a postage PID envelope that gets mailed back to the energy Consultants or the supplier however the Cooperative decides to work it um those are processed and there is a check off box on there if if they want to not only opt out from this round of the program but permanently offered in a different language yes we can offer in in any language that you need it in um and we also have a toll-free number it's a hotline all they do is process opt outs they do not answer questions about the program they literally just opt people out all day long um and then there's also the web portal same portal where the online savings tool is residents can opt up into 100% renewable opt out completely change their minds Midstream opt back in all of that can be done online yes and there will be a page and you can look and um Rosemary I will provide you um I believe I provided it to Kevin but we'll give you some sample web pages of live programs that are going on now so you can get a a taste and a feel for what that looks like council president one more question yes please Mr Tui uh the term of the auction is it one annually that your auction goes on or a threeyear term fiveyear term it can only they can be up to 24mth terms that's in the regulations they can't go beyond 24mth um they can be as short as nine they can be anywhere in between um they can be as short as three six we don't recommend that that's a lot of disruption um for such a short hit um 9mon is the shortest we've gone um and that was the pilot that was actually the pilot program where we first rolled out the 100% renewable optup right now we have the 15-month contract um for both of our co-ops and um a longer contract term for Hoboken but that's just sort of where the market was on that day um and we talked we talked to you about those options thank you other questions yes please I wanted to give everybody else an opportunity to ask her so a couple of things I'm really glad you put up the uh the jcpnl bill um one of the things that really sold me about this is that more importantly when it comes to money it's not going to cost the city anything to make this change um we would just simply create an ordinance to allow this and then they would I guess take take it over from there and walk a step by step on on getting this but it wouldn't cost the city anything to opt into this program secondly we only adopt this this program if it actually saves our residents money so and then from there the the residents have an option to opt out if they so choose they're if they do nothing they'll get the same jcpnl bill the only thing that changes is where they're getting their supply from correct uh and obviously she mentioned before that they will see their cost savings on each and every Bill the other point that I I wanted to bring up uh is the opt up program which Andy alluded to uh for you can opt up to 100% renewable energy obviously that may cost a little bit more just simply because of the limited supply of it and where they have to actually purchase it correct correct so uh for for those of you who would like to have 100% renewable energy that option is available uh if you currently have solar or if you are purchasing a through a third party already you can just simply opt out of this program they're not included to begin with oh sorry yeah so when we get the I'm sorry I'm sorry about that um when we get the list from jcpnl they identify net metered customers we pull them out um they do not provide us with information for anyone currently enrolled with a third party supplier of their own because we could possibly do them harm by switching them over if they have an early termination penalty or some kind of a fee they would incur that while I'm trying to save them money um so they are not included um in the list provided by jcpnl okay great even better ex um jcpnl will won't go knock on their doors and say hey you should come back to us no one from this program will ever knock on doors or make phone calls there's no telemarketing there's no um door-to-door solicitation um Funny Thing Once a um town does the program and it starts to roll out um third party suppliers learn about it know about it they read the same newspaper articles they track the BPU website they see who's offering programs and they will perhaps come into town knock on doors and say hi I'm with the city of summit's GAA program I need to see your bill to make sure that you're enrolled and then they get slammed um so we do not door knock all of the information is mailed US Postal Service to Residents everything that we do in town is through common Council um and and staff um so we would really lean into you to to help us get the word out okay and the closest municipality I believe is Milburn who just joined Milburn for their first time there um September 2024 uh yeah their residents are in the Hun area energy Cooperative I the names please don't be alarmed by the names of these um they are not geographically tied to their name um as long as the participating towns in that Cooperative have a jcpnl town in there you could certainly join that Cooperative great other questions um I I had a couple um so councilman Smallwood allude to the process where we as a as a council we would approve the rate that you would come to us for xterm if it was higher than the jcpnl we would just say you can't accept it we can't accept it exactly so the first protection for residents to know that it it will not be higher than the their current jcpnl bill correct secondly even if for some odd reason that a resident would rather go with jcpnl in that regard they would have the option to to do that at any time and for a resident um it would be a seamless transition meaning they get the same bill every month it looks the same except for the detail that you alluded to uh that's a little bit different so for them their life doesn't change their life does not change um except that if it is an 8% savings as you mentioned 8% $100 electricity bill every month that's almost 100 bucks extra in your pocket not bad um the other question I have is um Community engagement around roll out now my thought around this before we would look to pass an ordinance on this and I understand that it gives us the option to join I would think that we would want to do some Community engagement prior to the passage of an or orance just so that uh our residents understand what this is all about and is that I guess my question is what is sort of I know there's not one siiz fits all but what is some what is a a a common process that governing bodies would adopt with you to do specifically Community engagement around this some towns have done um Survey Monkey or something like that um on a website you you kind of put it on your web page website um and say hey town is considering this um I'm sure that we could put together a video I'm I'm I haven't consulted with Vicki at all so she may be sitting there going what um we could create a video a very generic video just about what Gea is um that you could certainly put on the website we could come do Town Halls whatever you want us to do great and then my last question is you mentioned that um there's very various terms that are available like a 9 months to to a 24 months so say you we went into a 24mon one and they auction power once a year for and then my understanding is that's the rate that gets set for the prior 12 months say we go into a 24-month contract in August this gets reset for the spring and for some reason it's lower what happens then of all the problems to have um we would go back to the supplier and say Hey you know and I know the basic generation service is about the price is about to drop below our program rate can you match can you match the 5% savings 8% savings can you offer us the Delta between there are um there are um Clauses in there's a whole section in um the supplier agreement that covers early termination termination Clauses things like that um depending on the supplier appetite they may say no I can't just let's just just send everybody back let's just end it early um which we've done and and so that would be again we would say okay we're just going to remove ourselves and I guess there would be language around doing that and that and if that would happen What seamlessly the our our residents would just go back to J seemlessly back to jcpnl now anytime that we change the price um change the term from what was originally agreed upon we must notice the the participating residents that are still in the program of said change and that's a 30-day requirement that is part of the regulations so residents would be notified again US Postal Service probably a postcard um but also we would again look to newsletters can we post something at the library on a bulletin board something like that just to alert residents that hey the program's ending early you're going back to the basic generation service through jcpnl effective this state okay thank you m council president just one more question yeah um I recall it was a hurricane in Texas storm or something like that right and uh prices went through the roof and the utility said well you're with a third party we can't help you you have to pay and you have to pay these exorbitant fees can you elaborate on that and how that happens through storms and so that is an individual contract um the polar vortex of I believe it was 2014 um actually affected New Jersey residents um ask me how I know um so I I believe that um I don't know if an individual third party supplier can still pass all of those costs on to uh a person in a contract like that this program the price is fixed for the term of the contract they cannot do that part of the BPU RS yep thank you yep I wasn't trying to trip you up there but that good it's all no I I agree 100% no but that but again those are the consumer protections offered through the GAA program that you can provide to your residents that they can't necessarily get on the open market for themselves they don't have to stay in but at least there's some budget security and there's the predatory piece that's not there okay any other questions all right so we know how to get a hold of you you do correct okay so we'll discuss internally figure out which committee might want to Bandy this about a little bit more but thank you very very much for your time thank you I'm sorry I ran over okay thank you thank you thank you very much all right uh we're going to get into the meet of our meeting uh today we have an ordinance for introduction um Madame mayor will you please read the ordinance for introduction I think Madame clerk oh Madam Clerk I'm sorry no I'm not doing it thank you mad okay ID number 11560 an ordinance amending the code chapter 4 General licensing section 4- 9.6 minimum standards of performance subsection D minimum storage requirements thank you um councilman uh Boer thank you council president this ordinance as read uh 1156 amending the code for the tow operator storage requirements this amendment seeks to modify chapter 4 General license section 4 d. 6B of the city ordinance regarding the storage facility requirements of towing service the current ordinance mandates that tow companies must have their storage facilities located within City Limits however there are no heavy duty toe Services currently operating within the city and using a heavyduty toe service from outside of the city would put the city in violation of this ordinance the proposed amendment will allow Heavy Duty Towing Companies to have their storage facilities within a mile radius of City Limits this change ensures that the city can use heavy duty towing services in compliance with the ordinance addressing the current service Gap it also provides greater flexibility for lightweight Duty Tow Service ensuring more consistent and efficient operations especially if the scheduled tow provider is unavail unavailable or ceases to operate I move to open this ordinance for a hearing do I have a second second okay um so our hearing date on this ordinance will be November 6 correct that's that's a Wednesday Wednesday and the day after the election um council president we we usually ask the council if they'd like to make any comments but we withhold the public comment for the hearing right so um at this time any council members have a comment yes uh so my question thank you my question is when I look on the bill list and drive everybody crazy asking questions the day before the meeting will this I see a lot of Towing charges for different different companies will we and you don't have to answer me now but my question is will we be going out for an RFP for a specific tow truck company for our Vehicles I'm just do we have an RFP right now or is this I guess that it's generally not done by RFP what they do is they'll they'll do they'll have a series of tow truck operators not just one because you could have multiple accidents or mult multiple uh things going on where tow trucks are needed so many towns have they qualify it's rfqs and they qualify a series of tow truck operators who meet their VAR specifications um and I mean the fact of the matter is you have 24 um you know if a truck flips you need as as the councilman is talking about one of those huge heavy duty cranes to to flip the truck so most towns have it um and they they model it after um you know looking at the state because the New Jersey State Police because a lot of what happens with tow trucks and people don't realize probably the biggest user of tow trucks in the town is your Police Department so if they pull somebody over for DWI if there's a car accident if somebody doesn't have insurance somebody doesn't have a license they have the car towed and impounded because they don't want it to be unsafe so there's a whole law that deals with um Towing law enforcement toes and this will give your police more opportunities because the one thing that happens with if you only had one towing company people could end up waiting for hours the other thing people don't realize is everyone says oh I have roadside assistance I have this car I have Road well if you have if you have a car problem at 24 roadside assistance isn't going out 2872 for Parkway you need there that's all bit out by certain Towers on certain mileage points thank you other questions and to get our police um off the side of the road as quickly as possible is great I mean there's some service providers that could be right there you know thank you other comments or questions okay hearing none um roll call Mr Boyer I miss Hamlet hi Mr migar hi Mr palowski hi Mr Smallwood hi Mr bartan hi president Chan I okay we're moving on to resolutions um our first uh set of resolutions comes from Finance councilman minegar thank you council president this is number 11540 and this resolution approves our City's submission of responses to the best practice inventory program the results of this annual best practice survey determine how much of our allocation of Consolidated municipal property tax relief and emerging tax relief Aid that will be dispersed to us there is a minimum score on this survey to receive 100% of that Aid and Summit has once again exceeded that minimum score on the survey and will receive 100% of our funding uh the answers to this survey which you can see in the full agenda packet are pretty interesting um it gives you insight into some uh pretty interesting New Jersey best practices that our city meets including publishing of audit audit reports um network security cyber security Readiness uh I move to adopt this resolution on a second comments from the public have any comments from Council I just have one which we thank our CFO and her team for doing this it's a lot of work and uh well done lot of very specific details well Tammy when do you start doing this the work for this um through you council president as soon as they releasee it uh this year they release it about mid-september um over the years it has gotten um more inclusive so I have to work with all of the department head so everybody kind of plays a part in this and there are several as you noticed um unscored questions which the state is looking for information so it's more of a past fail you don't get more more money if you get a better score no it's 100% but it does decline if you don't reach at least 35 yeses or perspectives or it's not applicable to you it does decline by a percentage for how many less you have we've been fortunate enough that we've always had enough best practices we've exceeded it so we haven't had any issue and then when do we submit it did we already submit this by Friday okay got it question after you approve it after uh any other questions or comments from Council I would just like to say thank you again Tammy this is uhu I know you put all this together but bre best practices are across a lot of different areas of of City staff so um thanks to all City staff for doing a fantastic job um all right um all in favor I I opposed motion carries all right uh councilman migar Finance number two thank you council president this is number 11541 and this resolution authorizes a 2-year contract extension for our on call HVAC maintenance and repair service from January 1st 2025 to December 31st 2026 not to exceed $50,000 per contract year the initial awarding of this contract to Industrial cooling Corporation back in 2023 allowed for one two-year extension this resolution seeks to exercise that option and with the same terms and conditions that are currently in place the vendor has been beneficial to the city to have on call and so I moveed to adopt this resolution I second comments from the public comments from councel all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries councilman migar Finance number three please thank you council president this is number 11557 and this resolution authorizes Bond Council Services through the end of 2025 not to exceed $60,000 the agreement with Hawkins Delafield and wood LLP provides the city services that include preparation of capital Bond ordinances issuance of bonds and notes to finance those Bond ordinances and assistance in continuing disclosure requirements and the one-year extension here includes once again the same rates we have been offered uh in the past having spoken with uh CFO Baldwin um about the possibility of going to bid for something like this in the future um it was strongly recommended that this year uh as we are engaged in the search process for a new city administrator uh any request for proposal for this particular set of services should be postponed until after that position is filled I I completely agree with that um otherwise I move to adopt this resolution I second comments from the public comments from Council I'll just make one comment um we have a couple of uh Professional Service agreements that are on the agenda for this evening and there has been some discussion about well I are we just asking for bids and RFP in these things and and councilman Minar spoke to this one specifically um I think there is value in a process that we would engage in going out to bid on these services on some regular basis um there is a there is work to do around that you have to prepare um the RFP uh you have to award it you have to vet the the the applicants and then once the person's awarded it's a lot of work on City staff as well to train them on how they would interact with the city every City's different um so it is a lot of work so there is there's there's definitive benefit for going out to try and find the best person the best group for the right price but there's also cost involved and I think something that I would recommend that we do maybe starting first quarter um is that the administrative committee look to look at all our uh contracts and look to schedule some rational I don't know a third of them may be going out for RFP every year um to have a schedule so City staff know that this year they need to prepare those rfps uh we can have a best practice where we look at these on a regular basis but it's transparent City staff understands the process they can prepare for it they're not going to be surprised that this comes up in the last meeting in October um and then we can move forward the public knows that we are always vetting for the best price for the best services for our community so that's something I would like to propose um and and that that committee could start working on that um maybe as soon as next meeting um the uh and and again I just wanted to say that for this one but I think that those same comments um would be appropriate for some of the other resolutions on here okay um all right all in FA oh I just had one comment I would say that you know some of the feedback that we always hear is well you know our professionals are wonderful and why should we look and of course they're wonderful um but I think that it's it is our fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer again to to make sure that we we do go out and and I think we'll all learn something as well and and if you're the best professional you'll probably still come out on top but as an elected official it's always good to get other opinions and a different set of eyes so nobody should take it personally when we say we want to do an RFP or RFQ it's just it's simply what you elected us to do thank you any other comments all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you all right uh councilwoman Hamlet uh capital projects and Community Services number one sure can I bundle these or would you prefer I don't bundle them I think you can I'm okay to bundle them okay many objections okay okay so we have so we're bundling one two and and three yes okay and we can talk about them separately if needed but I think it just makes sense to do how would I how would you like me to do that Rosie just I would just go one by one just okay and then you make the motion to okay adopt uh this is uh ID 11484 amending Professional Services agreement 2024 city planner and Zoning support services for additional fees of $30,000 and that would be uh for Burgess and Associates the second one is to amend sorry ID 11483 to amend Professional Services agreement 2024 Legal Services affordable housing attorney fees not to exceed 26,000 uh and that is for uh Nancy Holmes uh sorry seren and Edwards uh buak and Nolan our affordable housing attorney and then ID 11489 to amend Professional Services agreement 2024 Consulting Engineering Services additional fees not to exceed uh $355,000 which is Stone fuel engineering I would like to move these resolutions second comments from the public thank you good evening I'm Claire to T at 11 Sunset Drive these resolutions before Council um total $91,000 in professional fees beyond what had originally been authorized as Miss Hamlet noted the outside planner engineer and affordable housing Council in Janu or the beginning of the year Council authorized a total of 170,000 for these professionals and subsequently authorized an additional 30,000 for housing councel so all in our professional fees are suddenly 71% higher than originally authorized and anticipated and the explanations in the council packet provide no re real detail for why why this is happening so before Council spends our tax dollars like this I think it owes Summit residents a fuller explanation of why the increased spending as taxpayers we rely upon you to be good stewards of our funds and so please take the time to demonstrate to us that you are thank you hi irn Miller five Knob Hill Drive um I understand there are expenses that the city needs to pay for our service and we appreciate all the people who provide services to our residents um and hopefully if we're looking to save money we can look at the state and federal level and the money that is spent there and the people we elect at the state and federal level that spend our money at those levels um and we shouldn't be Pennywise and pound foolish in that regard thank you thank you other comments from the public all right comments from Council I have one Council I was just going to defer right back to you dilia because I we know we know what it is right I mean you know yeah what let me um yeah go ahead so I I think I spent a collective total of probably four hours yesterday and and perhaps another a few hours with this gentleman austo here today Rosie I'm not sure if you can pull up a couple of those graphs in an email um I can't do emails from here oh got it okay all right well I have some amazing graphs and the good news is that this isn't costing uh the the Su city of summit taxpayer uh another dollar this is coming from our affordable housing Trust fun um Augusto can you just explain a little bit about what we talked about today you were so wonderful and I don't want to put you on the spot but we do have answers for you for all all three of these firms we can identify for that affordable housing trust fund yes um so absolutely well um it may seem concerning that there is an approximate $90,000 increase the truth of the matter is that as uh Statewide the city enters into a process of uh it's round three round four affordable housing obligations next we next year we're prepping towards uh state cross acceptance and perhaps a master plan reexamination these increases are U mostly or the vast majority due to increased round three affordable housing trust fund use if we compare 2023 nominal spending to 2024 on our operational aspects uh they're very close they're basically one to one and these are all the non-refundable items matters of procedure that the city City handles what has increased is the uh necessity to uh have work conducted uh for our affordable housing bills to Escrow um Legal Services towards affordable housing for example um you know just having our wonderful attorney Nancy Holm uh work out all the implications there all the work conducted by Mount Laurel subcommittee all affordable housing matters so um the the I don't know an eye-catching implication is that in the real difference from 2023 to 24 there's only an approximate 15% difference on operational spending which is fairly insignificant we're talking about maybe a couple thousand dollars of actual taxpayer money but the rest is predominantly escrow I hope that explains it if if I may we I think uh we battled over our Excel spreadsheet pivot tables today we went through just about every invoice and um you know I commend you for for your due diligence in that one and I will say the other thing that we talked about today because um I've been talking to the council president is I think anything in this bucket will be approved uh through this man uh Tom Tucci is that correct yeah I I think um look we want to be good stewards of the taxpayer money I think it's a it's a valid um objective obviously uh there there needs to be a a tight process around um when we do authorize these outside services to spend money it's a I think it needs to have a good process where multiple sets of eyes are on that ultimately it should be it should sit at the city administrator level to get to approve these um requests that may come up from department heads um and that's where it should reside and and at that level the city administrator has the big picture that they can see how it we relate to our budget how it relates to our overall spending Etc I don't know if you want to add to that Mr Tucci yes and there will be free approvals prior to any work being done you have to get authorization to do it so anything above and beyond the contract under state public contracts law contract cannot be exceeded more than 20% anyway so there's a lock in there but nobody should be expending any dollars beyond what the governing body approves and if there is extenda circumstance it's going to have to go through a process thank you other Council comments yep counc please Council bartan jump on off on all of that stuff uh I agree I agree um I do want to understand a little bit further how how we're going to have it be the case that anything now that we've approved be above and beyond here is going to be attributed to affordable housing but I'll make a few other points first um my reservations about this uh speak to two main issues which are control which under there is accountability and prioritization of what work is being done and the second is the fiscal responsibility piece so access to professionals would be previously centralized under the administrator and the council president and when we were at full strength at City Hall it could be determined what questions or information could be answered in house or what projects could be done in house or what needed to be farmed out to a professional and then it would protect against mismatch doing it that way would protect against mismatched information so one member of council or two members of council or half of council has information on something that the other half of council doesn't have and it also protects against wasting taxpayer money on projects that department heads might not know is happening the city administrator might not know is happening council members might not know is even happening so the those projects and the conversations between professionals can then take on a life of their own and then they're they they go off to the Races by way of billing so what we got why we're at this point where we're raising these all and one of them for the second time is that we didn't have the the processes in place we I I'm uncomfortable regardless of of whether it's coming from the trust fund or whether it's coming from the general fund I'm uncomfortable raising it again because of the implications on the process and the budget um but I did speak with the council president before um I get we need the services we need an in-house planner to be sitting here that that working on that um what we do not need at this moment is those professionals to be working on AR projects like ordinances that we may want to implement in the future that are not necessary to the operation of City Hall and so we do have to be very clear and we we agreed on that before what will be prioritized and what will be deprioritized very clearly I'm really happy to hear about pre-authorization before anything is done um so that we don't duplicate work um I'll close by saying I would prefer that we home the scope of what we are asking for from each of these three and lower the amount of money that we're appropriating tonight to each of them I understand those probably represent a material change to the resolution it may not be possible but I will state that that's where my preference is because I do not think we should be writing a blank check for up to 30 26 and $35,000 we must be more disciplined so I'll leave there ber thank you councilman thank you you had another comment councilwoman I just my only comment is when I said it was directly attributed to the affordable housing trust fund what I was trying to explain which I think Augusto tried to explain better is that the increases were due to the fourth round of affordable housing trust fund the affordable fourth round for affordable housing the the increases are specifically linked to that I am totally fine and I've told you this I don't think we we need to uh Stonefield I would not put on the agenda tonight but you Greg Vartan in our committee meeting you were okay with Stonefield I do not think that we need to in approve that right now but if our city engineer is telling us that that is the right thing to do right now I would be willing to not not approve that tonight um however as our as as our uh our Augusto had mentioned um I think we have pretty good justification for our city planner and our affordable housing attorneys but I do think we have money with other engineering firms or there might be some other ideas for surveying there there are always other options out there uh you don't have to utilize one single firm there many licensed land surveyors out that you can utilize for these processes the other thing is you need to look at regulations with Co a lot of times colid doesn't even require a land survey if you have an official tax map that's up to date they accept that as official mapping so there are other processes that need to be examed right sure just one other comment yeah very very quickly though Ju Just to be clear though not everything so far that has happened this year especially our planner and the especially the planning services not everything is related to the third or fourth round of affordable housing so we can't point the finger and say that's the only reason why we have to make these adjustments there has been work done on various other ancillary things that are not necessary to the operation of City Hall that have been worked on that I would suggest we put on the shelf and say we're done with those for now and we're going to get through the rest of this year spending as little of this increase as possible that's my suggestion thank you any other comments three council president I have no idea what these other things are that we're worked on and I I I've not read them in the packet and now I'm concerned about voting for this and if it's not critical I guess if I know Aaron's not here tonight um you surrogate for Aaron right yeah um is it critical that we vote on this tonight well we there are planning Services we need a planner to work with the zoning board he has to get paid so some of these ancillary things they do there are things that they have to do around how the city process so I completely agree with councilman Varan that we do have to have a priority around like some things we'll put off till next year that we have to tackle then but we need planners to help with the day-to-day running of the city that if we don't have a planner no one's going to help the zoning board out for the rest of the year so so these are things that have to have happen so I I I I appreciate your concern I think it's a good one but there are things you know the these these professionals Provide support to our city staff on a regular basis and I think um with uh uh City administrator Tui working with this where we where it like they have to get pre-approved I'm hoping these numbers don't get hit um and if they do get hit there should be a very good reason for it that we would be informed of um but we we do have to have the professionals working with with the town yeah absolutely thank you council president if if I may say one more thing one of the things we dissected this today to the level of nauseum and and we will probably weed this down in the next week and a half but when we went through all these invoices you have to remember we're using neglia engineering uh sorry neglia consulting firm um basically to replace our zoning officer when she retired for the last since January January February March April May June tune of eight grand a month so and our our city planner was also one day a week utilizing his service serves to look at uh zoning permits and and there's a lot of things in these bills that I think we need to fine-tune but 100% that this is we we went through it today and everything is line by line and and you can ask Augusto for all the information if you're unsure about anything but he has one more thing please with the hiring of a permanent zoning officer and assistant a lot of those Consulting charges go away now they're no longer necessary or needed and you you will not see them anymore on the pill thank you um any other comments yes yes councilman Smallwood um so just to be clear we had a full-time City administrator until August right we've known that we didn't have a zoning officer who I believed she gave her retirement notice in March and when did we hire our zoning officer last month so you know when we had staff full staff we we still weren't operating at full staff because there were months without a zoning officer so in order to get through some of this stuff and Greg I don't want to spend this much money as you do either I'm looking at this and like you know up to 35,000 up to 26,000 up to $30,000 and I'm trying to figure out like why why are why are we having to pay for all these all these steps well one is we didn't have an offic we didn't have a zoning officer so we hav to pay for a planner right no absolutely and and one of the things I've had uh quite a few meetings with staff as well as Mr Tucci a priority is we need to fill in the boxes of our or chart and you'll see that uh tonight that we are beginning to chip away at that and and it's imperative that we have good people in the right spots um there's lots of different reasons why some may have not been filled quicker than they or as quickly as they might have been but that's a priority because as we do that I think to as what I'm hearing that should bring work back inh house versus with outside Services um one other comment Council uh it's really just a question um uh Mr Tui alluded to um an updated tax map is our tax map currently up to date I believe they were updated about a year ago so they're pretty much up to date as far as tax methods go I think it was two years ago two years I knew it was close approximately so is is the work on this third resolution um to be done to update when do we need to update our tax M by by normally they're done every two to three years so in a lot of communities they don't do them for 10 12 some is more fortunate at this point any other comments okay I I'll just end with a comment I think uh councilwoman Hamlet thank you for digging in um and thank you for digging in as well for the numbers there be a lot to to sort through this though highlights where we are spending a lot of money and I think councilwoman Hamlet uh spoke to this a lot of this money is coming out of our affordable housing trust fund is my understanding because it this has to do with s satisfying our obligations either to round three or to the upcoming round four this is the dirty secret that Trenton doesn't talk about that the amount of money that we spend on lawyers on planners the the the process that they've created in Trenton is a nightmare it's a Byzantine you know you couldn't make it up if you tried and you have to have planner after planner and lawyer after lawyer to make sure you're checking every single box and every time you do that that's money that doesn't go to affordable housing it's ridiculous so I get it but you know when you when people start asking like why isn't there more affordable housing in New Jersey how about they make the process simpler where we can actually take the money that we raise for affordable housing from fees from Developers and actually use it to support affordable housing then paying lawyers and planners and all these people who are on the Dole on the dime who Lobby our people in Trenton to get these Byzantine laws passed and as people who care about affordable housing how about some of the IR gets put at Trenton to make the rules simpler so we can actually put money to work to solve the problem [Applause] all right um with that we're bundled the first three all in favor I I I opposed motion's Carri all right let's move along uh to Capital and community service projects number four councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president this is resolution 11530 a resolution of the city of summit supporting the county of Union application to the New Jersey Transportation Authority local safety grant for improvements to the intersection of Ash Avenue and Morris Avenue whereas the city of summit desires to enhance safety at the intersection of Ashwood Avenue and Morris the county of Union is preparing a Grant application to the north Jersey Transportation Planning Authority whereas the preliminary engineering has identified the in the intersection of Ashwood and Morris within the municipality of summit and a resolution of support is required by the njtpa application whereas the city of summit supports the application for safety improvements at the intersection of Ashwood and Morris Avenue I would like to move this resolution solution second comments from the public comments from Council I guess I would just have one this is if you look at your Council packet tonight there's a p a pretty picture of the intersection and for those of you who can't make a left turn uh right there on uh I think it's right in front of it's they're they're creating uh left like the the left turn Aaron or Augusta you might be able to explain the easier Aon would be a explain it but the left turn from uh Morris onto Ashwood and it's a tricky area so I think it's going to really improve this so I thank the county for for doing this I think it's really important Greg you might be able to to mention yeah sure um that I think is the main like traffic change that's happening a left turn only lane from Mars onto Ashwood I live right there and there's accidents like all the time and I and part of the Improvement is that striping of the street and all those changes making sure that the intersection are all ADA Compliant and all that stuff but it's a signal replacement project too and part of the issue is that when you're driving on Ashwood Avenue toward Broad Street you often miss the the signal or people that don't drive it often miss the signal on with Morris and they're looking at the signal by Broad Street and people don't slow down and all of a sudden you're right in the intersection and there's bad accidents that happen there so this is the County's initiative they're paying for the entire thing they are applying for a grant we are uh they're asking of us a resolution of support and I think we I I would be very enthusiastic about doing that thank you thank you Greg any other comments all right um all in favor I I opposed motion carries uh capital projects and Community Services number five councilwoman ham I'm the lucky one tonight okay this is sorry lost my page this is ID number 11568 as discussed in close session this is declaring a vacancy in the Department of Community Services for the assistant city engineer effective October 2nd 2024 I would like to move this resolution second comments from the public good evening Diego ho caral Court counc after receiving the gavl you expressed a desire to help improve how our elected leaders interact with City staff you also reminded us of the importance of supporting our great staff and working well with them because they do great things when we let them do their jobs I am concerned that our great City staff seems to be leaving rapidly since the budget passed 18 resolutions have been placed on common Council agendas declaring vacancies including four tonight two departing officials cost the city approximately $130,000 in settlement salary including pensions and Healthcare that cost close to $250,000 unbudgeted also lots of experiences a hidden cost one experience one example was the cancellation of the haunted hike after it had started more importantly how much knowledge was lost with the departures of Michael Rogers Amy Karns and particularly Matt lari my second concern concern is that the city seems to be managing expenses via emergency Appropriations that's never a good idea since the budget passed six resolutions including three today increase the value of various contracts by a combined total of $170,000 also unbudgeted urgent repairs to the Anderson Fieldhouse will cost $78,000 Republican council members blame that this repair on last year's Council telling the public that everyone knew that these repairs were needed this begs a question if everyone knew and if the budget passed along party lines Why did the Republican majority not include this needed repair and the close to $5.3 million they plan to devote to tatlock over the next four years Mr MC Turnin I agree that our elected officials volunteer because they love Summit however I submit that pretty much anyone who takes the time to attend these meetings and prepare statements does too unbudgeted expenses will cost between 1 and 1 and a half% % of Municipal Appropriations or approximately the property tax paid by 20 median Summit homes when we had coffee I shared that at times I have felt that well researched feedback was met with gaslighting these are serious management issues will they be addressed seriously or via finger pointing name calling and gas lighting thank you thank you other comments from the public good evening Don Nelson 20 plan Street um I believe these this assistant engineer maybe you guys can correct me if I'm wrong is an additional position replacing someone that left so my understanding is that's supporting Personnel I mean I might be a little off base but I do know that the building projects in Summit have increased and one of the things I know that we tried to Institute years ago was a a um online submission of blueprints through the building department however when we did that we didn't increase Staffing so you may be able to submit more more paperwork but there still aren't people to review it so I think this is a great addition it's going to help our department of engineering work better uh there is an expense expense to that there's no doubt about it but I think it's a great idea I think it's a great ad and if I'm not mistaken I think the Haunted Trail ride Trail was canceled because of a a bear do we have a bear ordinance in town to keep them away from those things they can't read I that's thanks have a nice night thank you any other comments from the public hi Irwin Miller five Knob Hill Drive he said that it was canceled because of a bear but the other gentleman said was making accusatory claims against the council because of it I wonder if you can clarify that was it the council because of a bear or because of the accusatory claims from the person before these are public comments about our resolution uh about hiring an assistant City administrator so I I would ask that people who do comment stick to commenting on the resolution we have a public comment section that we can talk about the budget and people's views around budget Etc I get it this is related but let's focus on our resolutions and such like that we can we'll address the bear issue at a later time okay but there was a bear just so you know there was a bear and out of a preponderance of caution I think Madame mayor can speak to this they decided to cancel it at the time why take the risk uh and thankfully it was rescheduled and I understand it went off really well was I can I speak to the bear just for a second yes you I don't have very many speaking Parts here so um the bear did not know what time the Haunted Hike started the bear showed up about 10 to 6 and the Haunted Hike started at 6 and by the time I was aware of the bear and our PD was aware of bear there were people on site and indeed between it was about 20 minutes I think from the moment someone identified that there was a bear to the moment that the area was clear and everyone was safe so I'll speak to that thank you very much council president can I just bring us back to the yeah I I'm I haven't closed public comments yet so uh other public comments all right hearing none let's move on to council comments on this declar vacancy Ju Just want to uh just be clear with the community we are we are declaring a vacancy for a position that had a person in it this is not an additional new position that we're creating tonight this just just so everybody's aware uh and I'll leave it there for now other comments from Council all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries capital projects and Community Services number six thank you council president ID 11562 as as discussed in close session this resolution is declaring a vacancy in the Department of Community Services a division of Public Works recreation parks and shade tree unit for a foreman I would like to move this resolution second comments from the public comments from Council is this for someone who left yes my understanding this is someone who's retired okay thank you put in his years any other comments from Council all right um all in favor I I opposed uh motion carries all right we're moving on to community programs and Parking Services councilman Smallwood number one please thank you council president uh this is ID number 11564 to declare a vacancy and Parking Services Agency full-time Parking Clerk uh this is to fill a position I found oh sorry guess what did you find um sorry uh this is to replace a an employee who is promoted within and this is her replacement for that position toor if I just bundle these two together please okay uh ID number 11563 is to declare vacancy for parking services part-time parking enforcement officer again this is a open position for an employee who is promoted within uh this employee went from a parking enforcement officer to inside the office itself and so now we are just simply replacing those two employees thank you oh and I move to pass this resolution do I have a second have a second thank you uh comments from the public comments from Council all in favor I opposed motion's carried all right um do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda um as shown so moved we pull out what's that never I to pull out did you have I just want to mention something about two of them can I pull them out or do we just vote on you you can comment you just need a motion in a second then you can comment so we you have a second second okay so uh please if you'd like to comment sorry I always forget how that works oh uh first let me uh any comments from the public on our consent agenda there's a couple that I don't want to go by tonight and Kevin you can probably talk about this a little bit um I think the grant for uh to Bristol Meers squib applying for that Grant is really exciting we've um developed a good relationship we've been uh the mayor's been meeting with brist Myers squib and hopefully there's some remaining money left for 202 24 so um hopefully we get this grant money so Kevin thank you for for doing that uh the second one I want to mention is uh we are having a Veteran's Day uh Ceremony this year I Rosie I'm not sure if we've ever had one before but we're going to do our best to make it up as we go and we're trying to plan for that now but um we're looking forward to having I think our first Veterans Day but correct me if I'm wrong uh and then I was really excited to see the motor vehicle event uh I don't exactly know what it is but it sounds like it's going to be a really good thing for our residents so I don't know if anybody here knows more about it but unless the chief wants to explain I can about the DMV so the DMV I'm sorry go ahead counc please Council yeah sure um just in case we went over and I had it written down so all right um might bu to cover for you all right so uh the motor vehicle event um so this is to Grant permission uh to establish conditions for the Summit City Police Department to host the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission uh right here at City Hall um this will you know help with different uh DMV checks registrations licenses I think also the new licenses right Chief um this is the I forget the name of the Yes the real IDs um and um I think this is going to be a a good thing especially for people who can't get to Springfield I know Springfield doesn't do all of the motor vehicle uh different tasks right and um Newk's pretty far I know some people go to planfield so I think this is a good event any other comments on the consent agenda yes please Madame mayor um do you know and if you don't can we find out will they accept old license plates when they come here Chief do you know that sorry I happen to have some totally self Serv I'm not 100% sure about the license plate um we'll post um what you have to do cuz like if if you're doing like a real ID you have to go online first and uh fill out some uh paperwork before you bring it to the uh site but it's a mobile MV um unit and it's going to allow uh you know residents the ability to like renew licenses um registrations things that they normally would do at um at the DMV I would before I came to take care of business I would check the site to make sure that they could do whatever they plan on doing um at the mobile site and there's a restriction on the amount of money right that you can I thought I read somewhere that um there's a limit on how much cash that they will accept or um that again I would refer you to the um to the site for that okay but I think the plates that's an easy uh fix I'm sure they'll take them if not we'll find someone to take them for you thank you Chief any other comments yeah just one more thing along that line when you go you will not get the permanent real ID physically there you'll get it temporary and you'll get it mailed to you within two weeks great sounds like a good Grant council president yes uh so just to speak to the uh the the grant that Council woman councilwoman uh uh Hamlet had mentioned is a $40,000 grant that actually she brought to our attention at the Department of Community programs uh it's a $40,000 Grant from Bristol Bristol Meers squib uh through their Health Equity grant program with uh and what we're planning on doing is uh hopefully we'll get this money and we'll will install new park amenities uh such as permanent cornhole athletic stations and game tables at City at C at the city's various Parks uh it'll increase the usability of our parks for residents of all ages and to continue and to encourage healthy choices for all of our residents our hope is that we'll be able to hold special outdoor events uh and have for different populations and ages uh of all all of our residents so thank you for bringing that to our attention and thank you for David and Mark for uh putting so quickly putting to get that putting together that uh that Grant thank you other comments all right um all in favor I I opposed okay the consent agenda passes all right that is it for our business our city professionals if you'd like to say Zay yes good night um and at this stage we're gonna open up our uh meeting to public comments so if anyone from the public uh would like to comment now was your opportunity for stuff that was not on the agenda good evening Council my name is John Kilby 19 Oxbo Lane for some 47 years involved with the shade tree committee for well over a decade at your 8th of October council meeting Foster Osborne chose to take public is comments about myself and the activity of the summit shade tree committee which cannot be left on the record without rebut as Walter konai used to say here is the rest of the story on the 14th of May I was copied by the city of his email in which he described how he stopped a tree removal in progress that did not have a permit on the 16th of May I emailed him thanking him on behalf of the city for being proactive in this matter I also asked if he would like to attend our next shade tree meeting to describe the incident so that other members of the committee could understand what happened in the city he asked could he have a policeman who was involved I indicated I thought this was not necessary the next shade tree meeting was on the 6th of June our usual format is to go through a stat list of some 21 activities and then an open floor for attendees to bring uh what they wish to the floor a tight schedule Mr Osborne attended with a lawyer and told his story however when he started to complain as to not being able to bring a police officer I interjected and to keep the schedule focused some three days later I received an email from Mr Osborne who wrote that he was riding from his bed at 4:10 a.m. Wide Awake seething at the Injustice I had done him at the meeting he then stated Mr Linson our arborist is compromised by his friendship with tree contractors and the total ineffectiveness of the tree ordinance I replied that the attendance of the police officer was irrelevant and as a volunteer I realize I cannot please everyone he responded with a story per verbatim the English are a nation of backstabbers and a similar remark about the Australians perhaps he was confused as my Heritage and wanted to cover all bases I replied my initial response to you was measured acting as a chair of the shade tree committee even though your insinuations were totally out of line however the latest email directed at me personally with a stupid anote as such I should tell you what I think this is the last email I will open direct any further emails to relevant City Hall people he later emailed to his new neighbor and copied the city with various accusations uh of me now to his specific comments to council Tre ordinance the committee did a lot of work into the new audience and this will provide solutions for our arborist to perform his job better than in the past with the registered tree companies that I am unqualified I've been a rkas master for some 17 years and with the guidance of John Lin now arborist a past president of New Jersey shade tree Federation I am learning month by month as to my being rude I would only characterize this with an old Yorkshire phrase of the kettle is calling the pot thank you very much much thank you for your comments other public comments could we close the door um there's just some outside noise coming in good evening mayor Fagen council president members of common Council Jim Bennett BN 38 Fairview Avenue uh just a question uh is the GAA program that was presented earlier by Lisa Hibbs uh of commercial utility Consultants Inc was that in the council packet or if not will it be on the uh City website thank you we're going to post it to the website for all to see other comments from the public all right seeing no other comments going oh got one more um Irwin Miller five knill drive just want to share my gratitude for Mike I think you've been I've been watched virtually unfortunately I can't come to all the meetings um but it seems like you've been incredible for this town um you know Lisa was amazing uh this town council's been amazing I think you're able to bring this town together um and case in point I'll leave my comments at that so um thank you for what you're doing for this town and I hope that regardless of where we go in a couple weeks that you can keep uh holding it all together for us thank you thank you for that good evening everybody Mark underson fber Court um I wanted to just flag a couple of things that I hope are useful for Council um as uh as some may know I've been talking with many residents over the last few months in Summit and multiple neighbors have mentioned a handful of specific pedestrian safety and Road issues that seem uh to me to be addressable and straightforward I want to put these on council's list just for further investigation or followup um first real quick is the intersection of Druid Hills and mountain right at the bottom of Druid Hill um which I think could really use an illuminated sign number of students cross you know in route to the middle school there especially now with daylight savings it's getting darker um earlier and and diminished daylight uh several residents on Druid Hill flagged that and raised that with me and I was very pleased recently I think in the last week or two that there's a flashing Beacon now at Colton Ash um ashin and I think that the drw hill Mountain a intersection would benefit from you know the same lighting um another really just briefly is the intersection of High Street and Springfield Avenue I live uh just two blocks from there the intersection is quite difficult for cars uh coming off of High Street especially turning left also for pedestrians Crossing that street there are three uh Summit High School students that live on that immediate block and cross there uh to get to school and there no crosswalk currently so I think it would at least be worth looking into and then finally just another frequently raised Road Road issue is the poor condition I have some photos of the uh the bridge the county bridge on Pine grve that is between Prospect and Springfield I know it's a county bridge but my understanding is that there's already some work planned for that um but just generally speaking I think an update for the community would certainly um be helpful there and I just wanted to uh flag those and thanks for looking into to them further thanks thank you again Don Nelson 20 plan Street as long as we're bringing up some safety issues uh Mars Avenue and well down by Marco polos Mars Avenue and I'm I'm drawing a blank for the name of that street right now auy Aubry thank you you think I would know that I live in a neighborhood um but when you're trying to pull out of Aubry onto Mars Avenue to make a left or make right uh because of the new parking spots that are in front of the restaurant there uh when people Park really close to the curb it cuts down in a sight triangle for traffic um so if we could get that on the list of things to look at um and also due to the curve in the road around Marco polos you're so busy trying to figure out which car is coming first that if there is a car parked in front of that Italian restaurant not Marco Polo's the other one um you can have a problem there and I know we installed the lights for for the P pedestrians across the street but it still is a hazardous area and we need to change the sign in front of the uh other Italian restaurant because it says no stopping no standing yet we have parking spots there so either either it's a parking spot that's enforced or it's no stopping no standing it can't be both so if we could put that on the list that would be fantastica yeah you got to give him a plug well laa welome so and I knew the name I just didn't know what I should say okay all right thanks very much thank you any other comments from the public all right we'll close that part of our meeting uh we wrap it up with comments from Council who would like to take us out I have one I promise Council Hamet um I have a couple I guess Chief zagorski I'm sure you were um with those comments about safety there's a there's a road that we turned one way which is right outside of school Summit School of Dance and people have been asking me why we ever turned that one way and I think they they're saying that um I don't know if we can put a better sign there or what the reason is but I think I think we're also fixing that light by Summit school of dance so I'll get an update on when when that is fixed but that whole area I think Jamal is an area where if we can just put that in your committee to sort of mentally okay but the one way is the one I yeah I mean question about there's there's a lot that goes into making a shot one way but it was a long time ago and people are asking me the history of it I just don't I don't know so if anybody knows the answer but the light uh is in that's in motion and uh I think the other concern well yeah that's all that was just quick and then my last thing um I see some members of the saltbrook in the audience and I just want to say we did have our meeting our second meeting in person with d near the saltbrook which I think was very very beneficial um we had the DP uh engineer and the DP environmentalist um so the mayor and councilman Boyer were out there I think was that anybody else there but I think it was a very good takeaway so right now what we're doing is we're sending all of our information um to the D and I'm not sure um Mr Tui if you have anything else to say about it but I felt really good about the meeting and I'm hopeful that we can potentially help these residents yeah I'm I'm following up with discussions with the EP myself talking more technical terms than your meeting yeah thank you that that's all I had right thank you other comments sure I'll yeah please um so I want to take a moment to acknowledge the multiple different calls and emails and concerns that I that I've gotten about ebikes and electric bikes and uh and speeding in the community in general uh I think as a Safety Council as mayor and even councilman palowski uh we have heard your complaints we we get it and we understand um I live on mors Avenue it is it can be like a a Raceway sometimes I mean I I live it just like you do um but I I want residents to think about this we are asking our police officers to walk to beat in town we're asking our police officers to um patrol to stop burglaries and car thefts and Patrol and stop speeding um Quality of Life issues and 2024 uh the demand on our Police Department is vast they do a lot of things some things that you may not even even know of I mean they are utilized daily and I think when it comes to budget time I mean compared to Milbourne uh we are still you know short officers to really do what we need to to get done obviously they can't be in all places at uh at the same time but imagine a city where we're saying hey and force you know kids and people who ride on ebikes go after the criminals who are still in cars and burglaries and then you know look into quality of life issues um and then also we want you to do uh speeding um you know the residents really have to take a hard look at our infrastru structure right and and and our police department and our current numbers cuz that's that's a high demand and I get it all of those are areas where um um where I'd like to see more enforcement and I think we have a current strategy that uh that if implemented would would be good so we'll wait until the budget time and you know we'll see what the residents have to say um but you know I'm always pushing for additional officers so that we can um really really enforce these issues uh the next thing I have is I made this speech last year Halloween street lights uh Mr Tui if we could look at the street lights um one place in particular I've been there I did a I finally did a um a c click fix and I've been monitoring it on Dennis place so there's a street light on Dennis's place that's been out it's a little cold as sack there are a ton of kids there um and if we could really get the street lights replaced before Halloween I made the call you know a couple weeks ago but I don't I don't know if we can get there but street lights are important if we talk about uh pedestrian safety and children being hit well one of those things is street lights they need to be able to see um the other thing is dilia stole my Thunder here about working with the D I was very impressed with the Department of Environmental Protection uh that team they were great uh they provided their expertise was was amazing and they don't like to give up any space though you can't move a flower um but it was good they met with us they came they met with us they got down in the mud and dirt and they looked at it and yeah I mean it is a pressing Adriana see there it is a pressing issue I mean I think every time I see the back of your house it just looks like more and more land is is missing like I'm in California or something um and the last thing that I have veteran uh I got a call from a veteran and he said you know Hometown Heroes right could we could we keep them up until Veterans Day I know and and I think the reason why we take the flags down is because of the weather right we don't want them to get destroyed and everything right but it seems to me like the weather stays nice until maybe Veterans Day so maybe an option is to just keep them up until Veterans Day I don't know but I guess that's something that um we can we can discuss further uh the last thing is uh having a meeting with the park line steering committee so I'm excited about that to get that going um I'm glad that I was able to get uh with the help of our our council president and mayor I was glad to get it get all I don't know eight 10 of us uh on a team or Zoom call tomorrow so hopefully we can push this along and and get the resident concerns addressed and finally move forward on the park line uh so that's it thank you council president just one question Council yes please you could just get me the number of that poll I'll see what I can do about away absolutely thank you other comments from Council councilman miger I'm going to I don't mean to pile on to safety and Street requests but these are two that were from a little bit ago so I'm just going to check in on no please man yeah Henry Street there was a request for uh traffic calming measure uh study there if that's at all possible and then um what's the what's the cross street I'm sorry Henry Henry side at entire length between Glenside and Ashwood and then um the other one is Clark Street and Huntley Road we have this we yeah we have cool okay and Henry I believe too I'll send you an email Andy thank you sir y app other Council comments council president I just have an update on the Halloween parade uh we are having our annual Halloween parade Saturday October 28th 8 it's the it's a Halloween parade sponsored by The Summit pal uh the lineup for the parade will begin behind 24 25 to Forest Avenue at 2:45 it's the 26th sorry it's Saturday's the 26 I was say I'm sorry 1025 it was a typo sorry uh I don't need to restart Saturday October 26th right Summit palal Halloween pre the uh the lineup will begin behind the 20 25 to Forest Avenue at 2:45 the parade will depart for the Village Green at 3M once at the Village Green there will be music treats and candy for all to enjoy judging will be completed by 4:15 and awards will be given for the following categories most 2024 relevant I guess if you we I would encourage you to have some sort of 2024 on you to be relevant uh scariest cutest best group most original mayor Fagan's choice and best overall so encourage you to uh join this great parade is uh something that we all participated in last year I think I don't think we've decided on a oh we haven't decided on our costumes yet but we'll uh we'll figure that out it's a lot of pressure I know so uh look forward to seeing you on October Saturday October 26th at uh 2:45 that's a tough job to have to judge the cutest costume I think I did that one year it's hard not really really looking forward to that council president I'm so sorry I forgot one thing oh please uh on this com this Friday uh we will be doing a soft ribbon cutting opening for the firehouse uh for City and elected officials so I am extremely happy about that the official for the town uh I'm hearing will be at the end of November I'm going to say that because I'm I'm going to hold the chief to that so the end of November we got to move couches and stuff and we we'll move some couches so um but yes but I'm happy that we will be cutting the ribbon on Friday so thank you for that that was a good reminder other comments from Council councilman palowski thank you um yeah so some of this has been touched on already but we did put in two new blinking lights last week one's at Ashland and cult Road the other one is at morav and St Teresa um we also have one coming soon at Magic Fountain um the blinking light at the summit School of Dance is not working we are aware of this um apparently I learned that it takes time to get parts and uh so I've asked as we as we continue to increase the use of blinking lights in town I've asked that we take stock of what the most common problems are how to fix them and purchase stock of replacement parts so that we don't have to order them every time um councilman Boer mentioned uh additional police officers I'd like to get a couple more myself um I think it's um interesting uh everybody always Compares us to Milbourne they currently have eight more police officers than us um so hopefully we'll catch up with them someday um we have discussed in the past uh taking a street light inventory um and I believe that our engineering department has started that but we will follow up um there are many lights in town that are I haven't seen many that are out but there are many that are looking pretty low and I don't know if that's by Design or if it's by um just because they need to be be changed but I think isn't that jcpnl that has to do that does GAA do that Kevin maybe um then as to the Fieldhouse um so going into this year uh before we had the budget there was a plan in place that the Board of Ed was going to um uh re um what's the word I'm looking for reability renovate renovate uh the field house and um they were supposed to go out to bid I think in July the plan was never was always to try to get through this season before they had to work on it and it just didn't make it so uh the funds that were spent were were done because we had a an emergency and um I think insurance covered what's that I thought two I thought two payments of 78,000 were covered by Jeff was it one payment andbody remember I just don't have the numbers on I can't remember yeah one payment for was it one I think it was on the last bill list yeah so I I I think a lot of or all of that 78,000 that was mentioned was covered by our insurance and that's it check thank you other comments you got another one well I'm sorry council president but I believe either Council palowski or the mayor promised me to do a PS that they would do a PSA on speeding I don't know I don't want to get in trouble please stop speeding everybody um no but s seriously um it's funny because we all go about our daily business and um sometimes you just don't realize how fast you're going different cars seem to want to go faster than others and um I'll be honest you know it was when I ran for coun that I thought to myself geez I better not get pulled over here um and I and I realized that I was uh part of the problem and so I have uh since then and I continue to take care to to look at my speedometer and to try to do the speed limit um leave early you know if you're if you don't want to be late be early um and tell tell your kids that too because a lot of the a lot of the speeding in town is uh is from our our younger drivers right all right thanks for the plug in wise words we should all follow them other comments all right I'm just going to wrap it up I just want to thank the public the last couple of meetings um I you guys have had good comments probing questions make us think uh and they've been delivered very civil and I'm very happy that you're here here and I'm happy that you're engaged and keep it up uh but I I just I do want to you know we couple of meetings earlier in the year we a little messy and um and we want to encourage people to come and say what they want to say and I think you guys are a great example on how to do that in really great commentary um good questions but in the right way so that's all I have to council president yes I I'd like to make a motion to adjourn thank you second we have second all in favor hi hi we are adjourned