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 welcome everyone our meeting will come to order Madame clerk please read the adequate notice compliance statement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in PR preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated December 18th 2023 which proper 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 deis and return it thereafter okay roll call please Mr Boer here miss Hamlet here Mr migar here Mr palowski here Mr Smallwood here Mr bartan present president Allen here okay let's do our Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay Madame clerk please read the explanatory notices regarding hearings comments and close session a Clos session meeting as authorized by state 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 want invited to speak please come to the Lector 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 cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes in length unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or need it for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you thank you um do I have a motion to approve the minutes of sorry um it jumped a regular and closed session meeting of ail a 24th 2024 so moved do I have a second second all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay on to reports administrator Rogers that's right thank you council president good evening everyone um so regarding the oxville uh lane construction project uh the contractor for this project is currently completing General cleanup repairs and preparations for Paving through Friday May 10th Paving oper operation ations will begin on Monday May 13th weather permitting they expect to be finished uh uh finish the project by the end of the day on Tuesday May 14th again the schedule is weather dependent uh psng is continuing work on its gas main replacement project that began last year on Morris Avenue uh between Ashwood Ashwood Avenue and Brian Parkway work is expected to continue for an additional two to three weeks during the day uh night work will be requireed ired for the intersection of Ashwood Avenue and Morris Avenue road closures and detours will be in effect during during Project work and police will be on site to direct traffic after the work is complete Union County will be Paving the section of Morris Avenue as part of their 2024 Paving program project dates will be shared on the city website and social media channels once finalized by the county the deadline to register to vote in the June 4th primary election is Tuesday May 14th on May 14th this the city clerk's office will remain open until 900 p.m. for voter registration more information on voter registration voting by mail ballots early and in-person voting is available at cityofsummit.org the annual Summit palal pet show will be held on Saturday May 11th on the Village Green yeah registration for the free event begins at 1 p.m and judging begins at 1:30 p.m. more details about the pet show including an online competition are avail available at Summit Community program programs.com and finally the next Summit free market event is the Saturday May 11th uh from 8:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. at the municipal transfer station more information is available at Summit free market.org and that's all I have this even thank you councelor thank you administrator Rogers okay um I would like to give an update I don't know can everybody hear me okay it feels like it's a little quiet uh Jay in the there we go maybe Jay can you turn my microphone up a little bit um okay is that better good okay oh perfect okay um over the last couple months a number of engaged citizens have come to council advocating for a proposal to build a 100% affordable housing project on the current Firehouse site I understand the desire for the building and appreciate the plan presented um which was given great thought and care for what might be a good fit for that site our Mount Laurel subcommittee which includes our affordable housing attorney and city planner have met several times to to discuss and consider all of the aspects of this detailed proposal after careful consideration and for several reasons the subcommittee cannot recommend that the city move forward with this proposal we appreciate that this will be um I appreciate this is going to be a disappointment to many who worked very hard and supported this proposal so we want to reiterate summit's commitment to fostering an inclusive community with the focus on affordable housing that is embedded in both our zoning master plan and our court approved affordable housing plan that said we would like it we would still like to benefit from the ideas presented and to that end mayor Fagan council members and myself plan to engage the summit affordable housing Corporation and local Advocates with the working committee to discuss affordable housing strategies and priorities in other locations in town meanwhile the city has been actively studying um its options for a traditional approach of blending affordable housing units with the market rate units and commercial space this remains a City's approach to working towards our affordable housing obligations while also achieving other community benefits including fiscal benefits that support all residents um the city's going to put out more information um but just on a personal note you know I appreciate everybody coming to the meeting and talking about the plan and that they care about affordable housing and that this Firehouse site would have felt like the right place and um the meeting that we had went very well and I know that it's not always what we want to hear but I'm looking forward to working with the summit afford affordable housing Corp um we're going to put together a working group we're going to um Mark said that he would take us around Madison and take a look at various sites to see what kind of affordable housing that Madison has rolled out they do it in smaller sites it's inclusive um so I'm looking forward to you know working with you with the summit affordable housing Corp um and seeing what what we can do for the next 10 years so there'll be more more information put out but I just wanted to let everybody know that okay um next all right we canceled our historical minute right uh yes we we did it's postponed until uh May 21st okay um then we were going to move on to ceremonial Awards uh councilman Smallwood thank you council president sure I am very excited to introduce the winners of the seventh grade what is the future of Global energy debate teams from ly Johnson Middle School this debate was a culmination of hard work dedication and critical thinking from both Mrs rl's science class and Mr Welsh's social studies class in February these students engaged in rigorous preparation process that involve content area study independent research and collaborative efforts to explore the future of global energy with enthusiasm and determination they delved into the complexities of various energy sources including nuclear wind solar and hydro over the course of two days parent volunteers had the challenging task of judging the debates assessing the quality of presentations depth of content and the pers persuasiveness of arguments each team brought forth compelling narratives and well researched information making the decision-making process incredibly difficult despite the outstanding performance of all the teams there can only be one winner and in both classes solar emerged as Victorious however it's worth noting that each team's presentation was commendable showcasing their passion for the topic and their dedication to Excellence I extend my congratulations to all the students who participated in the enriching experience with that uh Mr Welsh would you like to introduce the seventh grade winners of the energy debate team [Applause] did you guys get a picture uh we have not gotten a picture yet tonight but we're make sure we get one before we can maybe we can get one when we hand out the certificates yeah sure thank you so on uh on behalf of myself and Mrs raml who couldn't be here this evening uh we just continue to be honored to serve in this community we're excited about the chance to appear in front of the council tonight and to just kind of recognize the efforts of our of our young scholars here so thanks for the time and it is an honor to be able to look at real world problems with those who are going to be addressing those in the in the years ahead you can you can hold it if it yeah thank you Mr wsh so in Mr Walsh's social studies class we learned about the Industrial Revolution the Industrial Revolution which took place between the 1750s and the 1850s marked a turning point in manufacturing as the making of goods evolved from hand production everyday life was transformed by exciting Technologies and new advancements in transportation urbanization followed industrialization and the steam engine revolutionized Transportation much of this industrialization however was made by possible by fossil fuels mainly coal that's a great Point Adam in addition in science class with Mrs RL we learned about how the dependence on fossil fuels as sources for generating energy has ecological consequences which must be considered measurements collected by NASA satellites show that the current CO2 levels are 422 parts per million which is an increase by 50% in less than 200 years since the Industrial Revolution greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane trap heat on Earth's surface resulting in warmer global temperatures leading to climate change furthermore the supply of these fossil fuels is finite making these sources non-renewable thank you Morgan on team 7c we debate and social studies as in addition to hardness conversations which is a classwide conversation um some topics are unprecedent such as Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton or John Quincy Adams versus Andrew Jackson we discuss topics in a meaningful way so to that allows us to form opinions and also learn from each other and this year for the fourth time we have decided to Pivot from presidential debates to the debate on our growing crisis on a global warming thank you Timmy for this debate we debated in front of volunteers who POS as in investors all solers never won before and almost got removed um we ended up winning our fifth and sixth period which are also our two afternoon classes here here today we talk about our debate and how how we beat wind hydro and nuclear power thank you point Katie now to talk about the debate the debate lasted 2 days but took weeks in preparation in both our social studies and science classes we started by doing extensive research with the guidance of our teachers and Librarians next we prepared our arguments with our assigned teams each team consisted of four to five students good point Morgan for this debate we had parent volunteers as investors who came in each one of these parents listened to us present our ideas that answer questions such as how much energy can this Source generate and what is the potential of this Source after both days the investors would leave to discuss and decide a winner some basic tips for debating are eye contact projector voice and standing up to show that you really believe in your topic thank you Json solar power is shown to be one of the best energy sources for Summit and even for our Earth we have shown this because it is very easy to use and it doesn't hurt our environment at all it's very able and it can even be at your house and many other places these places can include phone chargers um electric devices and even some security cameras another thing about solar is that it's very affordable and if you and it generates more energy than you need you can sell it to you can even sell it to a power company most solar panels generate enough energy to store up for rainy and cloudy days days and days that you still have electricity and it won't cost anything thanks Rachel um this is how solar power can be used in Summit solar power is an effective way to produce electricity and should be used in summit summit has a lot of open parking lots like the ones at the middle school high school and the Lots in downtown if we build a Contraption such as a solar canopy um we can create we can generate a lot of electricity and also provide shade and protect cars from weather such as rain snow and ice another way to power Summit with solar power power is to put solar panels on the roofs of downtown shops these shops are in direct sunlight so they can absorb a lot of energy one last idea is powering traffic lights with solar panels already constructed traffic lights can be modified to use solar power by attaching a panel to the light or pole and hooking it up to the light thank you very much um I believe our council president has something she'd like to present to all of you yes okay and I just want to say um two things stood out was the solar energy I know that you are big on that so hopefully that's something that we can really look um to do at the city and the second um idea was uh one of the things that stood out to me is when you said working together um to form opinions in a meaningful way I think that is a good theme so thank you so much for coming tonight I'm going to give you these certifications and Matthew Jon Jon Rachel Matthew Katie Morgan and Adam and I love the eye contact that was one of my favorites wores you g to get with them do you need two layers everybody [Applause] so thank you so much excellent thank you wonderful job thank you you guys your hope for the future thanks I just want I know that they're leaving but uh I just wanted to say a quick word so thank you very much your hard work and dedication have truly paid off and your achievement serves as an inspiration to all of us transition to renewable energy sources like solar power can significantly reduce energy cost and carbon emissions while promoting sustainability with that being said this is my commitment to you I'll be submitting a Dar request to our Department of community services and CS committee tomorrow to implement a pilot program at the summit free market building which can serve as a valuable demonstration of the benefits of solar energy for our community leveraging power leveraging a power purchasing agreement with a state approved contractor would not cost the city anything for installation or maintenance for up to 15 years while reducing carbon emissions and energy costs currently being powered by propane okay thank you all right that's it right okay we're going to move to public comment um tonight we are going to have our budget hearing toward the end of our meeting so for public comment period tonight we're going to be limiting it initially upfront to an hour um we want to make sure we get to our Hearing in a timely fashion because it's going to get late um we may not need to go that long of course um but in case I just want to let you know and if we do run over if it's an hour and we need more public comment time we'll put it at the end so we'll get plenty of time in um we welcome comments from any member of the public about issues not on the tonight's agenda and whenever audience members read from a prepared statement please provide a copy to the city clerk at city clerk cityofsummit.org if you have any questions that do not get answered tonight please email your questions to cityclerk cityofsummit.org um to help facilitate an order meeting and to permit all to be heard please speak once and limit your comments to 3 minutes additionally we need you to state your name and home address and if you're speaking on behalf of a group please just be sure to include the address of the group you're representing okay um so we [Music] again good evening as a resident at 108 beakman Road since 2006 and a parent of 2009 Summit High School graduate who received her law and business degrees before creating a national Tech startup I thank you for the opportunity to be a citizen among you I'm Matthew Winkler co-founder and editor and chief ameritus of Bloomberg News where I've been employed the past 34 years we and I include my wife Lisa of 42 years a former public school teacher author mother of three children grandmother of 13 can live anywhere we choose to live in Summit because of its commitment to the Future which is another way of saying Stellar schools social and professional mobility and the pursuit of Excellence all of this comes from summit's fiscal responsibility which is why the Summit City Council began 2024 in the most fortunate circumstances inheriting from its immediate predecessors an exceptional report card from Moody's investor service the closest thing to an objective assessment of where Summit stands in its credit opinion of June 29th 2023 Moody reaffirmed its highest AAA rating with a stable Outlook reflecting the company's expectations that the city's economy and finances will remain a strength and leverage will remain at manageable levels Moody's nevertheless warned that a material increase in leverage which currently is 388 of debt to revenue could lead to a downgrade which it didn't anticipate based on the record of frugality referenced last June the Summit City Council now is poised to enact the largest tax increase in at least 10 years to support a capital budget that doubles this year and increases 250% % next year the same budget shows an 88.2% increase to Appropriations and an almost 3% increase in pensionable positions ultimately to be supported by new debt and likely additional taxes these are the very risks underlining Moody's warning to Summit not to increase the city's debt ratios which this budget ultimately does the last time I came before you the summit council president repeatedly said she was in favor of affordable housing after castigating such legislation before the New Jersey senate the shest way for Summit City Council to make Summit more affordable is to lower the tax burden or limit any increase to the barest minimum with the most transparent scrutiny especially for least ad Sor your time is up please uh uh if you submit your statement it'll be in full in the minutes thank you thank you thank you was that resident's name Matt Winkler Mr Winkler do you want to give us your statement do you want to give us your statement so we can have it for the record it'll be in there it'll be with the um the minutes oh right here thanks I just had another sentence it's okay thank you hi please state your name and home address please farell I Live 14 Pearl Street frell is f a r r l l uh actually I've been in Summit just a few months fewer than my new friend Matt who we spoke before the meeting so um in the words of the leadership Guru and Author Jim Collins bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions I see three major reasons why this proposed budget especially the 2% property tax increase it calls for is a bad decision ision first there's the tax increase which by the city's own admission does not appear necessary I call attention to the revenue section on page two of the municipal budget snapshot recently mailed Citywide where it notes that valuation growth quote will generate new Municipal tax revenue to offset Levy increase by approximately $741,000 now my understanding of an offset is when an additional expense is countered by either additional Revenue or reduced spending elsewhere in the budget this spending plan does neither instead it raises expenditures while simultaneously failing to capitalize on the organic Revenue growth resulting from an increase in the tax base which doesn't even include the potential impact the future impact of J&J's proposed takeover well it's now happening of the former cellgene site my second concern is the timing with both County and School District taxes also expected to increase now is not the time to put an additional burden on the city's taxpayers especially the homeowners who shoulder more than 80% of the municipal tax burden and unlike commercial property owners we're Limited in how much of our local taxes can be deducted at the federal level we certainly can't pass those increases along to our customers or tenants no amount of lip service towards the idea of affordable housing can paper over the reality that this ill-conceived and ill-timed tax increase will make Summit less affordable for everyone especially our neighbors who are already struggling as a result of inflation High interest rates and the lingering economic effects of the pandemic third and most troubling to me is the question of intentions let's just say I'm not optimistic and leave it at that with regard to the $5 million set aside for uncollected taxes as I understand it the city's tax collection rate Falls just shy of 99.8% this appears to be to put it mildly a solution desperately in search of a problem despite its designation as a reserve we all know it would take only a simple vote of the council majority to amend the budget once adopted to redirect those funds the moment that problem is identified by that majority if it hasn't been already thank you for your time thank you um I will email prop yeah you know and I just want to make sure that the public comment period is um for anything not on the agenda which the the budget is on the agenda tonight so um Andrew the you're not talking about budget okay so the budget discussion will happen when we open the hearing so if yeah thanks hi my name is Andrew Walker I live at 242 Kent Place Boulevard uh I've been a resident of summit for over 25 years and I'm also a part of the atome and Summit Community Group so council president Allen thank you for your comments earlier council members uh we are at home in Summit in support of the uh Summit a for affordable housing corporations proposal we are extremely disappointed and frankly surprised that the common Council has turned down the summit affordable housing Corporation sound and doable proposal to create 42 units of much needed affordable housing and Summit our question to the common Council what is the plan to create an equal number 42 units of affordable housing over the next 2 to 3 years relying on inclusion area zoning so that's the 15% set aside in market rate housing and the overlay zones they have not worked the overlay zones created as part of the 2016 settlement agreement with fair share housing has not resulted in a single unit of affordable housing and Summit and over the last 10 years only four affordable rental units have been created through the 15% set aside in fact over the past 37 years only 24 affordable rental units have been created through this mechanism this is a dismal track record of affordable housing production when there is so much need it is not reasonable to think that the city can meet its unmet housing need through overlay zones and set asdes we need to be more proactive so to put this into perspective the city would need to build 280 units of market rate housing that require a 15% set aside to equal the 42 units of affordable housing proposed for the firehouse site by rejecting this proposal the common council is saying in effect that it will prioritize market rate or luxury housing and that the creation of affordable housing is a secondary concern so we ask that the council keep the firehouse site under consideration for 100% affordable housing and prioritize affordable housing to give Working Families the opportunity to enjoy all that sum Summit has to offer thank [Applause] you any public comment not on the agenda non-budget right no okay uh well I have a question about that but Paul Chuli uh Orchard Street Summit I've been on Orchard Street 51 years uh lifelong resident of the summit and I I have a you know I'm listening to comments about taxes in 51 years I remember my taxes going down one time you know I Republican Democrat whoever was in charge my taxes have been going up for as long as I can remember so if somebody can make me understand why it's the summit Council right now the reason for taxes going up I I just I just don't have a I don't see it can somebody explain that to me yeah uh not this moment we will later in the budget hearing okay so um the other thing I want to talk about is um Bryant Parkway I'm right on the I'm right on the corner of Bryant Parkway and that that project was supposed to be a temporary setup and all of a sudden one day it uh had become permanent and I don't remember anybody ever taking any Serv Sur of the residents to see how it was working out and the fact of the matter is it it's terrible okay I'm on Orchard and in the morning in the afternoon sometimes it takes me 10 minutes to get out of my driveway okay people are cutting the light up on Broad Street and coming down Princeton and Yale and when I'm sitting in my drive I waiting to get out the light up turns and there's four or five cars shooting out of Princeton Yale because they're they're cutting the light and Bryant Parkway it it it's just it it's a nightmare because all the traffic comes to the light now because they can't go down Bryant Parkway they come to the light make a LIF and come down the orchard the traffic on Orchard is horrendous and it it it's it's awful and I I think it needs to be looked at because I don't know how that got to be made permanent I I don't ever remember any notification saying that this was going to be permanent all of a sudden one day they were painting stripes on the street and it was it was permanent but I you know I think it needs to be looked at again because it it's really bad okay thank you the other thing I want to say is uh Bryant pun okay uh the project is is is it's great i' I've spoken to the to the guy who's in charge of the the the digging mhm and um I'll tell you really looks good that that was that that was a great great thing yeah thank you I we're excited about that okay um your question about taxes will be handled after during the hearing okay and then Orchard we can we'll cover after the closing of public comments hi good evening Joselyn Modesto 61 Butler Parkway I'm here to discuss the proposed lights at tatlock um throughout the small neighborhood meeting the tatlock community has made a compelling case for why the stadium lights will be dangerous damaging and detrimental to our neighborhood and should not be considered any further when asked what he was planning to do with our concerns or how he was going to weigh the impact on our lives against the sports community's wish for lights Council councilman Smallwood did not have an answer all he kept repeating was that he was listening to us to that I say if you are truly listening and hearing the tatlock community's position you would stop this project in its tracks dismantle the lighting subcommittee and put energy into looking for a solution that does not severely and negatively affect an entire neighborhood especially when that same neighborhood has been significantly impacted by the burden it already carries for the Summit Sports programs it was very alarming when councilman Smallwood said that nothing has been set regarding the lights they could be on they could be off at 9:10 or even 11:00 this was the first time 11:00 p.m. was mentioned as an option and the fact that he would even say that as a possibility underscores that the neighborhood's concerns have not been truly heard additionally his presentation to the boosters tomorrow night brings the project out of step two and into step three well in advance of any promised studies being conducted and certainly without having time to meaningfully digest the comments and concerns of the tatlock community councilman SM would then closed out the meeting by encouraging us to reach out to our council members with further concerns one of the the representatives for tlock is councilman palowski he has made it clear that he supports the lighting proposal despite the adverse impacts it will have on a large portion of the constituents he even went as far as to recently resign from the summit lacrosse board midseason to preserve his ability to vote Yes for the lights this just further highlights the fact that the deck is stacked against the Washington Community once again history is repeating itself as the tatlock neighborhood is forced to downgrade our quality of life again and accept more traffic noise parking and safety issues but now it also comes with light pollution harmful health effects from artificial lights at night and dangerous conditions caused by glare it is not a compromise when one party gets their wish and the other party is left worse off than they are right now it's more akin to the tatlock community being steamrolled thank [Applause] you anyone else okay like to comment from in affordable housing Sumit um I have I'm going to leave this with the clerk but I think everybody's aware of this we have a fair share agreement which which was signed by mayor rist and um Kevin Walsh of the fair share housing center which the city uh through its staff and uh developers and Builders has been working to accomplish I think it's important to note that on page five it states Summit shall not be required to facilitate construction of a single 50 unit all affordable development and agrees to the maximum extent possible to rely on nonprofit developers to develop the 50 units of affordable housing furthermore the agreement on the same page of paragraph G says the city shall make all reasonable efforts to facilitate which does not put the obligation on the city to build and I just have to state from my experience in developing affordable housing with private developers over 30 plus years that segregating communities is a mistake uh it used to be a policy of COA not to segregate affordable housing into one building or one spot uh and for obvious reasons uh for some reason now there's some of that has changed but it still doesn't make sense um the only thing that makes sense is to integrate affordable units within the community and within the projects and that's really what Summit should be looking to accomplish um if they wish to help uh Summit at home uh I wouldn't have a problem with that I think it's a good idea I I do want to know why the corporation has its address at Summit City Hall whether that was authorized by the city council or not but um in the uh Secretary of State records it shows that the corporation does have an happen to have an address at City Hall associated with the current Housing Authority now I don't remember the council ever approving that or making that corporation uh part of the city but in any event that's a question to be answered later uh I'm just going to leave a copy of this agreement which I think a lot of people are familiar with with the and thank you very much thank you for the record sir would you please state your name into the microphone and your address it's Peter lejoy 124 canri Parkway Summit New Jersey thank you thank you for REM REM thank you okay is there anyone else for public comment for not on the agenda hi Kevin mgoi 113 Woodland Avenue so I received this glossy Mailer in my mailbox says property this may explain what you were asking some our property taxes are going up and then on the back it said dear neighbor did you hear fact all caps under the newly elected Republican majority the city budget contains the largest P property tax incre in over 10 years and then it's got an as that brings you to a got I mean it's really small but you bring it to it doesn't show anything about a history of taxes or anything like that so I went back and looked okay let me just go back a couple years and see because you know our tax increase this year our property tax increase this year by my math pretty simple is 86% that's what my property taxes are going to go up so the average taxpayer is is going to pay $19,000 $119,000 $1 19,22 okay that's up $163 from last year when they paid $118,800 so then I look back okay let me see what happened last year not 10 years ago last year the average property tax went up by $26 or 1.12% again this year it it's 86% and $163 so I think 206 is bigger than 163 so I don't know about that fact uh let's go back further the previous year went up $140 on a smaller base that was 76% tax increase you know a little bit smaller than this year the year before it went down 23% the year before that it went up $23.38 that's 1 .6% again higher than this year and the year before that the average taxpayer their tax bill increased $43.75 that's 2.29% increase a lot more than 86 and $163 then it goes back fact public the Republican Council will increase the capital budget by 104% okay I look back at the capital budgets in 2019 the capital budget went from from $5 million in 2018 to $15.4 million where was everybody where were these where where were these then then if you look back historically the maintenance cap X looks like it's between $4 and5 million the last two years it dropped down to two and 1.9 okay then the last bullet point so I think that was an unsustainable capex level the last Point fact that suit as a residential Tech pays nearly double the state average and property taxes it's CU our home values are double what the average are probably more but anyway thank thank you are there any other public comments not on the agenda okay we're gonna close the public oh come on Henry I guess I'll yeah that's fine under the wire Henry vman 18 I'll be right uh I'm not going to talk about lights tonight uh I'm going to talk about something I think is more important uh the ability to speak back to government is a special privilege of a Democratic Society but the way this is evolved in Summit I find problematic first you get to talk for as long as you want as many times as you want and we have to talk once for three minutes and I don't know who decides Ed that 3 minutes is the optimal time maybe if you've got something simple to say 3 minutes is fine if you've got something complex maybe you need a little more time uh for every issue whether it's the capital budget Municipal budget affordable housing lights at tatlock the proponents are invited to give a presentation but the impo opponents are never invited to give a presentation how can you make a good decision without hearing both sides of the issue I'm suggesting that my interest that in the Autumn when all the information is in with the environmental survey and the traffic survey lighting survey that uh you invite the tatlock neighbors to make a presentation so quickly three other things and they involve demeanor first is the countdown clock I've talked to a number of people this is stressful enough that clock increases the stress exponentially second the abrupt way that people are now being shut down at precisely 3 minutes and not given even the opportunity to finish a sentence much less a paragraph lacks the chorum and third and it's rude and third while watching other public comments I noticed that a significant number of the people here on the panel are not listening and if you don't listen how can you hear as many as seven people tonight were engaged in doing other things rather than looking and listening to the person who is making the public comment that shouldn't happen those are my comments I hope you don't mind but they're offered in the spirit of making public debate more effective and you getting better information on which to make decisions thank you thank [Applause] you yeah yeah come on up good evening my name is Anna quento I live at 65 Butler Parkway I would like to start off by saying thank you for the your service to Summit I appreciate that it takes a lot of commitment and time to do what you all do I'm here as a concerned member of the tatlock community I live right across the street from the clearing by investors field I have lived there for eight years and have absolutely loved living in this neighborhood when Friday Night Lights was at was a yearly event my family and I really enjoyed it so much we knew it was a once in a once a year event and we knew to be extra careful around that night we needed to be very cautious with how we parked our cars making sure that we backed in so that if we had to leave the house we could drive out of the driveway and onto the street front first in a safe way as long as we were extra cautious we knew that the craziness and sometimes unly behavior from kids who were high or drunk was only an event that we had to be careful with one night out of the year we knew that this craziness that was brought in for those night games was something that attracted many many more people than the people that were just coming for to watch the game they were coming for the party they were coming for the celebration not just to watch the game but hey it was fun and it was an event for everyone and it was a special event that we could all be okay with because it was only one night out of the Year Friday Night Lights was a blast however the proposal of lighting the field with permanent life is a totally different animal it's an awful Prospect for the tatlock community you've heard the countless please from the local community giving you all of the reasons why we are terrified of what this will do to our neighborhood and to our day-to-day living we have no idea what the scale of the number of night games of all of the sports will bring on in our community there is no telling because anything that you guys offer us now could potentially and easily change very soon in the near future I do Wonder after hearing so many people complain about the noise and the disturbances around the field events if you all realize we don't actually all mind those things all that much when they happen at adequate hours I love the cheering I love the whistles I love the spirit and the energy I love it during adequate hours I actually love when I wake up to it because of it on weekend mornings or on summer weekdays but there should be a limit to hours at which these things happen we as residents of summit as taxpayers as equal members of the community deserve to be able to have peace and quiet at hours when this noise is not adequate we deserve to be able to put our young children and grandchildren to bed and a be able to enjoy the peace and quiet that all of you get to enjoy and have gotten to enjoy at bedtime for your young ones and for yourselves and at dinner time with your families and when you want to enjoy a beautiful evening outside we deserve not to have to worry about the over-the-top noise and Chaos on the streets adjacent to the field with loud voices and cars with their constant beeps locking and unlocking and beeps trying to get somebody's attention until potentially 10 p.m. we deserve to be able to have limits to the time of day of all of these fun and beautiful commun mad your time is up okay just we beg of you do not force this upon us in our homes when we should have the right to have the peace and quiet and family time that you all are going to get to have thank you thank you well can we take your statement [Applause] okay okay okay any other public comments not on the agenda okay I'm going to close public comment um and I just want to kick it over to um Mr jacobe will you talk about the time limit before I go let me give you my not sorry I apologize for not having soon you're not leaving yet are you a good oh wait we're gonna I want to address the three minutes um just in terms of oh yeah yeah did you want to talk about the time limit at all about the three minutes absolutely so during the open public meeting portion of a meeting all meetings are open to the public there the council meeting and the public has an opportunity to speak the law is very clear you have to be consistent in the time permitted for each person speaking you can't vary it you can't give one person four minutes one person three minutes one person three minutes and 15 seconds so we offer three minute speaking we ask people to wrap it up when they hit and if people go over a second or two we generally indulge them but it's to be consistent because if you're not then you subject the town to liability where people do file lawsuits for violating the open public meeting act uh claiming that you have been uh disperate in your treatment of public speakers so we're doing it consistently and uh the council actually moved the the meetings to the beginning of the meeting so the people didn't have to stay here uh till you know later in the evening and this evening people we're going to actually have two opportunities to speak but the other thing I will say is that this is comments that are not on the agenda and I can tell you I represent a lot of public entities and I go to a lot of public meetings and in all of my experience I've never seen a public entity like this be as generous as they are with public comments because not only do they let you have three minutes on non-agenda items on every resolution much to my shagrin actually because I said you guys are all out of your minds but they do it they asked the public if they'd like to comment on every resolution they asked the public would you like to comment on the consent agenda that is very typical usually there is a public comment of three minutes on agenda and non-agenda items and that's it but here you have three minutes on non-agenda items and then you have three minutes on literally everything that's on the agenda and then tonight you're going to have another three minutes on the budget so you know and I can tell you that I have ever you a lot of meetings a lot of public meetings wrap up much quicker when you limit it to 3 minutes for all comments that's not what they do here and I think that you know it's had off to as long as I've I've been here for you know five it's probably five or so years they've done that consistently no matter who's been uh the council president where they open it up to on every separate item so I think that's very unique and it does provide for a lot of dialogue and I can tell you that a lot of the things that I'm doing when I'm looking it is I'm writing down names and comments so that I can bring things up with the with the council following people's public comments thank you thank you can I can I just say something I just want actually I just wanted I wanted to respond first and so listen Henry I would be here all night I I love to listen um part of having the timer is because I would end up letting you talk for five minutes early on I did get quite a bit of criticism because I was allowing this to go too long um so I'm trying to be consistent and and um as a business meeting this is the only time that the council can actually deliberate alog together so um that's part of the reason to that we want to keep it succinct you know our meetings usually go till 11: 11:30 sometimes 12:00 and I do want to be mindful of the staff um I'm more than willing to have a conversation with you outside of the council chambers um I've I really do want people to feel welcome here um it's important to me I know we're not always going to agree on issues um but there's never a moment that um I want you to feel disrespected you know from myself or from any of the council members so I just want you to know that okay I'm sorry Council sure thank you so I took a little Heat last year when I was council president right for moving the public comments to the end of the meeting we would prioritize the business of the city and then we would get to the stuff that was not on the agenda and I felt like because we did that and we were done with the stuff that had to get done we could spend as much time as we needed hearing from the community and I would very often let people go way over three minutes so my two questions Matt would be number one uh it's still the council president's prerogative right to allow people to go longer if if the council president wants to and second would be why were you letting me allow people go on so long last year I mean seriously I'm not trying to Ambush you but like we had lots of conversations about this last year and this is the first time I'm hearing about you know we absolutely must be consistent I disagree with you I I did I did cut people off last year that's totally inaccurate you can probably go back to meetings where I said your time is up so you have to sit down yeah that was when I would cut them off right that was when I would say were but but in terms of I'm not the timekeeper uh your your clerk is the timekeeper and when people when time was up I would very often uh say you have to cease commenting I always that and I also told you the fact of the matter is that you guys indulge the public more than most places because even when you had the public comments and it was on non-agenda items at the end on agenda items you were limiting it to uh but you open up every resolution you say your consult comments so I I you did do it consistently last year uh you had some issues but if you um you know let somebody go on a few minutes a few seconds Beyond that's okay a few seconds but not minutes and I don't recall anybody talking for five or six minutes beyond the time frame that was set I just think that's not that's not accurate with what happened I think we I think we got to go to the tapes on that one you should because I cut off a lot of people I think we left here a lot later than 11 o' more than once last year because you had multiple people speaking but we kept to the time limit and I just want to say um so to your point about public comments at the beginning public comments at the end there is no magic to that I I tend to agree so this is great because people know that when public comments is at the very beginning you know that you can come here and you're going to be able to catch public comments part of the reason that I think it was under was it councilman Naidu somebody changed it from the public comments to the beginning to the end or I'm sorry somebody reversed it yeah somebody reversed it and part of it was they wanted to get through the business and then do it at the end and so then people aren't quite sure when to come when it's at the end so honestly this is actually a discussion topic at the municipal the league of municipalities in November nobody knows if they should actually have public comment at the beginning or the end because at the end of the day there's no right moment and so if you're consistent I've been told to be consistent you're always welcome to come and I'll have a CO coffee with you you're here for three minutes you can comment in public comments and all the other things that are on the uh agenda um and I do remember Matt cutting people off so Council it's not a yeah can I I got Y at a few times to I I just couldn't help but think that uh councilman Varan told me my three minutes was up uh last year uh several times so I just want to reaffirm your recollection I was just watching it last night yeah we'll we'll check we'll check all you know I let a lot of people who are in the room talk for a very long time especially because especially because they were at the end of the meeting that's where I'll leave it councilman artan is there a concern sorry is there a concern you seem very upset by this decision L at the end of the day I think um we all want to hear you speak there's different leadership styles there's different ways to handle this at the end of the day we want to hear you speak we got to get our city staff home we want to hear you you guys are going to have different leadership styles you're you're you all do a great job right we can talk about all this later in my opinion um thank you okay um administrator Rogers do you want to talk about the address for sahc No it's it's the city right just to confirm okay um councilwoman Hamlet do you want to talk about Orchard um is there any I don't know who was following up president on on that point when you were sending the address wasn't sure youing so I think the reason why it's actually uh the address is City Hall is because the the summit uh Housing Authority when they created this and I don't know this I'm speaking just because I think this is how it was done the summit affordable housing Corp was was created through the Summit Housing Authority and they're located at this address so I think that's the reason why that's their address okay all right and um do you want to talk about tlock lights yes okay so I I clearly need to think about what I say every single a word um at last night's tatlock uh meeting but the point that I was trying to make was the fact that there have been no we're not even close to determining when lights would be on if lights go in we're not there yet so the point of me trying to say that lights are 8 o' 9:00 10:00 11:00 I didn't mean that lights would be on till 11:00 I could say 1:00 a.m. 2 a.m. 3:00 a.m. 4 a.m. it's not the point that I was trying to make the point that I was trying to make was the fact that we have not even come close to be determining if when light if and when lights go in what when they would be that's something that's going to happen in many more discussions down the road there are many there is a traffic study a comprehensive traffic study that we are going to do there is an environmental study that we are going to do the comment was brought up why am I speaking to the boosters I promised the tatlock neighborhood on our very first meeting in February 7th that I would meet with any neighbor that lived in and around tatlock field we set up five meetings we set up staggered days to try to accommodate as many people as possible we had anywhere from 10 to 13 to 14 people I wanted to keep them small because I felt like filling in an auditorium is not going to be productive I wanted to have small community meetings so that we could listen and hear all of your concerns I made a promise to meet with you and I kept my promise and I'm going to continue listening to you because at this point that is all where that's all we're at right now is a listening point a lot of the concerns that happened through each meeting it was repetitive it we found it there's a there's a strong concern obviously there's traffic there's safety there's environmental um you know there's all of those M all those minutes are on the city website and my promise to you was to meet with you and listen and hear your concerns when the boosters asked me to come and present to them last month there was a resident that said you haven't finished your meetings with tatlock yet I said said you're right I canceled my my meeting with the boosters and asked them to move it to the following month which happens to be tomorrow night it is an open meeting anybody can attend there's nothing being done behind the scenes I have never met with the boosters they wanted to find out what was going on they heard that I was meeting with the tatlock neighborhood and I'm going the presentation is more or less going to be a question and answer um for as much as I have and we'll review some of the comments so that the sports Community understands the concerns of the tatlock neighborhood thank you thank you oh and I do have one more thing Mr Bassman my memory is not that great and there's usually a lot of people who come up and speak so I write the names down in the topic that they're speaking about so that in the event that I need to respond to something I can address it okay okay uh just a couple of quick comments ironically enough going through five binders for the budget I dug up that the the tatlock lights were actually approved in 2020 which means I guess they were requested in 2019 I didn't go further back from that but I thought it was just an interesting point um because I couldn't remember when they were um when they were introduced but ironically enough I've been speaking to a lot of um residents near the Beacon Hill Club and I think some of the res residents are equally as frustrated that we don't have a time limit on certain lights so uh through you council president director shreer I was wondering can you confirm that we don't have a lighting ordinance right now we do not so I would be amenable to looking into that I know it's a concern with other neighborhoods regardless of tatlock Lights I think it's reasonable uh to do an ordinance like that it's pretty basic uh we can talk about it in committee councilman ban if you think that would be a good idea sounds reasonable to me um yeah yeah of course so I think we can say that we are all for an ordinance that can put lights off at a certain time I can not speak for the rest of my Council but we can vote on that um but I think that's a reasonable and rational way to handle some of your concerns might not have to do with tatlock lights but I think we can certainly put some um so so I just want to can I just add on two things to that so just want to go back to the one thing which was the approval of lights that you just study sorry right okay just to be very clear with everybody right like what was funded in a capital budget was a study ST which was finished and now that's thank you coun yes and then the second thing is you know there's already in the drro restrictions on the heights of light light structures that you can add right there's already lots of very specific design details the thing that maybe residents don't know is that the city doesn't have to follow it we don't the city doesn't have to follow our own drro so we're the city can make the decision put in 8 80 foot lights if they and the ordinance wouldn't matter a lighting ordinance wouldn't apply to the city I talking about the time the time yeah still I don't think it that would be a drro thing and it still wouldn't apply to the city so I I think that that suggestion is a good one that we should definitely look into because it pertains to other private clubs but it's also certainly not shouldn't make anybody feel more secure I me director three council president director Sher don't other municipalities have le new ordinances pretty often that something that we could enforce uh I'm not sure if other I assume some do I know some that do I can't say how many but it is something we can enact but it is our ordinance so it's up to us to enforce it so I think we can choose to enforce it if we if we put through we could choose to just say we're going to turn the lights off it's just not the city of summit that doesn't have to it's all municipalities do not have to follow their own rules their own ordinances councilman plaski um so I haven't really commented on tatlock lights from the deis uh yet but I have gone to a couple of the meetings and I had a meeting of my own um and what I have consistently said and Henry I said this to you last night we know what you're doing I don't know how that happened I'm sorry that violated a 3 minute it's it's two to two just you're close to three minutes there it's basketball season I mean since we're I know is it LaCrosse or baseball hockey oh hockey I I am I'm very interested in what um all of the folks who live down around T lock have to say and what their concerns are and as I said to Henry last night I'm going to weigh those concerns more than I'm going to weigh the concerns of people who don't live around there I think that's why the um uh analysis that we're doing is set up in the way that it is and um but the question that I've asked tatlock residents and I I haven't gotten an answer to it yet is what's the measure of whether we're listening to the tatlock residents is it if we do lights we didn't listen and if we don't do lights we did listen and is there any in between because I think we have a responsibility to maybe consider an in between so no I'm so sorry go back and forth this yeah this will this is a longer ongoing discussion I know okay all right are there any other Council comments um I would like to take a break um for 5 minutes only because it's the budget hearing and it might take some time so why don't we take five minute break and then we can I just one last thing my resignation from the summit Lacrosse Club it was not so that I could vote on this eventually there was no conflict even if I was still on it so I just wanted to make that clear uh because Joselyn had commented otherwise okay thank you all right we're going to take a five minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e I'm G to call the beating back to order all right thank you all right we have an ordinance we don't have everybody [Music] St just stare at staring at you okay we have an ordinance for introduction Madame clerk please read the ordinance uh ID number 11210 ordinance to authorize acquisition of real property between Ashlin Road and Oakland Place uh capital projects councilwoman Hamlet yes sorry I'm just getting back second take your time okay uh thank you council president this is ordinance ID 11210 an ordinance authorizing the acquisition of real properties on the official tax map of the city of summit I'm just going to read ver because this is a little bit complicated and hard to explain if there's further questions I'll pass along to director triger um two Parcels blocks 3208 lot 5 59 ashin Road and block 3207 lot 557 lyen place are currently owned by a defunct development company Summit homeand company for which no successor or entity remains these Parcels were likely created during the original subdivision of the area and they primarily contained walled portions of the saltbrook in addition to some adjacent unimproved areas each is 2 2 X300 and contains 6600 ft earlier this year a legal team's opinion was that the city holds responsibility for these properties based on the current ownership status even though the city is not listed as the lawful owner previously the city had an informal practice of removing obstructions in the saltbrook including trees Within These Parcels since the city has the responsibility to maintain these Parcels at the time the department is recommended proceeding with a formal acquisition of these lands so they they can be added to the list of city-owned parcels on the tax maps and modiv data so the ownership is clearly understood moving forward this process is completed by proceeding with the ordinance provided I move to introduce this ordinance I second and I just have a quick comment also if we can um we just uh we don't we talked about it in the committee and we have it but we just don't have the the tax map or anything in the packet we can just post that to the website or or make sure we add it to the next council meeting and just to again point out the the size of it is really it's 22 feet by 3300 ft right and it's a very small it's very small we're not you know we're not taking over a big piece of land here yeah okay thank you any other we did talk about putting that in the um Recreation open space inventory for I guess record director sugar if you think that's appropriate then we could put it in the rosi for future yeah once we take ownership yes okay great uh Madam clerk roll call please Mr Boer hi Miss Hamlet hi Mr migar hi Mr palaski hi Mr Smallwood hi Mr bartan hi president Allen I okay the hearing will be on May 22nd on to resolutions May 21st May 21st thank you sorry uh onto resolutions Finance councilman minegar thank you council president thank you council president I think my mic might be low right is my like L what sound okay yeah you sound good sound great to uh thank you the um this is number 112000 and this resolution appoints a new qualified purchasing agent per closed session discussion the city welcomes Natasha matac as the new qualified purch purchasing agent uh welcome to Natasha I move to adopt this resolution second excellent Council comments I just want to say congratulations I know it's much needed um is there any public comments okay all in favor hi any opposed motion carries second resolution counciler thank you council president this is number 11250 and this is uh this resolution appoints our 2024 affirmative action officer and public agency compliance officer this position is held by the qpa who we just voted on in the last resolution so per close session discussion the city welcomes Natasha matak to serve as the purchasing affirmative action officer and public agency compliance officer again welcome Natasha I move to adopt this resolution second excellent any Council comments public comments just I just have one council president uh obviously welcome to Natasha and I also just wanted to say I had some time to speak with Michelle Caputo this week who'll be leaving us and obviously wishing her the best uh we're losing a lot of knowledge with Michelle and uh we we know Natasha has big shoes to fill but I will spend as much time with Michelle as I can in the next five to seven days learning as much as I can if possible so congratulations excellent okay public comments all right all in favor hi hi any opposed motion carries all right safety and health councilman Boer thank you council president uh today I have the privilege of introducing resolution 11223 to confirm Detective Ryan stanik uh its promotion to the rank of Sergeant detective stanik joined the summit Police Department in 2007 and over the past 17 years he has dedicated himself to serving our community with honor integrity and a deep commitment to Public Safety his career highlights uh include substantial Community involvement and a notable record of reducing crime rates detective stanic has demonstrated leadership through his roles such as the summit PBA Local 55 president and assistant range Master uh his proactive approach in general investigations and community policing has sign significantly enhance the safety and Trust within our community uh I like to take the time uh to congratulate now sergeant stanic and I present this resolution for your consideration to support um this adoption excent second excellent Council comments else okay want to say congratulations is there any public comments all in favor I any opposed motion carries next Community programs councilman Smallwood thank you council president this is ID number 11247 uh pending close session discussion this is to declare vacancy as Parking Services director uh we recently had our parking services director retire and I moved this move to adopt this resolution I second excellent any Council comments public comments okay all in favor I any opposed motion carries capital projects councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president this is resolution ID 11033 to award the bid for the community center Ada ramp improvements in the amount of $73,345 improve accessibility to the lower part of the community center grounds I would like to move this resolution second excellent Council comments I just have one I was looking at this today uh director Sher I noticed in the award bid that the award was given to Diamond construction when I was looking at the bid specs I noticed that their costs for the um concrete were substantially lower so I just wanted to take note of that and just make sure it's accurate so that we don't have any change orders um or because the other contractors were obviously I'm not sure if it was a prevailing wage thing or what it was but through you council president yeah have through you council president when you when you look at their bid you could tell it's apparent what what they did some of their upfront costs they they bid higher than the others which is their way of just trying to get money in advance and therefore then they lower it on the concrete so it's just part of the the strategy that contractors will will Implement uh on a project this small we don't really call it out we we understand what they're doing but that's why they're conrete is is cheaper so uh and it's a risk because if we use more concrete that's in there then they would get paid less so it's just part of um the bidding process so thank you great um council president just to piggyback off your question because now I'm curious um so is this contractor overbidding is it is that is that what we're saying you notice that the contractor overbid or excuse me the contractor underbid and then there's a possibility that they will um submit a um submit a request for uh um change order a change order than sorry do you council president so I think first and foremost we do have the lowest bidder that we are selecting so it you know it is the lowest bidder by the bidding process uh no because they're they are married essentially to the price they bid for the item that is in the bid so even if it's less if they chose to bid less uh they're not entitled to get more for what they bid because they they gave us a unit price for that material which in this case would be the concrete uh and it's not that their concrete price is is so outrageous if it was outrageous like a penny per yard that is something we would call out or possibly reject a bid uh based on the premise that they they set their costs on um otherwise um in this case they would just be required to to do more for a very low price so um so we'll keep an eye on the fact that if they submit a change order and the actual bid price is the same as the highest bid price then you'll you you'll flag that correct and if they submitted change orders for additional work they did and they'd be entitled to it uh but at the price they've already bid uh if it's something out of the scope of work that's where you know it's it's negotiated in terms of what the price would be so thank you and through you counc president this one was a little unique because the concrete costs for the other biders were were double and I thought there was a Mis calculation I thought the award bid was calculating at square yards and the other one were calculating at square feet so it was just ironic that it was double and I thought maybe somebody just made a mistake in their calculations but that's why I just wanted to confirm director Sher is there a threshold of change orders so like if you have three biders um someone comes in low the lowest we choose them based on that price is there a threshold that we say you we can't do um change orders over a certain dollar amount so that we don't get in a situation where two people who lost out on High bids come back and say wait a minute that third bidder was the lowest and now they're at the highest because we did so many change orders how do you yeah what's that thr how do you yes the contract law allows us to go 20% over the the actual total price that's bid um there are exceptions you could get to if it's justifiable but but in that regards yes within 20% is still fine if you get into other quantities yes other other biders could challenge a bit even after the fact um based on what's happened after it was awarded so yeah in this case we should point out though some items might be different I mean your low bidder was 73 and the next two biders were 76 so it's it's really just this is competitive bidding which is what happens when you do it early spring so so this is actually very good prices okay great thank you any other comments no okay uh public comment no all right all in favor any opposed motion carries next uh Council mamm uh yes this is resolution ID 133 which will award bid curbside collection and marketing of recycling materials July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2026 whereas the superintendent of Public Works recommends awarding the bid received on March 28th 2024 for curbside collection and marketing of recycling materials to Grand Sanitation for item two single stream weekly pickup 5 days per week of residential and school and governmental buildings for a 2-year term July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2026 the cost of said service is1 1,79 90,000 for a two-year term and funds for July 1st 2024 through December 31st 2024 in the amount of $447,500 will be certified upon inclusion and and in adoption of the 20124 operating budget from account number 4- 01- 26305 01512 I'd like to move this resolution I second any other Council comments the comments please state your name and address thank you council president Danny Danny O Sullivan 33 Crescent so um curbside recycling is broken uh single stream um everything in one truck paper whether it's wet or not going into the truck glass going in mail going going in we don't do do it that way at the transfer station when you go to the transfer station it's very strict you bring cardboard it goes right into a truck or a bin and if it's going to rain they put a cover on it so it's just I think we want to do the right thing as as residents and we want to um recycle and and you know follow the law and all of that but it's not working and it's frustrating to know that 90% of our plastic is getting incinerated that this wet cardboard that sits out all night it's useless it's trash if you have a greasy pizza box it's trash so how is it that all of this cardboards going into a truck a single stream truck and getting embedded with glass getting crushed together how is that getting recycled so we're not going to solve it tonight but some of you will be here for a couple of more years years when this contract is uh coming up again and we just need Creative Solutions to figure out what are we doing it's not working it's just we're just paying $895,000 a year to throw other trash away some I don't know what they're doing with it it's not it's not being made you're not walking into a Target and buying a hairbrush from all the Poland Spring bottles that they recycled I mean it's just not working that way so I just would like to see some creative thinking on this over the next one and a half years as this comes up again thank you thank [Applause] you um well I think that's a great point and I'm curious I'm not I've not been on the recycling committee or anything but I would welcome um Mr oan for you to get back involved and and take the lead on something like that if whoever's a subject matter expert because it's been bothering I think uh councilman Smallwood I think all of us we don't want to waste taxpayer money so if we have some great ideas director Sher maybe you can do you have anything is this the way we've been doing it for how long and are there any better Municipal opportunities out there well first for you council president you know we are required to recycle and I think just trying to put a positive spin on this we did maintain Grand Sanitation and the the price was far less of an increase than we would have um expected with inflation Etc so just at least in the short term uh that is a win for the city uh overall the the problem is much larger than the city of summit I mean is is really Nationwide and since China stopped accepting a lot of our recycled waste um there does need to be bigger assistance from the state and federal level I agree uh we have looked internally at other options whether it's collecting on our own requiring people to bring into the transfer station uh individually so there are a lot of options there uh I'm happy to to start looking at other options moving forward but for now the primary option we have is to is to collected curbside and once it is collected curbside the the company in this case Grant sanitation does own it so um what they do with it is they have to follow the laws to to sort it and how they do that is is up to them but but I do agree globally it's something that we should look at and if someone can can take part in that at a local level that would be great yeah thank you council president sure um Mr I'm 100% in agreement with you um I know that the on the recycling committee uh they are working on some just within our own transfer station they are working on some marketing pieces that we're going to be able to use through the city website and trying to get out and educate as many people as possible of what is recyclable what's not recyclable um and it goes it's a huge learning experience for me in terms of the types of plastics that that's recyclable um I'm still going through it and it's a little goes over my head but you know we have a gentleman on the recycling committee that knows exactly what is acceptable what not acceptable and he's working on a marketing piece um to tell us whether like Plastics if it's if it's like if it sounds like tinf foil it's not or if it is or if it's not or if it's if it's crinkly it is or it isn't um but is also talking about the the the cardboard as well um I would actually like to go to planfield to visit the Grand Sanitation is it the Grand Sanitation service is it the name of the company correct yes okay okay um I would actually like to take a trip down there maybe you could join me and uh to see how they actually operate and what actually gets what what actually gets recycled and what gets put into the incinerar um because I agree if we're if we're spending $800,000 on Recycling and it's not being recycled we're wasting money can I just one one quick thing two quick things so there's the macro level of recycling right which is like this used to be a great source of revenue for the city and now it's $895,000 a year right so that's obviously obviously there's a problem there but but at the at the very micro level of recycling Grand is a big big improvement over over the previous vendor and you know we were talking about this the other day if you wind up behind them in your car right you're going to be like a little bit more frustrated because it's like what what's taking them so long and it's they're taking their time right and they're and they're putting the they're being a little bit careful and they're most of the time get the bins back onto the curb and I think that's like at a day-to-day thing if you don't have to run out into the street and grab your recycling bin I think that's a good thing and I think that's a nice win to be celebrated so thank you excellent okay uh anyone else all right um all in favor hi hi any opposed motion carries okay councilwoman Hamlet thank you council president this is my my third one y the third I've had so many I can't uh resolution number 10974 authorizing Grant application submission and execution Grant agreement for the 2024 uh njbpu C implementation grant program whereas a sustainable Community seeks to ensure that its environmental economic and social objectives are balanced and mutually supportive the city of summit strives to assure clean land air and water for current and future Generations whereas New Jersey's energy master plan Pathway to 205 2050 established that Community level action is necessary to achieve the state's goal of 100% clean clean energy by 2050 and that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has created a community energy implementation grant program for municipalities to implement initiatives identified in their Community ener energy energy plan or a plan equivalent to a c that has been approved I'd like to move this resolution second excellent uh Council comments just real really well you could go I just wanted to say that the I think we noticed that the the actual application that's in your packet tonight is the old one which has a date that is not correct for submission which we found so if we could just attach the correct one to the minutes director Sher uh this looks like we're on time for submitting this it's fine correct correct yes thank you council president I believe the date is uh May 24th correct May 24th sorry was May 24th thank you all right uh just very quickly council president um so our community energy plan was adopted uh at the end of last year basically what that is is that it outlines uh actual concrete initiatives that the city can take partake uh that the city can uh Implement and participate in over the next 10 years this is this is uh what seems I think like the first round of Grants associated with that so that's good thank you and that was donel app for it uh yeah the environmental commission uh created the community energy plan uh and I has been helpful in this Grant application excellent yeah thank you Donna yeah thank you Donna okay all in favor I I I any opposed motion carries uh councilwoman Hamlet thank you council president this is resolution ID 11248 authorizing the grant appli submission and execute Grant agreement for all US Department of Transportation Safe Streets and Roads whereas the US Department of Transportation Safe Streets and roads for all ss4a program provides Federal funding to support planning infrastructure behavioral and operational initiatives to present prevent death and serious injury on roads and streets involving all roadway users including pedestrians bik bicyclists public transportation personal conveyance and micro Mobility users motorists and Commercial Vehicle operators now therefore be it resolved that the common Council of the city of summit formally approves the application to the above stated grant program for a minimum amount of $100,000 for a planning and demonstration Grant to create an action plan for the city of summit and I'm looking to see if there is a match I'd like to move this resolution second Council comments public comments okay all in favor I any opposed motion carries final resolution coun and that one does it looks like that does have a 20% match so I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that okay okay give me a minute okay final one this is resolution ID 11235 Grant permission set forth conditions for the summit volunteer first aid Squad sign display on city property that permission is hereby granted to the summit volunteer first aid Squad to display membership Drive promotional signs in various locations on city property from Wednesday May 8th 2024 through Saturday June 8th at the Village Green near the YMCA The Village Green at the corner of Summit Avenue and Broad Street Union Place roundabout and the transfer station by the railroad overpass I would like to move this resolution second excellent Council comments public comments okay very quickly the what the signs are are what the signs are encouraging people to do uh is join the first aid Squad so I can't possibly recommend doing that highly enough uh go on their website check it out Take a Ride Along changed my life thank you AB I I saw John in the John's not here anymore right okay okay excellent public comments all in favor I hi any opposed motion carries okay next up is our budget hearing um I'm going to kick it over to administrator Rogers thank you council president I appreciate the opportunity to speak before for the uh public hearing um so while a great deal of tangible work product has been created to educate the elected officials and public about the 2024 Municipal budget I believe it is necessary to restate some basic information and thoughts about it the introduced 2024 Municipal budget reflects the city's commitment to preserve its sound financial position and enhanced quality of life through efficient allocation and management of limited resources while being mindful of its long range fiscal capacity and strategic debt management practices further the municipal budget delivers on the city's highlevel service goals and provides significant funding for Capital Improvements to rebuild repair and improve city infrastructure and Facilities to meet Community needs the 2024 Municipal budget is a policy document that establishes a strong operational plan provides essential public services and responsibly meets other Financial Obligations budget preparation was particularly challenging this year given that various appropriation increases outweighed available non- tax revenue sources competing interests and scarce resources always present challenges in balancing the city's annual budget like every preceding budget year the common Council finance committee carefully examined the 2024 annual operating budget and capital Improvement project requests submitted by City department heads and division managers after extensive review and discussion the finance committee capital projects committee and key key City staff formulated an annual financial plan that sufficiently balances operational needs with prudent Ste stewardship of public monies please allow me to provide some Financial facts about this budget the 2024 Municipal tax rate is rising to 92 cents per $100 of assess valuation which is to 2 cents higher than the 20 2023 Municipal rate 2 cents is the same municipal tax rate increase realized in the 2023 Municipal budget the municipal tax levy increase needed to balance the 2024 budget is $1.47 million this is a 5% increase from the 2023 Municipal tax levy why this tax levy increase is the largest amount needed to balance the city's budget in many years Property Owners will not realize the 5% or 5% increase in their Municipal Taxes as fully explained during my April 2nd Municipal Pres budget presentation in the municipal budget snapshot delivered to every property owner about 2 weeks ago and in the voluminous budget document produced for the elected officials and the public that is posted on the city's website the city's tax-based valuation growth of $82 million will generate about 741 th000 in new Municipal tax revenue this 741 th000 of new Municipal tax revenue will provide just over 50% of the 1.47 million of tax revenue required to balance the budget the remaining Municipal tax revenue needed it's approximately 720,000 557 to balance the budget will be raised from the existing tax based valuation this is why every property owner will see the municipal portion of their tax bill Rise by 2.3% or 2 cents in comparison the 2024 Municipal tax rate percentage in percentage increase is lower than the 2.5% increase in 2023 even with the 1 47 million tax levy increase the city's budget is well under the state's property tax levy cap law by 394,161 municipalities always want to realize tax based valuation growth Property Owners want to see this happen with their own respective property value annual new tax base valuation increases generate gener generate new tax revenue the city of summit has been very fortunate to see consistent significant tax base valuation increases since 2017 over the last seven years the average tax base valuation growth was $35 million in 2023 the city's budget benefited from a$ 34.7 million increase in its tax base where by it it reduced the one 1,300,000 m one yeah 1.03 million or 3.6% increase in the municip municipal tax levy by about $314,000 thus the remaining tax revenue needed to balance the 2023 budget was about 72 $2,181 or 2.5% summit's average residential assessment value is $35,840 increase in their total tax bill of which $92 is the municipal portion or for every 100,000 of residential value assess valuation assessment a property owner should anticipate an an estimate ated $37 increase in their total tax bill or $21 increase in the municipal portion of their tax bill for comparison purposes in 2023 the same property owner saw an $190 increase in their total tax bill of which $100 was the municipal portion again to clear up any misunderstanding the estimated 2024 tax bill change will be lower than what than what Summit Property Owners experienced in 2023 my last point about the 202 for municipal budget is regarding the capital budget the primary challenge of of the annual capital budget is to balance priorities with fiscal constraints similar to an annual operating budget a capital budget requires difficult decisions the nature and importance of individual Capital project requests will likely determine those that will be accomplished in the respective budget year and those that can be deferred to Future years over the last several years the city has deferred many projects to Future years because of rising Debt Service obligations in fact in 2022 and 2023 the city's Capital budgets were 2.1 million and 1.9 million respectively last year was the lowest capital budget in decades that budget level is unsustainable given the growing number of capital projects deferred for years from 2014 to 2021 the average capital budget amount was $7.2 Million so the 2024 capital budget amount of $4 million is well below that average even though it is it is double the historically low capital budget amount in 2023 in closing I would like to thank the mayor and common Council for all their hard work during this budget process and strongly recommend that the 2024 Municipal budget as introduced on April 2nd be adopted thank you thank you administrator Rogers um councilman Minar I'd like to just um set say something you mind sure um I just wanted to thank everybody and kind of set the context so so um tonight we're going to be discussing the municipal budget for 2024 and as council president I want to underscore the Deep commitment by this Council to deliver a budget that balances fiscal constraint with responsible investing in City resources making budget decisions is never easy but this year just as years ped the finance committee under councilman minegar's guidance worked every Thursday for four months to identify where we could cut save and prioritize so we wouldn't burden our residents more than necessary nobody likes a tax increase especially knowing that inflation is hitting our pocket books in every aspect of our lives but unfortunately City Hall is not immune to inflation as well similar to last year it's important to highlight that despite some challenges our budget this year stayed under the 2% cap um our human so what did we focus on as former councilman uh Varan mentioned in his Facebook live last year with chair at the time of Finance uh councilman minegar the two largest Department ments that touch and impact everyone's life in Summit are Public Safety and Community Services that's why we are investing in both this year our human capital and our construction Capital our valued employees the buildings the roads and support systems that our Ci's run on this year budgets process this year's budget process under councilman Miner's Direction mirrors last year's process and reflects our dedication to ensuring the consistency and Excellence of Municipal services our residents rely on recognizing employees as valuable assets and enabling them to be successful in their jobs directly correlates with their ability to serve our community happily and effectively throughout the 20 throughout 2023 one common concern we continually heard from the community was safety and we are investing in our police force this decision not only enhances our community security but it also supports our police in meeting the growing and challenging needs of our city a couple years ago a previous councilman uh stated that we really squeeze out every ounce of shelf life from our assets whether it's our cars equipment and furniture and that case Still Remains the Same today that's why this year our in our pursuit of responsible management of our city fiscal resources administrator Rogers requested a position for a new facility manager the role will see oversee more than $40 million in assets that until now have been managed in a decentralized way rest assured this person will be out in the field and hands off our aim is to create a budget that mirrors the priorities of this community because we're listening learning and working every day to make sound decisions fiscally and otherwise once again I would like to thank our uh Finance chair councilman migar who has brought two years of experience to this budget process I'd like to thank mayor Fagan um councilwoman Hamlet um all for your hard work councilwoman Hamlet you really dig into numbers and turn everything inside out um to understand them administrator Rogers CFO Tammy Baldwin and all the department heads who met with us worked on the budget your expertise and strategic guidance have had been have been crucial in shaping what I believe is a responsible budget um both councilman minegar and councilman Vartan collectively have five years of experience on the finance committee as chairs and have stated many times this process is exhaustive transparent and head and shoulders above other towns and I completely agree they are right and Tammy I hope you get a good night's rest tonight it's been six months finally I'd like to recognize all the citizens who have sent in emails um and who I've spoken to about the budget happy or not um I appreciate the engagement and I appreciate and thank you for your interest whether it was Kevin mcgoy or Diego with all your questions I've learned a ton and I have a true appreciation of the nuances of the budget so thank you again um let's continue to work together to ensure our city remains a wonderful place to live work and thrive and councilman migar the floor is your yours thank you for indulging me thank you Council uh in December uh our council president asked me to be the chair of the finance committee I saw last year what it takes to be a chair of Finance I was chair of Finance last year and ideally you are involved in discussions that help you shape the budget or at minimum aware of how that budget is being created you have to be a champion for the budget you're working on and you've got to be in the loop I told our council president that when we when we discussed it uh back in uh December in January we received the operating budget requests from every Department our police chief requested an increase in overtime for his officers which I was in total support of given his use of overtime in the prior year I realized very quickly that I was out of the loop which is what I feared would be the case whena when changes were being made to the operating budget that I had no idea about them I was not being made aware of the direction this budget was taking and in February we were presented with the operating budget it was clear then that this budget was created outside of the finance committee when I asked if it was possible to aim for a much lower percentage increase like 1% or 0% tax increase I was told that the days of sub 2% tax increases are over when I push back that we were adding too many employees a total of full four full-time pensionable employees my request to make trade-offs somewhere was not honored Chief zagorski requested additional officers the second time around and his letter to our committee was very compelling I support 100% our police chief's request for two additional officers but one of the jobs of the finance committee I thought was to make trade-offs so you don't have to make an expensive city even more expensive for years to come we should have met somewhere in the middle there was no meeting in the middle on this when I asked what the purpose of being the chair of the finance committee is in this context uh when I ENT entally have no influence at all over these discussions I was told that it would be nice to have the finance chair support this budget but that it would be presented to council regardless this budget was made for the majority period one of the duties um one of my duties of that finance committee was to run a meeting which I did also as Finance chair a duty of mine is to introduce this budget so I did that back in April and now I'm going to carry out another Duty as Finance chair which is to open the hearing and that's where my support for this budget ends I move to open the hearing I'd like to Second it with a few comments Mr giobi is that okay I'd like to address a few of your comments uh councilman minegar but I'll go ahead and say what I had to say in a positive light beforehand uh that is that I I thank the finance committee and our city staff member CFO Tammy Baldwin and our staff City administrator Michael Rogers and the entire city staff thank you for working so hard uh all of those Thursdays I'm excited to put my binders away for all of you that don't know every year there's a binder this big and the tabs are identical they're literally identical so whoever makes these I'm not sure who makes them but thank you because I went back in the last two days and it's really interesting to compare and when you dig into this 300 Page document and you backtrack 68 years it's a really really good history lesson so thank you for whoever makes these binders they don't go to waste I want everyone to appreciate that the budget is a culmination of several of years it's easy to look at just this year's budget and look at Capital costs however most of you can appreciate that it's far more complex than that I was a bit disen heartened at the last meeting when some of my colleagues questioned the overall methodology in which we came to a 2% increase as Michael Rogers just mentioned many of the previous Capital budgets have historically been between $4 and $5 million one of the highest capital budgets was in 2019 at 16,1 19,000 I began to take a deeper look at the last 5year forecast for the capital budget starting in 2021 so in 2021 the only council person up here was councilman Varan in 2021 the council at the time forecasted that the capital budget for the years 2022 to 2026 was 5.38 Million doll and we just learned from our city administrator which I didn't know from 20 14 to 2020 it was 7.2 is that right yeah up until yeah 21 21 okay so somewhere around there so that gives me the confidence that previous councils fully understood the resources staff and Capital Improvements that it takes to run the city the size of summit a city the size of summit in fact as Lisa Allen just mentioned in a budget meeting in 2021 former councilman Daniel Sullivan with the great recycling ideas tonight highlighted how we exhaust the life out of our our assets our vehicles our equipment our showmobile and we are not recklessly spending money we have similar thoughts however around 2022 and 2023 you see a massive decline in the capital budget numbers the capital budgets for those years were 2.14 and in 2023 1. n91 those two years were historical outliers our city administrator made a recommendation to take a serious halt in any spending for those years in order to reduce long-term debt o ation from large projects like the community center and the firehouse I applaud him in those efforts and appreciate this gives us more flexibility this year in returning to an appropriate capital budget to run a city the size of summit this year in 2024 our debt service payment is 6.5 million with that being said we must be mindful of our capital projects and resources going forward in regards to your comments tonight councilman migar in the meeting in which uh chief zagorski create uh presented his operating budget I specifically asked the mayor was there the CFO Tammy Baldwin was there and the city administrator was there I said I am aware that the department requested more officers in their committee meetings why aren't we talking about that right now I specifically asked that question and I specifically wanted to keep you in the loope you were clearly not for the police officers because you had questions which is fine and that's understandable so we had our CFO create a pension memo and we all became comfortable but but you bet we wanted to hire more officers that's why this council is up here the public wanted more officers you bet we wanted more officers we weren't backing down on that but we never had a conversation around it until that day in January which we were all there so you bet we wanted more safety and you bet we wanted more police officers thank you I second this resolution yes you may let me okay I'm going to go to C migar I'll let him respond and then I I'm going to go around the DI it's it's all right oh wait is my second accepted oh is your second accepted Matt you no she seconded to open the hearing you seconded to open the hearing yeah open the hear okay I make sure it was accepted thank you count president so I am I am thrilled that we got the we got the chief what he asked for um what I want to know is were you on the Safety Committee I was not on the Safety Committee but how did you know about it before I did I was not in the loop on any of these things I found out about it in like in hearsay I found out a mention of It from Michael like an hour before that meeting this is stuff that you talk about to the to the chair of your finance committee you talk about this stuff with them that's what that's how you craft a budget together so that's that's the main thing we could have have planned the tradeoffs to make the to make that happen a lot easier and I think that that's what was lacking okay well I'm sorry you feel that way and I don't know when I found out but I I knew that I think we had talked about at least in 2023 that we needed more officers in front of 22,000 residents so I thought maybe that would be a priority councilman Boer I mean so I don't even know where to start um it's my mic on here yeah the mic's uh but uh in terms of officers I'm glad that we're all on the same page um I don't have to sit up here and and defend the hiring of two more officers but I I will say that during the campaign uh almost every speech that I've that I gave I said on day one I'm going to ask for more officers uh it wasn't a secret it wasn't a secret to any anyone on the council here um and it to me it was uh something that my head was like non-negotiable right um I every meeting I had I said where's the plan for our officers so much so that people were tired of me saying it I mean it was every single safety meeting it was definitely a priority uh the reason why it was a priority is because uh Summit currently operates with a 47 full-time sworn officers uh equating to a rate of 2.06 officers per 1,000 residents the national average is 2.4 officers per 1,000 when compared to our neighboring towns Cranford 54 Westville 62 officers that's 2.04 one uh per 1,000 and no bur strikingly 57 officers per 1,000 residents that's 2.8 uh 2.84 actually I was just talking to a council member uh in Milburn and uh you know they just hired two more so they they they were ahead um they were at 55 and they hired two more uh this year so their commitment to uh Public Safety is undeniable I was actually watching the video from last year the budget meeting and both uh councilwoman Hamlet and council president uh Allen both said that they would like to see more officers in the budget for this year um and but why right so reports of Motor Vehicle thefts in the last couple years increased by 117% residential burglaries which I actually uh went over last a couple of uh Council meetings ago residential burglaries up by 126% over the last few years uh this surge underscores the urgent need for an expanded police force uh the department used 2,232 man hours or overtime to deploy additional officers for precision patrolling uh these efforts led to the arrest of 26 individual suspected of burglary and car thefts now this definitely leads to a reduction in death right so despite the high attempts the actual death of vehicles decreased by 40% compared compared to the previous year but there was a result in this operation and the resulting was substantial costs 605 hours of comp time and overtime expenses totaling 167,000 um and lastly I mean research supports the fact that adding more officers this is a Wharton School University of Pennsylvania right communities with uh better funded and adequately staff police departments tend to have higher home values I mean it that makes Common Sense uh when you're looking for a home it could be aesthetically pleasing but when you scroll down and the schools are no good and there's high crime you're not going to buy the house right uh that makes perfectly sense that's why your home values are really high um because you have good schools and you want to maintain a good police force now these two officers and correct me if I'm wrong Chief zagorski uh they will be going to the patrol Bureau so enhancing our Patrol capabilities provide more immediate response to calls and and inv visible uh deterrent in the key areas of crime um but I want to talk about can I can I say something about the budget well this is my justification for hiring officers uh I didn't think it would be that easy be honest um as a councilman I want to emphasize the profound significance of our public budgeting process it's not merely about tallying expenses or adjusting last year's figures it is a profound statement of our community's priorities and values when we allocate funds we are explicitly stating what matters to us as a city if parks are declared as a priority well the budget should reflect like that um and you should see a significant investment in park development in maintenance otherwise our stated priorities come into question the public budget is our most powerful tool for policy implementation it's not just numbers on a page it's a blueprint for the future every dollar allocated is a step towards realizing our Collective vision for the community engaging with the budget means is looking beyond the surface as elected officials we were chosen to affect change and fulfill promises if we if we are committed to enhancing Public Safety Community Wellness or education our budget must align with those objectives adjusting our financial plan is essential to achieving these goals although enhancing our police force to meet the challenges of modernity is not explicitly listed as a goal our budget reflects our commitment to this objective as taxpayers you deserve to know that your contributions are being utilized one of the primary ways to demonstrate this is through the budget document itself which should clearly articulate what we have achieved and what we aim to accomplish moving forward moreover as we move forward and think about our priorities for the next budget I encourage my fellow council members and City staff to not only manage the budget effectively but also think innovatively about how we can save and reallocate resources without diminishing Services rewarding departments for finding savings can encourage efficiency and enhance our ability to fund essential projects without additional taxpayer burden as we approach each Financial year fiscal year excuse me it's imperative to focus on outcomes not just outputs we need to ask ourselves not only what we are achieving with the resources allocated but also why these achievements matter this outcome focused approach will ensure that our budgeting process contributes meaningful is Meaningful to the quality of life in our community and when we look at the goals this year we look at expanding programs by partnering with nonprofits for developing and construct affordable housing strengthening enforcement of housing codes to ensure safe and livable conditions Provide support to The Summit Housing Authority in its uh in its renewal of public housing Citywide develop a comprehensive public awareness campaign to inform residents of available affordable housing options uh offer support services for financial literacy and home buyers education like these things we add as goals but we need to really see it happen um when we were talking about affordable housing and we were talking about the firehouse space uh my my heart truly is with um affordable housing and low-income housing you know I I would like to see low-income housing in Summit somewhere I'm I'm I'm going to be perfectly honest about that dentist Place Weaver Street Glenwood they affected people's lives I know people who who wouldn't be here without those places and those environments and if we're going to put this down as a goal we need to see that happen now listen it might not be at the fireplace I mean the firehouse um I get that but as a community and as a council we need to see it somewhere we need to partner with the Summit Housing Authority we need to help them rebuild the and I don't want to use this term but I am the dilapitated conditions that they live in right now it's unacceptable we have doors that need to be painted doorbells that don't work grass that is uneven that kids can't play on sidewalks that are chipped but when you go up to Blackburn or Prospect they have beautiful sidewalks there is a hidden structure in our town that is hidden you can't see it it's hidden by the bank there shrubberies right but in the middle of it there's a place that doesn't look like summon and we owe it to our current residents to do something about it now if this budget that we have right here and these goals and we're committed to affordable housing then it really should reflect what we do this year thank you thank you okay are there any other Council comments I just have a quick one if anybody else doesn't want to go um I think it's important to note that in 2023 the adopted uh Police salary and wage was 5,771 th000 sorry I apologize the adopted in 2022 was 6 million it then went down to 5.7 million Chief correct me if I'm wrong I'm just looking at my sheet but if you look at the actual fluctuations the number where we're at now for salary and wage is is just a little bit above at 6.24 four so I guess I would ask director um administrator Rogers what's the actual number for the taxpayer and adding to police it's it's very insignificant this year obviously but it's not the biggest piece of why the budget Rose and I'd like to talk a little bit about why the capital budget Rose are you talking about just the difference between 2023 and 2024's souring wage line yes so that's um Cola Cola specifically all right well so okay so in in 2023 the the adopted Police Department budget did not reflect a cost of living adjustment because the city was in the process of negotiating a collective bargaining uh agreement so that that amount um we had in a reserve uh so it just didn't reflect it in the 2023 adopted budget that additional money that's rough it's about 130,000 that is showing up in the 2024 budget that really has related to 2023 cost of living adjustment so that that sort of is a part of that 47 3,000 U that's increasing U so that's that's part of it and then it's retirements and and just change over uh that kind of brought that overall budget uh down in the salary wage area uh but now we're kind of replenishing our staff and that's where we are and there's natural step increases uh I we put together in the budget report we show for every group fmba PBA Teamsters non-union what the co cost of living adjustments are this year what versus last year and and uh step increases longevity and and that's what reflects really the salary and wage um increase overall increase of about 533,000 so um that's for the entire organization so that that's what we try to provide in light people there's it's just pure transparency that I I believe in and um it just requires looking at all the information and trying to piece it together I know it's a lot um that you council president administrator Rogers for the two officers minus medical pension I don't think they contribute for the first couple years I have 116,000 for the year one uh so the salary and we just for salaries alone we have two full year salaries for the new hires that's about 115,000 uh they contribute a pension it's just that it it's not reflected in the the employers number for two years so it's a lagging amount that what we're paying this year in 2024 is for 2022 salary salaries okay councilman Smallwood yes thank you council president so I mean in terms of counciler supporting our police officers and the hiring of them it it's the only hiring that you actually mentioned oh the other two are um the facilities manager correct and I believe somebody else working in facilities as well no there actually in sewer he went to sewer so it doesn't count and so I believe our facilities manager is actually already an employee is part-time and becoming a fulltime no no that's not correct oh that's not okay no no it's a that's a that's a uh it's a new position it's vacant currently okay the other position that was um turned into from a part-time to full-time position uh he was a um it was Le inspector is now a fulltime you know lead inspector code enforcement which we were're in dire need of um that that's the additional so last year in 2023 the actual paid or charged as of 1231 2023 from our Police Department $356,000 in $356,900 the actual requested 2023 budget was 225,000 but we actually spent 356,000 which I'm assuming is why the department requested in 2024 $365,000 in overtime which was actually being propos which is that was requested what's being proposed is $285,000 so I mean are we paying in overtime or we what's what's better for our police officers to pay them in overtime or to give them some support I understand your concerns about the pensionable salaries but I mean we're over in 2023 we went over $153,000 in overtime yeah that's putting added stress on our own police off police force I agree right yeah so they clearly need some help and you know for an officer of one year you know I believe it's roughly including Health Insurance Dental and P or there's no actual pension correct Michael the first year not not no cost to the employer right um is so including the physical examination drug screening uniform equipment and body armor is going to be roughly $887,000 for one police officer right we went over budget on our overtime by $153,000 I mean it's however you want to look at it we're spending the money and I'd rather rather than putting the stress on our existing officers give them some additional help and I understand over a long period of time over a 10-year period of time that roughly $887,000 in year one goes to $22,000 which includes pension health insurance dental insurance um which over a period each year increases every year for our pension but what are we going to do if we don't hire these officers are we going to keep increasing our overtime budget sure so you you and I are speaking the exact same language here so everything you said is the reason that I loved the letter from from Chief zagorski so we I went into this meeting thinking all right so we're going to increase we're going to increase overtime hugely not this meeting I mean our meetings we're going to increase overtime hugely and and the chief said yeah we needed that because we were deploying them through that's how they that's how the existing officers being paid the thing that changed my mind was in Chief zor's letter he said that there is it's not just about you know availability of of officers to take advantage of overtime it's a it's a it's a it's extra extra money for them but there's a component of of morale and that was huge that was like well okay I you cannot you cannot argue against that and I would never do that so two officers yeah I think it's fantastic we have to we have to keep in mind that there there is what I was pushing for was a tradeoff there man because if you if you're talking longterm yes a priority you spend money on it long term do it but you've got to do something else and that was what I felt was not it was not met it wasn't my requests for us to trade off in someone was not was not met but I I mean I believe that by hiring these two Poli offes I would assume that our overtime budget is going to be reduced significantly correct that's ALS that's that's a given the two officers you would think that they wouldn't have what I'm worried about and I need to ask Chief got this if we didn't get a chance to talk fully about this is how long it takes to train these two officers and will that amount of overtime cover um the the officers who are currently in place let's say I'm guessing I may may have heard this from you six months if there's a six-month training period before they can be fully on the it's a little less than that okay are we good with the amount of overtime uh that that is currently in the in the Appropriations for those who will be taking over in those first six months or sorry first four months you won't see a significant decrease in in overtime um early on um because I said that there'll be the training component but moving you know moving past that like you know to four month period you'll see that greatly reduced for example I my letter $141,000 of our overtime was spent specifically for precision patrolling uh in residential areas to deal with the car thefts and the burglaries um with the two new officers I estimate that that would easily be reduced by at least 70% um because we you know I deployed with that overtime you know we we deploy would be equivalent to um you know more than two officers um so uh with these two officers though that would U impact that significantly sure yeah thank you that yeah so we're it's all that entire section made sense to me it's just figuring out a way to make that to make a trade-off it trade-off is a big deal we we did There's when it comes to Capital budgets when it comes to the operating stuff when it comes to the pension stuff I think there's there's needs to be there needs to be tra and it has to come from finance committee but when you say tradeoff trade-off within the police department or trade-off within other departments anywhere so anywhere you're anywhere you're so if it's um if you're yeah I mean it's just is anywhere that can affect that can offset the extra costs to the public I think it was very important to look at very important to focus on that's why I did well we we took out $1.6 million in tatlock lights I'm glad we did okay councilwoman h i mean I think at the end of the day what this capital budget presents uh for all of you is the confidence in knowing that we're back to an appropriate capital budget we have literally been ignoring parks and playgrounds for years I spoke with director oosi today we went back in the budget uh binders from 2020 and I said Mark I think you you asked for tatlock playground in 2020 it's 2024 so it's just so interesting to go back and look at his requests and I said did you get anything approved and we kind of went back and he said well I got you know we got this tlock um uh basketball courts done and we kind of went through we got the track done uh but when you look over the years uh there's certainly projects that we just haven't been able to do and I think that uh the facilities manager is such a crucial role um Chris and uh Chris holsteen right now is is playing a huge role Mark can speak to it later uh right now he manages most of our turf uh most of our baseball fields so many of our facilities and you know as our CFO Tammy baldwi would say a city the size of summit uh running all of these operations absolutely should it would be appropriate uh to have a facilities manager and desperately needed and I think director shreer uh could speak to that as well but I fully support uh all three new employees again the the part the other employee will be covered in sewer utility but I fully support this capital budget and all of the personnel and I hope that the city staff feels supported so um I just want to say this too so um we're hiring three new employees two are police and one were proposing is the yeah it's facility manager it's a staff assistant that was part-time going to full-time who's in the sewer utility he's in the sewer utility so that doesn't hit the facilities facilities manager and then there's the two police officers right um and so the facilities manager one thing I just wanted to say is that Aaron Sher if anybody knows is one person doing two jobs two full-time jobs um when I came on councel I think it was 2021 early February and at the time we had made Aaron we promoted him from engineer to director but he also kept uh the engineering role as interim so since almost 3 years you can confirm that for me Aaron has been doing two full-time jobs and the city is exploding with work um so I have to say that you know I would almost say that we need to figure out that job and having a facility manager for me was definitely a reason why I would support um hiring you know someone for you I just feel like you're everybody is so inundated um but zoning and engineering and uh DPW has a ton going on so I don't know if you want to say anything about that director shrer no I I appreciate that and thank you for your support but you know primarily the city is evolving right now and and the department is willing to take on what's required of it but we do need we do need help so and one area we're not that strong at is our facilities and as we move forward we definitely see a shifting that the fields will ultimately come back to DPW but we don't have a person to do that including the municipal pool and the golf course uh that's in addition to what we identify is the 45 facilities that we we do own and maintain right now now don't panic we don't have 45 buildings some of those are dugouts or the Sentinel tree down on Broad Street but overall we do have 45 and I think we're were very fortunate that this building was was new for you know 10 15 years but now it's hitting 30 and suddenly this needs a lot of work the community center had a major overhaul but now five plus years it's starting to just need more attention uh it's great that we're redoing you know the firehouse But ultimately you know 10 years down the road we want to make sure we we're working on all our facilities together including even the parking garages and and parking lots so we're trying to bring all of that into one umbrella one for efficiency and two to preserve our infrastructure but really just to manage it we're going to we're going to need staff to do so because right now we're trying to do it through various entities and various departments and that's not as effective as it could be thank you um and if anyone saw tatlock light uh tatlock field bathrooms we definitely need someone down there so um councilman migar I just wanted to say to you that um we had a conversation and I know you had shared your conc concerns about hiring and I I totally respect that um the one thing I would say is um a Miss I guess on in terms of our communication that I didn't hear that you wanted to reduce in terms of off you know offsetting the cost of hiring um what I will say is in our goals is on page three um under key actions it says create and present the 2024 City budget with a municipal tax rate change at or near 2% so there were no alarm Bells going off in my head when we didn't end up having those conversations um but you know I'm always willing to have a conversation to reduce I don't want to pay more taxes um I do know inflation has been very difficult I have to tell you I walk around personally in City Hall um three times a week um I know dilia and many others are there um City Hall some of the furniture is falling apart and um we are our employees work incredibly long hours um and not all the facilities are up to um you know working uh uh you know up to what it should look like so I just wanted to say that that if there's ever a time that you feel that you're not being heard I think it's really important to come and talk to me and when we spoke at um after the BC meeting I just thought we were in a good place so I just wanted to say that yeah thank you I I mean I wrote sorry no somebody squeak no go ahead I mean yeah it's the it's the basically I I I made sure that as soon as I heard something that something was changing uh I emailed the appropriate people I never got responses from that I basically I said hey decisions are being made outside of this committee you need to involve your chair um I I I got a I got a letter back after after that so it it basically was it that is that's the problem with um that's the problem with not being in the loop as a chair is that you don't get to help structure this this budget and I can tell you last year I was and I don't want to I I I I don't want to say that it was because of who I am or what party I was in but when others around me are getting that information and the chair is not that's a problem that's a problem sorry councilman what what specifically what emails are you talking about and what else were you not in the loop about other than the can you give specific examples I just don't know I have no idea what you're mentioning the two cops and then the facility sorry I just want to know specifics because it sounds like I and I apologize if there was something if you give me specific examples I can maybe if I was involved then I can would like to address them I mean I can read the emails is that fun is that a fun time for everybody here committee what like what committee and what position what was not included or I emailed the entire everyone on every committee and I said hey send me everything that you have that involves a request to City administrator Rogers or our our council president Lisa Allen that is a direct request to change this budget because I know that that's been happening and I would like that to be part of the finance committee because because without that uh the chair is not involved that's that was the essence of my email I'll sa three three minutes of reading it yeah I I just want to say this we sat in meetings week after week and I thought we had um I thought the meetings were really great we had a lot of dialogue there was nothing no indication that there was you know that you were unhappy with that um in our meeting so I just I want to move on Beyond this and just know that that certainly wasn't the intent so um does anybody else want because I want to be able to get to the public too go ahead yeah yeah yeah um thank you madam president I'll start with some points on the budget and I'll continue on to share my opinion so first tax levies for schools and the county are both growing this year 2.9% and 1.4% respectively second considering the growth in the value of the property in Summit by nearly $82 million the decrease in debt obligation year year and the relatively slow growth of expenses like health care costs this year had the potential to maintain services without an increase or this significant an increase in the city portion of the taxes third despite this positive trending and despite beginning in such a strong position council is proposing near the maximum increase in taxes that is being done to pay for an increase in operational spending an increase in capital spending and to to maintain reserves now for my opinion and let me be perfectly clear I am supportive of increasing the size of the police force when the chief of police asks for resources I trust that he needs them and those requests should be granted but in doing so Council needed to say no to other things and make the word of the night tradeoffs council needed to say no to adding the other full-time positions Council needed to find other areas of the budget to decrease operational spending to offset those additions I don't see where that was done next I understand that there are certain capital projects that can no longer wait that are absolute Necessities but not all of the projects in this capital budget meet that high standard spending thousands of dollars to replace a wall on private property spending thousands of dollars to decrease the number of parking spaces in the K lot behind the CVS are prime examples of that in a year like this Council need not maintain such high reserves in both the general fund and the reserve for uncollected taxes when we have one of the best tax collection rates around finally at 19,000 for the average household this was not the year to raise our Municipal portion of the taxes this much at this time this budget is simply unaffordable and I can't support it I'm sorry people are like laughing out loud is this yeah so I don't I also just there was a couple comments that I'm trying to keep track of here so I look like a crazy person but uh I just want to say I agree with councilman Boer uh and that I hope uh our words and our actions match on affordable housing and I want to know uh I hope that I can be a partner I want you to know I hope I can be a partner in that um I want to say I don't know what the city hall Furniture there's no City Hall Furniture in the capital budget right this year no so I don't know what the point was about the the furniture at this at City Hall uh I'll I'll continue on with a couple of things uh the the inflation stuff so the increase in spending in this budget way outpaces uh inflation or growth in CPI uh CPI is not relevant inflation is not really relevant because the city's part of Cooperative purching purchasing agreements for commodi ities and other materials that make our pricing better uh it's not those things that are driving the cost in the budget um so um I think I'll leave it I think I'll leave it there right now um you know I'll maybe I'll talk about ignoring parks and playgrounds for years for a minute um this budget only has an additional 250,000 for playgrounds as well which I think you know is is a reflection of priorities as well but you know when when things are I think it's it's just odd that we have to defend not spending more money in previous years right um and I didn't I you know I think anyway I'll leave that there for now um I think zoning engineering have so much going on because of the tremendous investment that's being done in our community and I think that's certainly something to be celebrated um I'm going to definitely have more to say in a minute but I do I do think we should get to the community also okay I I want to get to the community we we write your write it down because I it's getting late ready okay well I actually didn't get to everyone at did you want to say anything counc I just want there's something that councilman Varan brought up um about fund balance and reserve for uncollected taxes uh Summit historically has built there there's a relationship between those two line items fund balance on the revenue side revenues revenue for uncollected taxes on uh the appropriation side yes Summit has a fantastic collection rate you guys pay your taxes it's fabulous I mean really it's a solid town and and Summit is certainly at the top of collection the tax collection rate so the question is why do we do why do we have such a large amount there the municipal budget has been built for many decades around this replenishment the reserve fund collected taxes this year $5 million look at last year we didn't collect 300,000 so why are we budgeting $500 $5 million the the fact is that that replenishes your fund balance that is used in the subsequent year as a revenue source to reduce what you're paying for in your in in this Municipal budget it's essential it is has a symbiotic relationship that's what how it's been built to disrupt that puts you in it's it it's in it will structurally imbalance your budget it it it happened about nine years ago where some more fund balance was used about $1.3 million and the subsequent year it's right around when I came it changed the balance we had to come up with there that that those costs are built in you need to find how if you're going to reduce that fund balance use which is what the intention was you have to then change your reserve for uncollected taxes and it was reduced by a million dollars in 2016 so these things feed each other you don't have a lot of um excess in terms of operational revenues uh also just unexpended balances from uh prior budget years to build up the Surplus we have this year yes it's $ 11.6 million but you're using $8.2 million this year so you have about 3.4 and change uh uh that's in uh that's unrestricted I'd like to see it larger it's it's not sitting there being swirled away like I've heard I just think that it's one of these things where we need to be prudent I think every organization would like to have and personally I think everybody would like to have uh excess monies that that are there for Budget years that you sometimes you need more um I'd like to reduce that fund balance in our in our budget as a revenue Source um love to reduce the reserve for uncollected taxes but there is a a delicate balance there and I think for us we try to do our best we try to use non-t tax revenues to balance our budget yes inflation has slowed down there are still areas in liability insurance and other areas that are still growing at Double Digit increases and those are your larger increases um saling wage we are we are below where uh a CPI number is we we've we've been for many years um I think we just need to understand that and I just wanted to address it and I'm not calling you out councilman arton about it I just want to educate the public about it it's it's important that it's not looked upon where use more fund balance reduce that appropriation and give us a flat tax rate because next year you're going to be hurting even greater and that's what I don't want to see happen in Summit so let's just try to keep that in mind can I just can we just have a quick discussion about that one second no no wait because councilwoman Hamlet wanted to speak and I said no so I'm going to go I'm going to let her speak briefly and then I will come back to you because I do want to go to the public um well regarding uh thank you council president regarding Ashwood Court uh councilman Varan would you suggest that we go against our attorney's advice and complete the settlement agreement or would you suggest further that we get into another lawsuit with Ashwood Court residents what would be your suggestion to the $60,000 or so dollars that we're spending on Ashwood Court it's can I can I respond to both of those things yes so so first off I've made it clear from my comments that I'm not supportive of doing that I'm not supportive of that Capital project or expending any more money on it so that's number one sorry would are you okay please don't interrupt me please thank you um second is so what changed between last year and this year so the schools and County levies are both going up which Council already knew when this budget was finalized right we already knew that the general Reserve fund also grew and is significantly larger than in previous years the main difference is operating costs this year didn't grow outside of control of council it's not like last year when healthcare costs went up more than 20% right and Debt Service went up by more than a million last year operating costs grew this year because of decisions made by Council it we're adding these costs voluntarily so yeah we need to consider the fact that operational costs are increasing and the amount that that we reserve should be more for that reason right but it's a chicken in the egg thing right what because we wouldn't need to keep growing the reserve if we if we didn't keep growing the operating costs so it's it's I I just want to make that point I don't think I'm disagreeing with you and I don't think you were totally disagreeing with me I'm just saying I think it's important for the context of the conversation do you want to Res up do you want to respond administrator Rogers Well I I think in terms of salary and wage increases there's obligations we have we have contractual obligations they're growing right um in in terms of other expenses in our Municipal operation budgets about 96% can be directly tied to about nine areas of the budget nine line on it okay Insurance Fleet Maintenance disposal charge recycling fire engine release fire hydrants law litigation and uh technology subscriptions in Board of Health that makes up 96% of the million little over million dollars and and other expense increases so it's not as if there's just lavish tring throughout our budget and you know all the decisions we're making these are providing the same essential Services we provided year after year and this is this is what happened this year and we have to also remember that for the last five years or so we have had the benefit of using a lot of Reserve monies that we've had in uh just monies whether it was sale of Municipal assets um we we had $2.29 million in art funds that helped you know offset a lot of Revenue loss um but millions of dollars that we have that we no longer have we no longer have those reserves so even even though the the size of appropriation increases are not what they were last year that was those are three line items that were $2.4 million in increases these are smaller but these changes happen and there's legitimate reasons that we have to provide for um in these increases so they're not really discretionary I mean we can make decisions not to pay insurance or to fix our maintenance or to pay for the litigation that we're paying or for recycling collection and I mean the so you know this you've been on finance for a long time you know these decisions and this budget and we're not providing a budget that doesn't provide what the the the citizens of this this city demand and expect and the demands don't decrease they just don't the the unfunded mandates don't decrease so we try to provide the best budget we go through this for months and months and months there's a lot of discussions there's no area where you're you're looking at a blind it him going why is that why is that you know up $50,000 there is a valid explanation for all this and the revenues are just not there anymore to support these appropriation increases like they were in previous budget years so can you just for the benefit of the public speak to the some of the unfunded mandates that you're talking about can we I mean we're now we're going back I actually I I actually have a list of those from um I have a small list unless you would like to speak about that um administrator Rogers this is an important point for when you're talking about employees and the amount of work so you recognize um councilman bartan that we have an a tremendous amount of investment and growth in this town and it's like having a family of four and still driving a two-seater right you can't have growth without having people to actually support them and when we talk about burnout and we talk about work life balance we all want that um I would hope that we would earnestly say to our city employees who some of them live here um and have as much pride in our town as we do that we would actually say that our growth should be um some of our hiring should be commiserate with that growth going back to shreer as an example um one person is doing two jobs and get paid he's getting paid one and a half jobs um and so unfunded mandates um is when you have a legislative a legislation that gets layered on top of the workload Pat well maybe you can even talk about that better than I can um no State mandate no state pay I mean they impose certain regulations that we have to abide by without funding them so it's up to the city to pay for that to to expedite and Implement those changes and even the recent COA with all the fees that are going to come down from from the new affordable housing law it touches tax it touches Finance it touches um Matt dore's um group in which under uh director shreer in which he is a full-time person who works halime for municip um to work on our affordable housing and now that's actually going to grow into a full-time position over the next six months and so I would say what is the cost of burnout um direct I'm sorry administrator I mean that that goes to the point where there might not be where okay this was I mean there's a couple areas and and and it's not to say they're not worthy of doing recycling is an unfunded value we're required to do it there's a big big cost to it though um the access to public records in Oprah is a law we have to provide everything and do everything possible there is a big cost to that there are just a number within each department there are things that we do and handle that are unfunded law this is where this this I think a lot of people um they want to do the good thing do the good work at the state level and it all gets just dumped on municipalities and the responsibilities in the bands continue to grow every year and here's the thing we have not really hired Personnel to address this so there is is burnout issues here with our personnel and so we're finally trying to address some of this and we haven't there were plenty of other employment uh and Staffing requ requests in other budgets that we did not fund or pursue so there were tradeoffs there were things that we we decided to take on this year and not take on every budget is is a series of tradeoffs so I just want to point out that it there's a small number of areas in our in our Municipal operations that are going up they're different type of increases they're real they're there they're not excessive and they're not um just wants their needs MH um and just to say if you look at page um 10 on the presentation the financial summary totals the general fund increase last year wait I just misplaced it sorry was 4.9% this year it was 3.8% so the bigger jump was in our capital budget which we're going to get to um but you you can't say that there's no inflation with um the city because from 2003 to 2004 salaries automatically have step increases they have Cola they have you know they automatically go up so there's I I don't think representing contractual obligations as inflation is really fair though that's not I don't I don't think that's you know I mean that's that's a contractual obligation is a different thing than than and we have contractual obligation of course we do but I want City staff to have what they need I'm not suggesting we don't want to arm City staff with the resources that they need I think it would also be great if City Hall staff could afford to live in Summit that's what we're talking about here we're talking about affordability right and and I mean access to public records we can pass along Ong some of those costs to the people if if there's lawyer fees involved we can pass along some of those costs but I mean there's an Oprah there's an Oprah law being discussed in in Trenton now I mean council president you work for assembly woman Nancy Munoz are we getting can we get some help with these unfunded mandates right and and you know I mean not until we're in the majority okay I mean well anybody watches the New Jersey budget we're going to move on I'm going to move on I'm going to move on because we need to go to real quick two quick things um you know i' like honestly I like like two seconds all right I mean coun boy I've been we we do need like a little decorum up here I mean this back and forth is just killing me um you know I just want to put something the bed right because you know I'm really excited about the next budget um coming into office in four months this budget process actually started last year in August 2023 right the department the departmental heads they submit the budget in October uh from November to mid December there's discussions in the various committees about the budgets there's a workshop in December about the budget and then we come into office in January and we the binder is already really there it's already put together almost right I mean listen every the Departments have they have everything that they're submitting you something already they've taken several months to put stuff together and say hey this is our proposal for the budget my thing is it's after we pass this this Council the people that were just elected this is a year for us to actually start fresh work with the departments at the beginning and say um what are your ideas here's our ideas um here's what we would like to have happen for next year um this you know I'm I'm I'm sitting here and I'm I'm thinking like you were a part of the whole you were a part of the whole budget process in 2020 23 we just came in here and it's like oh well look what you look what y'all did y y raised taxes look at all this stuff I mean you knew about this last year I mean this next budget to be honest I mean is is the budget where we all sit down and we chart out a really strong um you know conservative budget for next year this stuff has already been in here for a year already yeah that's that's crazy B no that's no I have to respond that vinan sorry sorry sorry both of us together are V vinegar did you hear that it's getting late and we really have to get to yeah I know but we got to talk about that I mean we have to talk about that I no no no no no I no no we are going to go to we are going to have plenty of dialogue and opportunity we are going to the public I am shutting this down write it down please write it down I got it and we're going to go to the public who would like to come up I would like to open it up to the public who would like to come up first Peter lejoy 124 can Brook Parkway Summit New Jersey it's become very apparent to me that now we are entering the Silly Season of politics where we have two Council people that are taking a very simple and adequate budget and turn trying to turn it into folly I think the folks at home should pay attention to the fact that the card that was sent out was totally false and fallacious and if you look at your very own budget from 2023 Kevin already stated it you put through a 1.1% estimated increase in total tax bill on the average homeowners this budget is putting a 9% increase stop playing politics with a good town okay this this is this people want to live in this city we support this city there are hundreds of kids playing sports okay you want to cut something significantly close the municiple pool close the mun this is nonsense okay we have a parking garage that needs Capital work okay let me let me ask you something you want to talk about bringing on expenses what has Union County controlled by the Democrats given to Summit you were so interested in getting into the Circle of Care well if Union County was doing what Bergen County was doing which was managing it at the county level we wouldn't have this issue but no let's bring it home to Summit let's let's increase the responsibilities in areas where the city has no responsibility so I quite frankly I've looked at this budget I've looked at every line and quite frankly is not substantial change we need those police I have watched for 40 years improvements done and not managed and I think Mr Rogers is absolutely correct to have a facilities manager and I'm just tired of what is an early politization of this budget and Mr minegar you know what when these two ladies were in the minority they didn't hear anything until the night before so I don't really you know you you can cry all you want but I don't want to hear the politics anymore I'm tired of it this is a good budget [Applause] pass name and address please good evening Don Nelson 20 plan Street um I'm just baffled by what's the what's going on here um you know we talk about we want Summit to be the best we want Summit to be the goat it's very I'm not a numbers guy at all very simple things you walk around downtown there's electrical outlets that are broken that belong to the city huge liability the towns you We complain about garbage who you ever who goes out in the morning and visits their garbage men at 6:30 in the morning those guys work their butts off do we even talk about that stress that's the thing we have to think about it's the quality of life issues that bother me there used to be a guy would wake up 6 5:00 6:00 in the morning he would blow downtown with a leaf blower until somebody complained it was too loud that he was take you talk to the guy downtown he loved his job did we replace him no somewhere along the line somebody decided it was too expensive to have a guy clean downtown who's probably making 10 12 bucks an hour our landscapers make more than that I don't have a landscaper I cut my own grass but my point is people move to Summit for the quality of life safety education proximity to New York in a roundabout way Overlook Hospital it's not a summit entity I mean it's not a summit uh we don't pay for that through our taxes but it's here it's here because summit summit it was here for a reason all that stuff is what we we all pay for that's why we live here so if it cost look I'm not a fixed income I'm retired from the fire department I'm not a bazillionaire but I'm willing to pay extra for extra police which we're not arguing about but what about that guy that used to clean downtown Summit what about the guy that used to take care of the city hall water the plants those are all jobs that we got rid of that aren't here anymore and that's the qual someone said it to me a couple of weeks ago they moved to Summit because things are taken care of they don't have to worry about their garbage being picked up they don't have to worry about the police department because it's a quality police department they don't worry about the fire department it's a quality fire department when I was on a negotiation committee for the fire department many moons go an old city administrator said to me when we tried to cut starting salaries he said no we want quality people and we have to pay them and yeah maybe that affects our taxes but at the end of the day that's why you're here you want quality services so this arguing back and forth about I didn't get information and you guys were on the freaking budget committee if you're the chairman step up and say hey what's going on right put your foot down look I'm the chairman I want to know what the heck's going on otherwise bow out so you want to run it and then you have no responsibility but Step Up be a council person be the chairman do your job we voted you in for a reason look I'm not I'm not the smartest guy in the shed the sharpest tool in the shed but you got to do your job thank you thank you for your vote I know it's a passionate night I just want to make sure we all treat each other with respect thank you I'm trying not to be passionate no I know um good evening I'm Claire to with the 11 Sunset Drive um and unlike many people I really like budgets um I H I have uh a law degree masters of Law and tax I work for the US Treasury Department I years as a financial planner I've been the treasur of the summit Educational Foundation could she have a couple seconds back because there's a loud conversation in the back Mr Le Jo is talking loud enough for us to hear him up here okay I'll keep going I was The Treasure of the summit Educational Foundation and Summit downtown um and in all of those roles I created budgets I reviewed budgets and I implemented budgets so overseeing and passing the city's budget is the most important responsibility common Council undertakes each year as youve noted the budget is a statement of what council leadership values and prioritizes and what it envisions for our city and in overseeing the budget Council leadership must look at the big picture make the difficult decisions and coordinate the wants of the various City departments with what's in the resident's best interest to create a coherent affordable ho and I believe this Council unfortunately has not done that important job this year it's expensive to live in Summit it's expensive to own own or to rent a house to buy groceries to support a family and ultimately to retire in Summit and now I've heard complaints from my neighbors about the tax increase that's headed our way it's the largest increase in a decade and so I want to share my primary takeaway from this proposed budget when comparing last year's preliminary capital budget requests with the two with the 2024 proposed budget it appears departments mostly got what they requested and that sounds positive but it comes with a downside for some its residents because a major danger with a budget this size and with an organization as complex as City Hall is that decisions get made in silos without looking at the budget as a big picture um and that I think it looks like that is what has happened here aligning the budget with the big picture is is Council leadership's job the proposed budget reads as if that leadership has not been exercised because leadership does come with hard choices with this budget it reads like instead of making those choices just about everything from the wish wish list got granted Council ought to deliver a budget that treats our taxpayers with respect in a year with significant increase in the value of property within the city as we've noted and that increases revenue on its own There's an opportunity to deliver taxpayers some relief and Council should go back to the drawing board because our neighbors deserve better thank you thank [Applause] you hi Carol Pac Tang 234 suit Avenue um so I'm here to comment on the budget I have three young daughters and I really plan to live here a long time I'm very concerned about some of the line items in this budget and as was brought up multiple times you know it is getting more expensive to live period in this country and especially in this town um you know like looking at this my question is is it really the best time to have these increases in this year that is that is historically known to be a harder year on people's wallets and that is the main concern of so many people all around the state and especially in a town like Summit where it's so expensive to come here to live um as president Alan not Al Allan noted multiple times about the inflation you know we are we are all feeling it no matter where we sit on the socioeconomic ladder here in Summit um secondly if you are going to be doing the spend the increase in spending um you know we have to look at where it's occurring the word tradeoff was made uh multiple times tonight and where is the trade-off one of the trade-offs that I notice as a family with as a you know family with young kids and and their friends and they want to go play the one of the trade-offs I'm clearly noticing is that the proposed preliminary budget in December had a budget for tatlock playground of proposed of 500,000 this budget now that was put forth in April is only 250,000 so one of the trade-offs that you guys decided to make was in the infrastructure of something that is going to pull in young families to this town so you know I really um urge you to hold off on voting and to amend the budget and look at one of these critical items that's very important to so many people in this town and one of the big reasons that increases the quality of living for young families to this town and something that people definitely looking to move here are looking at you know for the opportunity for their kids and the education thank you [Applause] will Von Climer 156 Colonial Road uh thank you for all the work on the budget and I agree this is a policy statement it's well said it involves choices so I have an inquiry you all have the facts um how much money is in the proposed budget for the city's safety and health relative to environmental factors um I'm thinking of things like is there money for monitoring and testing chemicals that landscapers spray on lawns around town or chemicals that the city itself uses in its operations uh before the next Sandy Storm it'll it will hit there'll be another one will Summit have done the investment to be ready with so solar panels and generators to power the street and the traffic lights and to keep the important buildings in downtown operating would we be ready you have to do this in advance you know is there financing for an ongoing changeover of City vehicles and equipment to low pollution models clean air is everything um I'm with the mle school students who are here we they can add to this list some of you get guidance at home on this subject um these investments in farsighted municipalities this sort of investment are priorities and I hope our city is 21st century reality based whether we like the reality or not and I hope we're science-based you talk about an unfunded mandate storms changes in climate there ain't no choice so I understand how items under this heading might be spread around be in different departments um so I'm asking you please can you can you name some can you somehow group them for us uh even in an informal list of the total monies that you've chosen this a policy it's a policy statement in the budget for the next year for Summit safety and health relative to environmental factors um I'm here to listen we're going to keep going we'll we'll answer the questions after I will look forward to that no formal structure required because as I say this is something usually spread around the budget I would like to know what we're doing because this is kind of a no-choice item thank you thank you did you want to give um the clerk your statement I will clean it up and give it okay hello I'm uh Rick whle from 30 Garden Road um thank you administrator Roger I thought some of your explanations there about the um unfunded um the tax the uncollected tax reserves and the unfunded uh unrestricted cash were very helpful and I thought that back and forth was very informative to me um I did think you know at work we have a lot of uh program that I help manage and the contingency is always the wild card that people get to you know play games with that's not transparent people just do things there's not L items in the budget and I think that one of the things that happened in the budget this year was that um the again the unrestricted cash increased I think it was 20% last year and it went up to 30% so that to me is increase in the contingency that you can use for um you know the unfunded mandates and things like that um but also kind of leaves um kind of Tak some transparency out because it's money that's not line item to things in the budget that kind of concerns me in general process wise and transparency wise so I guess my my questions are um are there any specific risks that we have in mind that we would need this additional um unrestricted cash for or um are there any potential usages that have been talked about Beyond risks and then the second question is how does the uh dollar values compared to say what we had in 2020 and that we needed to use at all during covid which was I think a pretty big uh unfunded expectation um and how we had to deal with that so um I like everybody's talking about how the budget reflects our values but then um as a community but then the um unfunded um these these unspecified funds don't really reflect the values they're just kind of this wild card po that that leaves us a little bit conc concern so those are my thoughts thank you very much uh thank you hold on one second um administrator Rogers I'm I'm wondering if maybe we should answer some of these questions as we go to your point because I want the first question that was asked by uh the gentleman about safety and health relative to the environment that that might take a little more work in analysis so I I will not be able to provide an answer on that tonight um the unrestricted cach is is we cannot spend that without approval from the council for some emergency purpose that would be the only time we would have we would tap into that um it's it's there it will sit in our fund balance uh if there is a a situation where there's emergency cash because we have spent all of what has been authorized in this budget at the end of the year and we need additional cash to cover some expense then that there's an emergency appropriation that's done it would come from that unrestricted Cash There's no plan to spend it it is purely just sitting in a fund balance as cash and that's what it will remain is it gaining interest yes okay okay 4% if we if we borrow it we'd have to put it we'd have to rep replenish it at some point yeah I mean what happens is in that instance if you were spending from that and it was an emergency appropriation it becomes a deferred charge in your subsequent budget so you would actually have to pay yourself back that money right and if you have a bad year and you have a revenue right I mean and and Co during the pandemic the real it wasn't a question in our Municipal budget it was parking services utility that saw a dramatic decrease in revenue and that's when we had to take out an $885,000 note that was a special emergency uh many municipalities with parking utilities or authorities were faced with the same situation um we weren't collecting Revenue that year for four months or so and um millions of dollars lost so that was essential and we had to do that and and we're still paying that back uh we had um five years pay that back yeah okay thank you come on good evening thanks for the opportunity to speak uh Andrew mccartie Park VI Terrace my comment is is about issues with lack of transparency and lack of explanation for the increase in the size of city government proposed uh by this budget I'll take for example the police force the proposal to uh expand the police force by two full-time officers which is a significant Personnel decision for a force of this size uh Summit is a desirable place to be an officer so you know we can expect these officers to retire here 25 years later um so the first question is is yeah what's the estimated cost of that over the tenure of the police officer based on the numbers that have been thrown around today uh it sounds like it's in the millions um as someone who's worked in law enforcement for for almost a decade I understand the importance of police uh maybe we need to expand the force maybe we don't my issue is I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion on that there has never been uh a discussion of robust analysis publicly uh about what these officers will do or the need for them or and uh comparing it to Alternatives not there wasn't a single statement about it at the uh city council meeting proposing the budget in the entire 400 some page budget there is not one sentence explaining why uh we need to increase the police force uh apparently there's a letter from the chief I don't know why that's not made public that would be helpful for the public out here trying to evaluate our City's budget um so that lack of transparency is disappointing and frustrating um so if I'm trying to read between the lines I would have actually said the the reason for the increase is because calls for service increased a lot last year um so and reading through that uh it's actually not 911 calls that went up uh or emergency calls it's public service calls I didn't know what that was I Googled it those are routine uh non-emergency low priority calls so my question on that is is that the reason why we need to expand the force and how is it that those number of calls went up by 6,000 last year uh or is it just that we're um keeping statistics that we didn't keep before uh but what I heard tonight is it sounds like the justification for increasing the force is to combat uh burglaries Auto thefts actually fight crime um so my question there is is what would these officers or additional officers be doing specifically in that regard I don't know that that was answered and also why why isn't over time a more viable and flexible and efficient uh alternative uh based on the numbers that were thrown around if they police went over overtime budget by 156,000 last year and it cost 87,000 for two officers it's still cheaper to do overtime and it preserves the flexibility for the future rather than committing ourselves uh to you know pay full-time Physicians for the next 25 years so my comment overall is about process transparency uh and I just hope in the future that the city will be a little more forthcoming with the justifications thank you you sir um Chief did you want to talk about um the hiring or I know um uh Tammy you have the cost do you want to talk about any of the cost related to hiring so in this budget we have two police officers um I think we've talked about this quite a few times tonight um usually they're coming over at a step two from another department so they're coming over at a salary of about $57,000 the employer is not paying a portion of their pension for two years so I did a an internal uh document what I would consider a work paper um that costed it out over 10 years and it does grow because they grow in steps but in the first two years the employer is not paying a share of their pension they're paying it there's health care costs typically I I mean it just depends on who you get some come in with families some come in single it's I can't really predict that but I took an an average so it grows over time as with any police officer that we hire okay um Chief one thing I've talked to several police officers uh in terms of overtime um I can understand that balance between hiring and um the longer term expense of having actual police officers paid versus is there anyone that would like to turn that off um and so versus It's seems cheaper to have them on o you know as overtime but my EXP experience in talking to the police officers is they at some point they're like I can't work 80 hours a week you know there's you can only do so much over time so um that was just kind of my antidote for you um Andrew but Chief do you want to talk about overtime and that cost and the balance that we're going to strike hiring to police officers well like you were saying in the short term that the overtime does take care of the business that we need to take care of um but over time um it takes is to on the officer um there are times when when you when you're constantly using overtime that you have the overtime funds but um you don't have the officer um you know a healthy officer to um to uh you know work the shift that you want to you want to cover um I'm trying what else were you asking on you said the burnout yeah I've just heard I mean I've spoken with some of the police officers and they were saying that um the overtime was really high and they're like you know what we don't mind doing overtime for short periods of time but when it becomes part of a a lifestyle of overtime um you just burn out your um well that yeah and and a lot comes with that not just like uh it's unhealthy for the officer it becomes dangerous um they're less productive again now initially it's it's a good way to take care of a problem last year you know I think councilman well went over the success we had by deploying the extra um officers using the overtime it's just not sustainable over a long period of time after time um they get run down and um you know they're not producing the results that they uh would produce if they you know councilman Bo do you want can I ask administrator Rogers a question um I know this may give you nightmares sometimes right with overtime because you want you want you want fixed cost like cost you know uh at the end of the day you going to have money for and sometimes overtime costs run over right and I mean at some point you want to get to a sustainable police force where you may not have 400 $380,000 of overtime that you know you you have to find somewhere I mean you want to talk about some of those challenges uh I I certainly want to live with what we budget for for in any line item in any Department um when you see those numbers grow even $50,000 and last year it was greater than 100,000 plus um it has to come from somewhere within your budget and that's why you need a little bit you know you start to pull from other areas that you may projected a certain amount and it didn't turn out so that's where you start seeing transfers at the end of the year um we were fortunate to have those monies but if you don't that's when you start to go into your unrestricted funds because you're you're having you there's a need for emergency uh authorization uh for appropriation so um I don't like to see that and when you start to see that you have to seriously question what is going on in that department and I think over just last year was a particularly difficult year for the police department and all the issues they were facing in the community which I won't rehash um but it does happen uh it's happened in the fire department it's happened in other areas uh in in um uh roads uh when we're doing you know we have heavy Winters uh snowstorms I mean those happen but you have to you have to plan for that uh you don't like to see it happen in any great great amounts but uh for the police department I think there is I I certainly support what the chief was requesting um how we've analyzed this they were there was a greater number of requesting so we only we were able to manage for two additional hires um so there I get the the the um the flexibility with using overtime to support your staff but it isn't sustainable it you think that people are oh they just want to earn more money and that's not the case they have families they have a a personal life uh they don't want to be working all the time uh they love the community they love working here but they also need a personal life and uh it certain it certainly impacts their family negatively um we need additional Staffing for that reason and last thing through you council president chief zagorski um what people don't uh sometimes think about is The Pedestrian safety issues uh the traffic violations the speeding we've been in safety committee meetings and maybe half of our list are residents calling and asking for lieutenant daily and yourself um to conduct you know uh speeding violations on certain streets and um how many patrolman do you have in your in your um uh in in your traffic Bureau right don't are you are you down in your traffic Bureau would that help you in terms of pedestrian safety yes and that was part of the um the the uh proposal that I wrote in the letter we we're facing two problems um that that uh that resulted in increased workload it was the increase in the property crimes and it was the um uh you know the significant increase in the aggressive uh um the aggressive driving that you see in town the traffic violations The Pedestrian violations I don't have um any um stats in front of me to show how much they went up but anybody that has been up in the center of our town for more than 10 minutes I mean they can see what's going on there as far as the the traffic issues so that is part of it we would you know we we've been talking about the crime issue but that is a significant part of it is the um uh the Public's concerns over the the traffic and safety issues and if if I could just add you know with the overtime most of the overtime time normally is used to um uh to to to fund minimum shift levels when uh officers are are off or unfortunately when they're you know often out injured work related injuries um this overtime uh the $146,000 an overtime that was needed to go U because uh you know even at optimal uh strength levels we couldn't handle the workload that was being thrown at us um you know so it wasn't a matter of just getting the minimum out there uh you know to to to you know have a safe um you know Patrol Force This was um you know something that that we felt we had to do um to address the problems that we having and the concerns of the city so um that overtime was used to put out additional officers so you know with the two um uh with the two officers that you're proposing that will you know enable us give us more flexibility to um increase our minimum Manpower on on specific ships specifically where you know we we were having the problems on the over night um it also allows us to um address a lot of those uh traffic issues that we were talking about as well um I might be wrong did we have to um transfer money when there were a lot of break-ins happening towards the end of last year there was a lot of patrols happening um did we have to transfer funds in as an emergency because we had so much overtime we took them from unfortunately from other places yes okay I didn't take them he took you take it from the fire department sorry Chief Evers I know poor Chiefs it was the DCS it was the DCS roads unit right primarily but but um I mean but to the to the question though Andrew mcc's question right it sounded like there's an issue overnight but then there's also an issue during the day so Are the officers being added to the overnight shift or they being added to in my initial proposal I had asked for four officers uh in the and the plan was with with four officers to add um two to the regular shift um to add um one into traffic and to one uh one to the community policing Bureau um but they have to eval you know you know with the two officers we um we came up with a plan where we want to address the concerns of of the public what happens a lot of times um we have a say we have uh four uh sectors in our town that we have officers patrolling um those officers uh you know they're they're presented with um you know many responsibilities uh we try to have them do some of these proa proactive measures um you know with the residential patrols to deal with the um with the the property crimes to address areas where um there's uh the traffic problem the issue is that they often get pulled away from that to uh to take service calls um what we uh found when we were using the overtime and the Precision patrols was we were putting these overtime patrols out there um excl exclusively to to take care of specific problems they weren't taking Radio Calls the area cars were were were addressing the you know the calls for service they were specifically um you know uh uh targeting uh areas of problem um so what we talked about with these two new officers were um they will work uh you know hand inand with Patrol but they would be a hybrid uh type of Officer where they're the like they're they're the uh the fixers they're the ones that we're going to put you know you know when the public has a problem we get we get them all the time we get the calls um you know pedestrian um complaints of not for pedestrian to certain areas and so um we're going to use these officers just to focus on these problem areas um we were using those Precision patrols um to patrol uh specific areas at specific times that we um uh that our analysis showed that we were having some of these problems with the crime we're going to use those officers basically we're going to use the officers that you're giving us the way we use the officers you know doing Precision patrols with the overtime that's how we're going to utilize them yeah like for example uh we just got an email today a resident says Hey U people are running stop signs between 600 and 8 when we get off the train in Jersey Transit can you send a patrol car over there to you know enforce right that would be an example of correct and and right now like we we'll use we will use our our area cards to take on those assignments but as they're on that assignment they're getting pulled away uh on a service call so um you know but there are there are down times where they could take care of those problems as well but we we want to use the additional officers to to exclusively hyperfocus on these problems councilman ner you've been so patient uh yes so just I was just going to provide the number that I did have from uh from CFO Baldwin's spreadsheet I just added up the bottom lines it's for for 10 years one police officer and it's it does take into into consideration like um starting at step one like they're fresh out of um Police Academy um certain inflators with health insurance dental insurance and pension it's 1,400,000 that's the the total of 10 10 years and that's everything in that's everything salary body armor equipment stuff like that starting in your two uh no that's starting year one that includes so I know there's pensions not included until year three but we have you know the first twoe salary there too okay all right I just have a comment sure I'm assuming that that's compounded councilman miger I would need to defer to because I mean it's all right they're answering the question about the the cost okay that's not in 10 years that officer is getting $1 million no correct through you council president I can confirm that that's the that's the cost of everything that goes with the pension the health insurance that the city pays on his behalf um body armor in the first year and then uniform allowances throughout the 10 years so it's definitely not what the officer's making right that's over a 10e period of time everything you know I don't have Council Minar has the top salary there just in the salary line in year 10 yeah 11 yeah year 10 yeah so just to um comment on on the officers that are working overtime and it doesn't even include you during the school season if a if a crossing guard calls in sick it's usually replaced by a a police officer yes we get help from the um parking enforcement officers as well um but that is a burden that we take on because it's it's one of uh the most important things that we right so increasing pedestrian safety and I believe you mentioned earlier you know one of the reasons um you had officers in areas patrolling because of car thefts and home break-ins which were not those officers were not able to uh do traffic violations in our downtown I mean I I was um I I spoke with the police officer and I I asked a question because I was curious uh I was on Union Place and someone made an illegal U-turn and they were the police officer was coming down Summit Avenue and I was curious why wouldn't they stop him and the comment back was a lot of times we can't stop a traffic violation because we're on a service call correct and so for me that that's safety issue um and I didn't see your letter but based on what you said you'd requested four officers um and I believe you got two correct so I believe that well not yet well hopefully you'll get two okay um so in my mind that that's that's a trade-off if if you're asking as the chief of police for four officers to do your job and you're only hopefully getting you're only getting two to me that's a trade-off thank you okay good evening uh Diego h n Court Michael rogers's job includes preparing a budget that reflects the wishes of the council majority this year's wishes can be summarized thusly taxes are increasing the city squrs away cash in swelling reserves and capital and operational spending both grow a lot this count ccil is making a choice to raise taxes reassessments will bring 3.6 Millions into our coffers this year this number alone would be the largest tax living increase in at least 10 years but this doesn't seem to be enough for this Council another $1.2 million is being raised by taxing all of us whose properties were not reassessed in contrast the ridus administration lowered the tax rate in 20120 21 and 22 our already large reserves keep growing The General fund beginning balance of 11.7 million is at an all-time high but it is not being used to lower taxes or retire debt why why squirrel away another 1 and a half Millions into a savings account and out of the pockets of the taxpayers this is yet another choice to raise taxes in terms of Appropriations the number tells a story of runaway government spending instead of focused investment in public safety compared to 2023 actuals Municipal Appropriations are up in mind-blowing 8.2% half of this hike is due to a 1.4 million increase to community services and general government which increase 15% and 24% 24% respectively 10 new employees are being added to the payroll five of them pensionable an expense City will bear for decades and that's number in the in the in the book in contrast the 485,000 investment in public safety while material seems quite reasonable like kids in a candy store this Council plans to to double the municipal capital budget this year to 4 million then more than double it again to 10 million in 2025 and 8 million in 2026 in contrast capital for sewer improvements is being cut dramatically why are we choosing to disinvest in critical infrastructure to pay for an athletic field and a bunch of Paving projects notably there seem to be no resources for outdoor dining clean energy Investments or improvements to the soccer fields baseball diamond or Flooding at Memorial Field finally the debt to pay for the new Firehouse was issued in 2021 since that moment our Municipal Municipal net debt has actually decreased by $7 million facts matter the firehouse is not driving this bloated budget and it's important for our community to understand that your campaign motto was together for Summit now that you're in office it seems to have morphed into spend baby spend thank you can you just clarify one uh Point Diego you said we're hiring 10 employees yeah between part time and fulltime yes and I and if you if you give me the time I can actually give you the page number in the in the in the PDF council president I'm happy to respond oh yeah we'll respond to that go ahead Council uh yes uh administrator Rogers would you like to do the honors or would you like me to do it so we can talk about the administration the fire department the uccc DCS the police department or the SE utility you want to take the left hand and I'll take the right hand you can start I'm not sure what uh um so in administration Diego we changed a temporary part-time Communications officer specialist to permanent parttime communication specialist that's been in the works for quite a long time Fire Department chief would you like to come up and talk about your changes we had a full-time Lieutenant Fire subcode official retired do you want to you can proba do it better okay we've talked all right so we've acknowledged that there's since since 2023 to 2024 there's an increase of five full-time employees I'll go over this again the part-time we had per DMS in our sanitation department and it's been there for for a number of years but it just was becoming unsustainable to um to function it it for operationally to try to just call somebody in um hours before they have to go on a shift was just not working anymore so we just we the three per DMS we've converted into part-time it's just a salary uh did had no impact to our budget uh financially um they don't have any benefits that was part of the change that's three positions part-time positions there was a change in um and I and I can give you the slide of page 3 uh slide 33 in our budget I've gone through this um so it's not to say that we've hired 10 employees is not it's not a fair representation um some we've converted from part-time to fulltime I went over that um we started in the fire department last year these changes in 2023 we had one Lieutenant who was a um was one employee full-time we split the salary in the uh uniform construction code which is a trust and we had half of the salary in the fire department so we counted that person as a 05 FTE and FTE and 0.5 in UCC and when that person when that uh employee retired we hired a new Full full-time that was sort of net from a Personnel standpoint but then we went in our uccc we hired a full-time position U to replace that uh that that fire code sub fire sub code official um we changed a lead inspector who was was hired in 2023 uh we we had a dire need in our code enforcement so that that position became a part-time to full-time position um he's still a Le inspector but also a code inspector there's there's a list of this so the the part I'm trying to just articulate here is that um we're talking about positions that were um per DM that are now part-time and then uh we removed a part-time maintenance uh DCP maintenance worker that's no longer so there's a series of change yes the net impact is is 10 that's absolutely true um but I just want to just clarify that three the the three of those positions were per DMS that are now part-time um but there was no Financial impact to that budget my concern is with the pension my concern is both with the growth it went from oh my screen just went out from 2002 to 2012 um full-time 177 to 182 those are pensionable that means that all else equal uh they will command uh they will mean an increase in our pension obligations long term um and it goes to some of the things that were said earlier about making choices everything you're saying Michael makes a lot of sense but the question is where was the effort made to decide well this maybe we'll do it next year this maybe we will not do it NE this year um I don't see any of that and frankly the employee portion of the budget I I I spoke about a lot of other things and um I think that I have a lot of concern concerns it's not just the number of of pensionable employees but the fact is that we're adding five new pensionable employees to the City Ledger but for whatever reason correct that's correct thank you every year go I can't have you back and forth yeah yeah so I just want sorry I understand that's right so as far as Personnel goes every year we've managed uh our our our staffing totals to the best of our ability whether we've operated it's fluctuated uh part-time full-time uh we have done what what we've had we have done the best we've we've we've could possibly do in on our respective departments and every year we're being asked to do more and more and there is definitely a Breaking Point in our organization um there's morale issues there just the demands continue to grow so at some point nobody nobody wants to ever in a budget year where you're you're you need to increase Personnel um just because of this thing that of course there's all these other Associated costs Insurance pension but there is a a service level expectation in this city that we're trying to provide and maintain just to maintain and it's getting harder and harder so as much as technology we try to utilize technology to reduce any need for personnel we need bodies we need people operating in these in in our departments so it's it's unfortunate where some of these changes happened last year it's being reflected in the in the 2024 number um I've clearly explained this during our presentation when we before was introduced uh this budget and what the changes were so for just transparency reasons a lot happened and I needed to take some time um but I I do understand thei long-term Financial impacts but it is it it is just to continue to provide the level of service that the city that requires and also expects and it requires people to do it thank you clean this up and send oh perfect okay um oh councilwoman Hamlet uh administrator Rogers can you just count the five uh because there's two part are you C can you just count the five fulltime two police officers facilities manager the firefighter was discussed but we had to do that because right there was a so there was a uh staff uh assistant position that went from um part-time to full-time and that's in the SE utility but that's not in for for educ for clarification or education purposes are parking and Sewer utilities are outside what we refer to as the municipal budget or general fund budget um so those are um funded by user fees they not uh your taxes are not impacted by the those positions however we talk we speak of everyone as a city organ ganization the utilities are a part of the city organization so they are reflected in the City personnel so full-time Personnel impacted by the taxpayer how many exactly is that uh full-time is is four of those five so four four is the number of full-time Personnel so that's two police officers facilities manager and then that would be the the last one is the the sewer the full-time no that no that's well it's actually in the UCC so it's really three because that parttime went to a full-time and the UCC is a trust fund and that's also that's all user so three impact the taxpayer not fund and taxes yes right so three full-time employees impact the taxpayer right and one of those and just to clarify um one taxpayers paying the ility though understand but we we've all identified that they're they're we're treating that differently we're talking about what's not covered by the sewer or the parking utility and one of the um employees is from 2023 correct right okay okay sorry come on up evening my name is Miguel valz I'm at 113 Mountain Avenue I've been there since 1984 um first came here from B with B Labs as the department head but my last 10 years were with the New York Times as the infrastructure manager now that's relevant to what I want to say just um when I got to the New York Times all the department were feudal systems every Department made their own budget for their computers etc and we either approved them or denied them and some of the departments were buying new computers while other departments had computers in the closet that weren't being used one of the things I did was I took possession of all of the computers integrated the whole thing and I was able to balance back and forth that's what I think somebody else has mentioned that the budget needs a holistic view on the whole thing now one of the things I want to say is strategically um you know if your doctor tells you that you need to lose 10 pound and you say well cut off my arm well that's he would lb with you a hostile patient uh um if he if he saw you at all um that's you know somebody said that we should close the pool or the no that's that we don't want to be a hostile patient but we want to do this thing strategically raising the budget I mean raising the taxes by any amount is going to hurt uh the seniors with a with an undue impact okay they generally have a planned budget um so any increases is unexpected now seniors are an asset to the C to the city and I don't know if you taking that into consideration seniors are great volunteers for our boards seniors are great as uh as a teachers uh uh substitute teachers seniors could be uh Council candidates but maybe you don't want that anyway um Council candidates and and and also uh every time a senior stays in the home longer you're not filling the classrooms with new students right so if a senior stays 10 years that's 10 years that you don't have new kids in the classroom um which also gives the town a a uh a layer of experience to draw from okay the other thing that I haven't seen I don't know if you're doing it is combined funding when Summit did the tennis courts at tatlock uh they were a lot of money I think 600,000 but the summit tennis Association put in substantial portion of that I think it was 200,000 I don't see any partnership funding uh being proposed I also don't see any uh environmental feasibilities for saving on fuel are you getting hybrid vehicles are you getting EVS are you doing something like somebody said on solar panel what is the fuel system use what is the fuel use for the city uh who's analyzing that is anybody thinking about how to reduce that I got you this time okay thank you okay thank you I have to say um I agree with the senior housing we need a lot more senior housing uh we want people to stay New Jersey is one of the states that chases people the our senior citizens out um and um so I I appreciate that point yeah sorry you don't need senior housing you need seniors to stay in Summit or yeah just every time a family moves out the day after high school graduation we've lost yeah I agree I agree hi Danny oan 33 pres thank you mayor council president members of council in a year when the board of education has a budget increase of 2.95 6% and Union County is raising taxes for the first time in a number of years this would have been a great opportunity for this governing body to show restraint and make it clear to our city administrator and our CFO that they need to figure out a way to come closer to a 1% tax increase this year instead one of the key actions listed on page three of the budget is quote create and present the 2024 City budget with a municipal tax rate change at or near 2% close quote was there any effort to give the residents some relief by offsetting the increases by the Board of Ed and Union County you could have chosen to return a portion of the $741,000 to the residents that was the result of the growth of the tax base by the often discussed 81.9 million this number is an outlier recent years this number has been close to 30 million there have been even years that we've experienced a downturn and it seems like there was a windfall to trigger such a massive increase from 34 million all the way up to 81.9 million so it would have been nice to return a portion of that 741 th000 it could have easily been as much as 4 400,000 I just don't see where it's obvious where you made any difficult choices it was not up to Mr Rogers or Miss Baldwin to give the residents relief it was up to you council president to quotee Warren Buffett don't ask the barber if you need a haircut thank you thank you um I'd like to make a comment on that uh thank you for your comment uh former councilman of Sullivan I actually looked at the that same goal that you did about uh bringing the budget within 2% and ironically that's been the same goal for at least the last six years and I think we could all literally in every binder it's the same if you look in the last six to seven years the same goal exists um and I will say that I think in committee we did have a lot of discussions uh councilman minegar I think we talked about uh I wasn't exactly for the bridges at the golf course I said you know what but when I go back in these binders guess when the studies were done for them I think it was when you were on Council so at some point I have to say we have to get some things done and when I look at director oaski and I ask him today do you really need those bridges well you know what we do because I'm worried about the seniors and I saw that Council councilman O Sullivan that you actually were one of the council people who had that study done so I have to believe that over the years these are good quality projects could we cut them tonight by 450 Grand maybe but they've been sitting in these binders since 2021 so I don't know when we're going to get these things done but I've Got to Believe In the hard work that you did and the hard work that director shreer does and all the city employees that were doing the right things but we had a lot of conversations around cutting things and we had every opportunity the kot don't do it I don't care but the the cars have two inches in between them I didn't even know it was in the budget take it out that's very easy take the kot out I didn't even know it was in the budget until two days ago so we can have we can take out the kot but well I guess I well can we can I just real quick so of course I think we should I think a trend that's been happening over the last several Council meetings is anytime somebody challenges the new Council people they say well that was the the old guy's fault right and we're you this council is certainly not obligated to do any any project that had discussion some time before your election right so really I think now five months in let's take some responsibility for What's Happening Here the finance chair also because Andy was attacked before in a way I don't think was fair Finance chair sets the tone the finance committee meetings right can request more information from department heads the council president sets the initial expectation with Michael the city administrator about what is acceptable to the council as a whole I was council president one of the very first conversations we had about the budget was please make this as close to Flat as possible right and I know we've I've talked to other Council presidents that have had exactly that same conversation too some years it's more possible than other years right but so for a budget with this kind of an increase I think either that conversation didn't happen between council president Allen and and City administrator Rogers or the the conversation was we're okay with with an increase of this size and I think either way it needs to be explained so that's that's the only thing I want to add to this conversation at this point Thank you so I just want to mention um when you say you want to be as close to Flat as possible does 2% increase count because that what the increase was we had we got we had a 2% increase inre last year and the total was $26 our increase this year is$ 163 on average for a $435,000 home right and I'm I didn't finish I'm sorry in 2022 it was also 1.98% increase so I don't know what flat means to you um but we did have conversations no one no one ever mentioned I'm councilman migar I never heard one thing that you said would be a trade-off outside of our cap capital budget we never had a discussion about what tradeoff would be made on our operating budget you didn't minus the we just di wa hold on when we dialogued over the two police and the two hires you said you were fine with the operating budget the only thing you were concerned about were the pensionable employees you didn't want to hire them and so I thought we made the argument that the the the um you were fine with the police when you came around and then the facilities manager and one of them one of the employees yes it's all tax dollars but went to the um sewer utility so aside from the facilities manager what do you want to cut like I actually want to have that conversation what tradeoff would you make tonight if you were to get rid of the facilities manager because if that's what we're grappling over is the facilities manager then where are we at like if having the door open to a discussion of cutting makes a huge difference and I would actually ask Michael Rogers and Tammy Baldwin to sit with us again in a room and inside that that door was closed I actually asked him the question can we can we request in this committee a 1% increase or a 0% increase and he said no and that's why I got the it was a very good quote that's why I remember it stuck in my brain the days of sub 2% increases are over that was that was real I mean I wait can I I know I just I'm gonna let you I'm gonna let you respond but I'm going to say this I just let me resp say something you said council president has a authority over this budget you had a responsibility councilman migar to come and tell me if you heard something that you felt was in appropriate you should have said to me I'm being told I can't bring this budget down to 05% so I'm going to let count I you should have you were there you were in every meeting we you never called me to say that you had a problem no no I want I want administrator Rogers to answer and then I just want to um respond to the quote that contributed to me it was actually in a in a finance committee and it came from our CFO I remember it I was sitting across from her um and I didn't disagree with that code but I I think we have to understand that it's becoming harder you need more Revenue I know we always tend to look on the appropriation side but coming up with other Revenue sources is also something we should consider and and work on um I am not propos and I I'll say it again the budget as introduced I hope this Council will adopt as is with no changes council president through you yeah so I I I I'm GNA read this email because it's it's it's I don't uh yeah uh coun um Mr chobe he wants to read an email from what from me to every council member about what I would love to do in the in the in the finance committee when was this when was this February can you give us the date I don't have it I just have it copied into my notes so in order to make sure that we can we meet the goal of 179 pensionable employees that was my pipe dream hoping that we could only raise it by two in our final budget which is a net increase of two over the current number we need to do the following things Tammy as early as possible please add a meeting or two to our calendars I'd love to discuss with Chief sagorski the memo um with this committee and decide where the two net the net two additional employees will go this is when I thought we could we could probably come to a conclusion that police were the way to go those two uh I can take a day off of work to make these easier to coordinate so let me know Michael and Tammy please let me know by what date you need our final decision on the above this will determine when we need to meet Michael and Tammy in preparation for outcomes of the above discussion please plan a contingent adjustment to the budget to keep the net increase in iable employees to two Michael you mentioned that completion of a more robust version of our budget reports needs to happen simultaneously alongside the finalization of the budget this is February and you named that as one of the reasons for your concern over the timeline if needed please prioritize the finalization of the budget as described in line item above one with consensus of the of the finance committee and make secondary the completion of the robust reports meaning prepare to use the state required template if it comes down to that I don't think it will de and Lisa please let me know your availability in the next week including this weekend so that we may come to the final final agreement on the capital budget which we did that you that you responded to everything before that was my last gasp attempt at trying to reduce the number of employees that we adding I mean it was it was there it was it was part of part of my job as a council as as PR uh yeah president of the finance committee as chair of the finance committee I mean I I did I did what I could so I one thing is is if somebody doesn't I I I don't about the emails we met with you if you were truly willing you really wanted to move the dial on this I don't know why you didn't call and say council president I want to sit down with you and really push you on this when we spoke which by the way we we both voted for the bosc the the board of school estimate so when we talk about the school budget which gets 52 sets of every dollar I don't think that it's fair to say that we should steal from our Municipal budget um so that we can do you know a $34 million bond that was um that this previous Council voted on last year um you know I don't I still think we should fund our Municipal employ employees so sorry it's getting late um for 163 on average for $435,000 assessment um but but you know if you had just called and said let's sit down and have a full discussion so I feel like I I hear you but you could have still called and tried to reach out I obviously when we talked after the bosc meeting you said the only thing you had a concern about was the the facility manager and never once in the four months councilman migar did you say I want to make a tradeoff okay you guys you want a facility manager then let's talk trade-offs that never happened and so I'm I'm GNA for this budget for two years I've been sitting on this deis I didn't make it partisan last year deal didn't make it partisan do I agree with all your choices absolutely not and last year when you guys had a capital budget of 1.9 million which I would say that it has to do if you look back historically you said in your Facebook live that you push off capital projects to this year because you couldn't fund them last year yeah so you know there was no politicalization sorry we didn't make it political and I just I appreciate your frustration but I also do feel like you could have taken on the responsibility to sit me down and say I really want your attention on this and that never happened you have the opportunity to vote this down tonight I'm not g no you know what you should have brought this up sooner you should have had your it is you're the chair of Finance if I had a huge problem I would call you I would call councilman vegar and I would say I'm not going to actually I have I wait I'm sorry I will finish with this I have called you guys to tell you when I'm not voting on something because I was really unhappy about it and I laid out why and so for you and and because I think that's actually the right thing to do and as the chair of Finance you could have come to say to me councilwoman Allen I'm not going to vote for this you know why because you're not listening to me that's to me a responsibility to our not to me actually to our residents that elected you that expect you to stand up for them and say something so it I we had a great conversation the other night at the last council at the last Finance meeting you asked how I felt about it I was very Crystal Clear how I felt about this I said you know all of the you know all the frustrations I have with the whole process and I I I gave Tammy fair warning that I was going to talk again about the number of employees that were adding and I left that meeting uh thinking that yeah I I offended them again I made them angry again by bringing up this topic and and they and and that was how I left the meeting although I thought I thought uh you hearing me out was a good thing so I don't know I don't know if communication is is what we're lacking uh I just think of I think willingness to move on some of the ideas I proposed is what's lacking can I can I bring I would like yes what I'd like to finish with this is this I said to you can we talk about this and you go I'm not going to tell you how I'm voting I'm like we're trying to have a conversation here and so there was never a moment where you said to me let's have a trade-off you never said let's dig well that's the night that's the word of the night that and the budget I'm just going to close with this I just have a quick question hold on yeah you already spoke um sir yes all question no sir not um but the one thing is is that budgets are historical you cannot say that budgets are not that that they live in just a moment of time our budget is based on the past five years maybe 10 years and actually you guys said decades in your Facebook live but it it is from the past to the present and it is a View Vision for the future that's what budgets are so um you know I just want to clarify that councilman migar you can I'm again still Greg uh but um but so I want to make I want to another quick joke first I think you're the only person who watched that Facebook live so I'm glad that it's I'm glad that it's so I watched it too I'm glad oh all right winner winner so I'm glad that that's so impactful uh maybe we'll do that again sometime I don't know uh I just want to go back to a couple of things that were said so nobody here made the suggestion that we should have not approved the school's requested budget corre nobody nobody at all say that again nobody here made the suggestion that the schools should not be completely funded at the level that they are I think everybody's context around those comments have been since we are investing in the schools in that way we have a responsibility to take control over the part that we have control over then the couple of other things because everybody has these couple of different Municipal budget snapshots right and we keep looking at numbers on here so so 2023 Total Property Tax 2 206 or 1.1% estimated increase in total tax bill and then you've got this year right you've got this one this year with the yellow and this one says $163 or .9% in total tax bill on average home assessment so it it that is a good number to look at but it's also not the whole thing right we need context to this number and that's over here on this side where it says 141.5 million total taxes raised last year versus 146 .3 million total taxes raised this year which is a 3.4% difference right so that's just a little bit of the context further and then second is the differences between last year and this year the value of the property growth which is also on this one 34.7 Million last year 81.9 million this year $1.3 million increase in debt service last year we had no choice got to just pay it it's going up The Debt Service went down this year it's a much Rosier Outlook this year that's the difference and then lots of people are looking at these documents and we've got binders stacked up all over the place right but but last year it doesn't make sense to look at the budget documents because they are literally right a snapshot in time and the and the levy is different from what is collected and the budget that is budgeted for changes we talked about this before we move money around in the budget throughout the year based on how we need it so we need to start with this budget this year and look at the actuals from last year and most people who are involved in business know that that is the way that we have to look at it so I just wanted to add those few extra things and I'll stop talking again thank you administrator Rogers would you like to talk about that I know you've mentioned it do you want to talk about the municipal L Levy that he's referencing I I don't know how much more I could say about itly I I truly don't oh wait is anyone else Lisa oh councilman Kowski yeah so Andy um I don't see that email that you referenced um from Rosie for you guys okay um well so if I got that that's the only thing that I got and um I I I have to say I'm surprised that you and Greg are being so critical and it looks like voting against this budget in light of several facts it's this budget's derivative of Prior budgets uh one or both of you were on the finance committee for the past several councils and I believe you're on it together for a time and although you both voice some concerns at the last meeting or when uh this was introduced on April 2nd uh neither of you guys approached me with any concerns save this email um so you know it just it strikes me that if your concerns were severe enough to vote against this unless you developed them last night you would have approached me and the other council members to say hey we can't vote for this this thing's not ready for prime time and you didn't and so the only conclusion that I can draw is that the positions you're taking here tonight are more about politics than about governance and you know that that's an approach that the electorate in this town clearly Rejects I think we really got to stop that I think we really got to stop characterizing any disagreement up here as you're playing politics right we are allowed to have disagreement I think people like that right I I mean I think this is going to have a lot of views this council meeting on YouTube right but we got to stop accusing everybody else of if I disagree with you why are you politicizing is that exactly what I saiding this you said based on politics versus governance right this is a big document it's a big thing to think about and you have to approach this with a lot of thought any what I said Greg what I said and you know this is that I would have thought that you would have reached out to some of us and said this instead of ambushing everybody here tonight with your position that's the politics it's not the disagreement can 113 Woodland Avenue the reason why it's so obviously political Greg is this postcard that went out to every resident in a Summit that lies that flat out lies your property taxes are going that's the largest property tax increase in 10 years that's a lie Lacy put this out okay it's a lie this is from The Summit Municipal Democratic committee it's a lie it's scaring people okay now back to the budget have you ever Michael Rogers and Tammy have you has this ever been political I mean I unfortunately was in some of these budget meetings the last couple years and no nobody did anything but sing the Praises of the city staff and that's who Lacy's really attacking right so in here just simple things what what's discretionary what what are the discretionary expenses Andy you're the chair of the finance committee can you please tell me what are the discretionary expenses that can be eliminated you want to get rid of this facilities person that's part-time now I think what is did you research did you look at other towns that are this size with the assets that we have do they have a full-time employee doing that have you have you done any of that work Greg you your concern seems to be a $60,000 uh expense that you say is on private property I think most of it's actually the city's property but I thought in the last meeting they said there we have a settlement agreement with these people that we're legally obligated to pay it so you're saying you're advocating for this city to violate a legal settlement that it's already entered into like that seems crazy to me because you're just going to wind up costing the city even more because you're going to have to hire lawyers and then lose you can't violate a legal agreement and this is $60,000 as far as the cops the new cops just just so you know the average taxpayer it's going to cost them $2.70 a month for those two cops if you say they're $250,000 annually on a run rate basis you guys think about this $2 and 70 okay me I pay almost twice as much as the average person in taxes so whatever five bucks or whatever that's not even a beer a month okay if you could slow down people on my street I'll give you 20 a month okay you laugh about it but simple question how many times have you seen people pulled over on residential streets how many times have you seen cars flying by you we don't have enough cops two's not even enough so if you're saying you need trade-offs by the way the trade-offs seem to be I thought you said the trade-off was 70% of the overtime budget would be reduced by the new two new cops that's a tradeoff what do you need to trade what's the net I mean the politics need to stop you guys are like being absurdly ridiculous it's disgusting thank you can we can we just talk about other towns for a second CU Kevin brought up other towns so I just want to address that so Westfield uh very very similar size budget 0% increase this year New Providence added staff including growing their police force 89% increase this year to have comments from the audience is flat chadam Bur is a small increase mum Township is flat this can be done other places you this can be done I'm glad that was brought up thank you um just really quick we're talking about fairness he's been up here twice now and both times he's talked about the same thing during the non-comment portion and now the comment portion for the budget so if we're going to be fair that's how that should work in the future not true zip it address Summit High School I'm sorry thank you appreciate that Monique Taylor 167 pic Avenue Summit High School recently dropped uh to 29 from 23 last year in the US News and World Report rankings enrichment and tutoring sessions a dedicated teen center and programming at the why and the connection for middle and high school students are a few of the Myriad of solutions if we only had the funding the maybe playground which I've heard no one talk about tonight but it's right in the middle of our downtown that renewal is scheduled to break ground in the fall of 2024 and open in the spring of 2025 the cost to complete is approximately 1 and a half to 1.7 million and I would argue far more important important to the overall wellbeing of our children but we are entertaining hiring two new police officers both of whose salaries benefits and insurance would cost four times as much over the course of their careers because as everyone knows no one who's hired here is leaving in 10 years they're probably going to retire in 25 2025 funding for Summits inclusion and diversity celebrations like like aapi pride juneth and Hispanic heritage is being slashed because the trust isn't being replenished but one of the wealthiest towns in Union County cries poor for anything but law enforcement who will do what fight a manufactured crime wave of auto theft meant to seow fear and paranoia meanwhile council president Allen drags her feet on changes to language of the ordinance the resident protection ordinance which makes many of us still feel unsafe I submit to you that we have truly lost our way when we are focused on material possessions of the well healed few by foolishly spending monies on more police which in no way shape or form enhances the lives of our children and I have just one other question and uh that is I believe didn't we just hire two new police officers last year no or the year before that no there were there was there was a job posting and listing for a police officer proo protion officer no there replacements for um officers that were retiring thank you I have your statement M CH I'll Chief sagorski how long have we been at 47 officers um almost a decade I think they about about seven years and we were at 46 before that for a long time okay and then two of them are actually not able they don't go on patrol correct so you have 40 you have 45 active police officers is that true no no right now we have uh we have 40 47 right now okay but Mike Freeman does he he we don't count him in the um in that number because U his salary is re Ed by the state PBA got it okay all right thank you uh com I'm sorry Michelle hold on one second um I just wanted to ask if anybody uh Council if you want to talk about the grants uh because I think that has to do with um cutting the um the programs at the community's programs do you know I was actually going to ask um we've talked about this before Michael have there been any Cuts in the the programming I have not heard of anything first of all those programs are are uh funded by trust monies in the recreation trust but Mark I know I'm not sure what the like if there anything within that program if you want to just come up Mark and that you council president so um this year we decided to give $2,000 out of the trust to every special event across the board is that typical um no this is the first time we've done done that we want to be fair to every group and then additional monies have to be raised by the uh organizations and every year do we normally just raise money it's usually combo okay okay I just have a question yeah go ahead so uh director oosi councilman Smallwood were you informed of this of what taking the money down in the trust for from five we used to give every there was never a set number okay it was always based on the what the program was what you know if there was going to be something at the Village Green I think David and Mark always determined so now we have a set consistent across the board okay got it I I was just it was all based on what what money they had in the general fund okay that they would determine how much they would spend I couldn't remember when I was chair I can't remember how we David did it also I don't remember so I got sorry I got them I'm I like the idea of what we did this year the 2000 because it was a it was a transition Year from what it was done last year into what next year I think is a perfect division among All the Monies raised this year in donations so it does have the potential to be higher but the money has not been has not been the donations have not been coming in that way that said go to go to the website go to the community programs website and donate to these absolutely than donations can you guys speak up just so can everybody hear I see what he's saying okay it has potential to be lower next year which is what I'm saying and I think we should we should make an effort if we want to if we want to keep this we want to uh codify 2,000 a year then we should consider doing something now okay or at the end of next year at the end of this year how much is in the trust okay council president we did get a grant for maybe Playhouse uh maybe playground right yeah yes so real quick that's one of the things that you won't see in tonight's budget we were awarded a $750,000 grant for May playground um however we won't receive that in this because it's going to be if it's adopted tonight and then we'll do a what is it chapter 159 Amendment Michael when we receive the money I'm getting so good at these terms I know good well I was going to say so it originally was earmarked for 1.1 million but it's now at 17 right is that is but the original when it was originally budgeted for it was 11 it was even higher than that it was probably higher but we have all the funds needed okay this point and the one thing I just want to say about the grants and and um administrator Rogers you can jump in but the grants last year when you look at the uh budget was 500 and something, last year it's because they had that money in hand from 2022 so that so the way what you'll see in any introduced budget is what we've been awarded right up until we finalized the budget so last year I think it was actually 656 th000 um this year was only 137 it doesn't mean we haven't received Grant Awards over the last month or so which we have uh significantly and then what happens is after the budget's adopted you start to see resolutions what we call one chapter 159 and it's just um it's granting the authorization to actually spend that money um when the budget is already adopted so I mean last year we but we had in the budget 656 and we wind up uh realizing $2.1 million in Grants great okay sorry Michelle cinon 67 Butler Parkway goal number one in the 2024 Municipal goals and objectives is enhance the financial position of the municipality through strategic budgeting prudent debt management and the development of longterm Financial sustainability objectives while the council says they want to maintain long-term Financial sustainability the actual plan doesn't achieve that the 2025 budget has $1.64 million set aside for lights at tatlock the stadium lights at tatlock are a want not a need it is fiscally irresponsible to spend $1.64 million of taxpayer money on a want even if the lights are partially funded by private donors taxpayers will still be burdened with the annual operating costs which we estimate to be around $60,000 per year Summit will have a brand new turf field at the high school this fall to add to their field ecosystem a fiscally responsible Council will cancel this project and focus their attention on the real work that needs to be done like meeting our affordable housing obligations thank [Applause] you one thing that caught my attention um councilman Varan you mentioned that we can move money around in the budget whenever we choose to what did you mean by that well if we have flexibility right if we like for example last year we moved $30,000 from the DCS roads unit to police overtime right like that's that's something that can happen at certain points throughout the year if it's necessary right but it requires a vote of council to do that it the only transfers that can be made in in any respective budget year is U November and December that's what I mean right we do that lot nov DEC we can't move throughout the year it's only at that point can we start to tr yeah throughout the year November December I got you okay I got you but we do transfers a lot we do is the point at the end and then even into uh 2025 for the 2024 budget we can for the first three months yeah okay anyone else are we going to close our public hearing on the budget okay wait I think she have one more yeah one more oh sure sure hi Luc 123 Summit Avenue I'll be brief I had no intention of speaking specifically to the budget but because I was brought up this is not the first time Mr mgoi has targeted me he has come out and talked about my place of employment uh on and as if it were some sort of topic of discussion um he's making claims that I'm lying to the public or that I'm beginning some sort of political Warfare that hasn't happened in the past so let's be clear the chair of the Republican party has always sent out these sort of maybe not a postcard but talked about the budget talked about it that's what we do I'm the chair of the summit Democrats that's what I do I do not appreciate the targeting from Mr mgoi it happens not just to me it happens to people up there and it happens to people out in the world world and I would like to see the support of the elected officials to shut that down we are all members at this is the dialogue you guys are raising taxes this is what we do we talk about it and we get out there and we tell people how we feel about it but Mr mgoi and his talking about where I work and talking about me in a lot of his free time in a lot of places on social media and if you think I don't see it and I know you all see it too you should shut it down thank [Applause] you um any other comments from the public okay I just want to um as I'm closing out if there's any final comments from our Council I I would say that um again I don't like raising taxes I don't want anyone to you know have more expenses on them um this is a responsible budget of 2% it's $163 on average for House for $435,000 um assessment I don't want that it's the same if you look at the budgets pass the last three years they're all at 2% that doesn't make it right or wrong it just means that we are looking to be responsible and at the end of the day we have to maintain the services for this community we want you to have the pH answered when you want a dog license when you go to the clerk when you want your permits to build which is a division that's exploding we want our buildings to not fall apart around us um I think these are investments and I believe in investing in people I believe in investing in infrastructure because if we don't continue to do it and we keep our Capital budgets at 2 million before you know it we're just kicking the can down the road and if you look at the the trend of the capital budgets I couldn't find it I was going to try to get it for you but in one of the capital budget presentations the trend was a few years ago that if we had stayed on track our capital budget would have been at $8 million this year but it isn't it's at four and there's probably always a tradeoff that we could do or a trade-off that we could make my tradeoff this year was to take care of our employees and councilman migar you know if this is a lesson in terms of if there's a communication gap between us I will work on it you know when I took this role I met with you and and uh councilman bartan be and I've said to you I want you to feel as though whatever you are working on you feel valuable and that you're getting something out of this year it is your free time on top of your job and I don't want you to be unfulfilled because you are serving your community so I just on record you know I want to continue to open up that door for communication um if there's any other council member councilman Smallwood yes um thank you council president I I did want to address the the kot um since it was sorry it's parking is that's important to me um councilman uh ven you mentioned you were not supportive of the um restriping of the K I was just curious is it because of the cost or the anticipated loss of Revenue yes okay yes it's because of everything it's because we're going to pay more money to get less parking spaces I would rather just put the money in a fund to teach people how to park better okay how's that uh we actually had uh director sher's uh team go out there and measure the the striping and it is not the same size lot or spaces as our other Lots they're actually a shorter in terms of width so in terms of cost it's looking at $25,000 right but in terms of lost Revenue uh we wouldn't have lost Revenue since 2019 which was the last time that lot was completely 100% full the LA uh the last time that it actually had 20 available spaces was in February of 2020 this year alone in January we've averaged 56 available spaces February we average 47 available spaces in March we've a averaged 46 available spaces so we're not utilizing that lot and it could be for a very number of reasons one is I think the main reason is we do have larger cars uh when a CO when a Tahoe or you know a large SUV parks in into one of those spots and it goes over the line another car cannot park in there so we're losing that space no matter what um by restriping this lot you know it's going to make it uh consistent with our other lots and I honestly believe that you know we're not going to be losing the revenue based on the numbers that I I've seen over the last four years of the average Open Spaces in that lot so if it's you know if it's the cost $25,000 you know maybe we can consider raising parking prices I don't know but I I think it's this is something that needs to be done it's it's not just a convenience thing it it's it needs to be needs to needs to represent the the exact same lots that we have in in the other parts of our town um and I believe Aaron shreer director Sher I mean I believe our other lots are pretty much uniform except for this one particular lot is that correct through you council president uh I can't speak to all the Lots we are doing an audit on them actively just to to verify uh but at least the ones that have been redone the the typical space in summ is 9 ft by 18 ft and the ones that the K out are currently 8 feet by 18 ft so they are one foot more narrow than than standard and than what exists at least in the parking services last that have been redone in the last five years and also by the I'm sorry um I also uh spoke with uh Chief ever and hopefully I believe in July maybe uh we're going to be gaining 45 to 50 we're going to be gaining back 45 to 50 spaces in the Broad Street East lot so that will help help make up for any lost Revenue which are typically non-resident parking charged at $14 a day we couldn't squeeze any more out I what I was I I mean if anybody had money on midnight it's blown anyway right so so I could just respond real quick so I think we drive the same car so I feel okay with my car in those spaces I I noticed I notice that they're smaller but you know you just you take a second you take an extra second you slow down a little bit uh my bet would be that people don't park there because it's behind the CVS and it's a little bit of a walk from the downtown right like we don't actually have a parking issue we have a walking issue right that people don't really want to you know take the Trek um but I don't know if the I the argument sounded like we should invest in it because it's underutilized and I don't think that we should do that either so I but you know this is too late to be talking about parking probably well I'm sorry but the the ACT if you're talking about the kot um up until 2017 18 19 it was 100% full on yeah I mean okay it's not now right do we think it's because the spaces are too small yes I believe that's part of it okay well you know I mean this is I mean I have this this is my position on this that we should not be spending money on that don't I think we've been over it I think we've been over it we don't have to we don't have to do this project right it's just because it's on here doesn't mean we have to do it how many projects did we do in 2023 yeah I mean I'll just jump in at this uh capital budget when even if you adopt everything in the capital budget which I hope you do it's not funded you have to come back with a bond author a bond ordinance to authorize money to then for us to go out and actually Finance the capital budget so there's a couple more steps uh even if it's funded you still have to approve the project at some point so there's multiple steps and then there are many projects in past years that were funded even sometimes authorized and you don't move ahead with doing the project or you don't spend as much and it gets cancelled and lapses into your Capital fund balance so you really don't have to do this project there's still time to make that determination yeah yeah cuz you actually transfer Capital Surplus but this the capital budget is not funded so you're not actually okay yep all right you good good anyone else it's getting late we still have more to do okay councilman miger all right so we're going to move on to the 20 close the hearing oh I'd like to close the hearing and open up the hearing for 20 the 2024 special Improvement no ask council member Min to open the hearing sorry motion and a second y are we voting on the budget you need to uh sure introduce the yeah thank you council president this is number 411 uh sorry one second this is number 41110 and this is the hearing on the 2024 special Improvement District budget the special improvement district is better known as Summit downtown taxes levied from summit's retail businesses District are managed by Summit downtown Incorporated SDI sdi's budget is used to promote downtown businesses I move to adopt this resolu oh sorry that's the wrong phrase I move to open this hearing yeah maybe we have a second second good even good evening all uh my name is Bill Rob I'm the treasurer of summit downtown Inc uh I know it's been a long evening I'll try and be uh quick uh going through my remarks um you should have before you uh a copy of a 2024 SDI budget narrative as well as a copy of the budget overview um so just a couple comments um with regard to the budget um this is a statutory requirement that uh Summit as a municipality needs to approve the special improvement district each year uh it is worth noting um there's no Municipal contribution from The General taxes uh to SDI the budget um as it sits before you has been determined um by a board representative the business and Property Owners two council members and the mayor uh that budget that you have before you was approved by the board of SDI in February um I'm here to answer any questions you may have um noting as I mentioned that uh a few of you were part of the budget approval process um I don't know whether or not you wish for me to go through the budget on a line by line basis that's up to the council um basically uh in income and expenses for next year are $51,900 uh the majority of the income items comes from assessments of the businesses in town or U property owners in town and businesses um entry fees which is the farmers market uh and grants um from Main Street New Jersey and um the Department of community fairs Affairs which I believe is part of the cares act um just a couple comments um we just closed out a very successful year uh our fiscal year is the calendar year uh the Surplus uh that we had uh was due primarily to the application and receipt of Grants uh including those which were spent in 2022 um our plan for 2024 is to enhance our existing events uh the Marquee events are um design week art and cars uh Downtown Music also known as Summit Street Sounds um we plan to add an additional location for Summit Street Sounds uh we have a expanded um our partnership uh with p's Auto Body for art and cars and are going to get some help from them to um enhance the marketing of the show we also have some new artists and bands um we do have increased expenses this year they're reflective of the needs of running a Professional Organization I think you all are probably pretty familiar with uh budgets and costs after the discussion we've just had um primarily um increased salaries which recognize the contributions of our staff uh whose compensation has historically been in the lower or middle of the range for Professionals of their caliber across New Jersey plus some money for accounting fees um SDI has accumulated some Surplus over the years uh which typically is year mark for capital projects uh and anticipates using a portion of of of it for some or all of the following projects uh in conjunction with the city of summit uh one would be a permanent fence around the park and shop lot uh that um encircles the farmers market if Council approves uh two would be to contribute to um the repair and repaving of the alley connecting Bank Street and Summit Avenue if DPW moves forward with that project um three which is probably like touching the third rail is um depending on the decision uh regarding the closure of Maple Street on a seasonal basis SDI is in a position to help with beautification and other amenities such as tables can I give you to pause for one second Chief can you can you please have the okay go ahead sorry about that um sorry so if if um maple Street ends up being closed uh at any point during the year we're in a position to help with the beautification in public amenities such as tables chairs so sorry can you shut the door please thanks so sorry it's okay tables chairs Planters and games uh and then the other um item of importance which we talk about a lot for those of you who've been to SDI meetings uh is to increase money uh or funding for public planting such as the tree Wells um and other areas around downtown great we like the tree Wells to be cleaned up so I submit the budget for your approval excellent does are there any Council comments good when you come to do this next year would you prefer to do it before the municipal budget he I feel like I've learned an incredible amount this evening okay and uh I have uh definitely become a more patient person any other Council comments uh thank you very much for presenting this um I I think I mentioned this in our February meeting um when when I was on SDI years ago our auditor highly suggested that we didn't keep more than $100,000 in cash on hand um I know that the auditor has since changed over have they given you any guidance on how much cash should be held uh they have not okay but again you know uh some of the the cash sits uh you know ready for deployment based on some of the things I just mentioned my concern is you know this is this is a tax to our to our downtown um property owners and you know if I I'm just thinking if if I were a downtown property owner and saw that there's a fairly sizable budget for some of downtown Inc but yet you're increasing my my my tax it it's worth mentioning that we're not increasing the tax the assessment was held flat so I so I would suggest maybe reducing my tax right if we have X amount of cash on hand to fund these projects um because I think this budget is significantly higher than it was probably five years ago well remember part of that Surplus did not come from the assessment it came from RE correct so um I would also suggest uh in terms of tree Wells because I know for SDI tree Wells and parking are the number number one and two topics don't forget the F oh um you know I always felt like you know our job as some downtown Inc was to put a thousand people on on our on on the sidewalks and it's the store owners's job to get them into their store to get them to buy things um the other part is beautification of our downtown um I I think if we could you know put some resources towards our tree Wells as well as even think about hiring a part-time person um to help pick up the trash that is continuously flying around our downtown um I know that we've talked about a lot about uh employees tonight and uh you know the DBW does what they can with what they have um but I think if we can you know discuss further on SDI uh potentially hire some on a part-time basis to help with just the the trash that you know the pizza boxes that go into the uh the tree Wells the trash that flies around uh even if it's only you know two or three days a week it would help tremendously I mean I think that's certainly a discussion worth entertaining uh and obviously the question being you know uh how that expense should be born right okay okay thank you you're welcome thank you all right well real quick it's not a question it's just a comment um downtown retail occupancy 99% uh bringing in all sorts of Grants great job keep it up I'm supportive excellent one one very quick question yeah do you um do you have a plan for murals in public art every time you have that in your budget um the beginning of every year I mean I think that there has been I I you know I'd have to look into that um I I believe so but um I know that one of the um murals that's uh under discussion in town uh over by haril is not related to us okay great a Qui comment um my my last comment thank you for coming and thank you for all you do you're welcome um my only comment would be last year when I was chair of um parking and Community programs uh councilman small we talked about just taking a closer look at the parking fees that um for the events and parking just making sure that we're getting the right amount CU I think we had some concerns it was a little bit light I don't know if it is I haven't looked at it but you might just want to get together and make sure all the events and parking numbers are all set up yeah definitely happy to engage in that discussion I haven't looked on since last year but thank you for everything thank you so much sorry to keep you so late bet there you go all right we're going to close do do I need to wait and do you guys have to vote on it I guess we are going to vote but does he have to wait no absolutely you know should be that long now can we do it out of order thanks very much oh yeah yeah that's a great idea we're gonna do it out of order yeah so we'll do it now so we'll close the hearing councilman minegar thank you council president having just had the hearing on the resolution for the SDI budget I moveed for a final vote excellent um Council comments Oh no just a roll call second second second roll call please madam are you doing Council comments do yeah do we have any Council comments public comments roll call vote Please Mr Boer hi Miss Hamlet hi Mr minegar hi Mr palaski hi Mr Smallwood I Mr faran I president Allen I okay okay councilman migar thank you council president having just just moments ago had the hearing uh for the municipal budget sewer and parking I moved the for the final vote so moved excellent Council comments public comments okay roll call vote Please Mr Boer I miss Hamlet I Mr Minar nay Mr Bowski I Mr Smallwood I Mr ban nay president Allen I okay um at this time we're going to go we're going to vote on the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move first we need to yeah okay motion I'm sorry sorry do I have a motion do I have a second second okay any Council comments okay public comments all right all in favor I any opposed motion carries all right um I would say that council member comments we can probably for yeah foro so is just not sitting right with me council president we just we just saw a member of the audience aggressively follow somebody outside and start arguing with them to the extent that the chief of police needed to go and get involved in it and I think everybody up here needs to just be very clear that people we talk a lot about safety here you need to feel safe coming here Kevin stop you need to feel safe coming here you need to feel safe coming here you cannot be threatening I didn't threat anybody you just said I threat I didn't threaten anybody stop stop I'm saying we need to agree that this is not acceptable behavior Greg you just said I threatened some I also think we don't have time for a second public comment from people we made that decision earlier in this in earlier in this meeting that we can't allow people to have a second public comment sure there's no this is a Time keep these rules going actually yeah the third Kevin please time first of all I watched her approach him so she was talking to him I don't know what happened I just asked for them to I can say something I was out at the bathroom after 6 hours I couldn't and when I was out there there was nothing there was a police officer there was uh the gentleman who was a former firefighter Mr weo there was nothing there's no commotion out there when I was out there and I just come out of the bathroom so I didn't see anything that caused me any alarm and if I did I would I would I would have involved so I didn't see anything alarming whatsoever all right um comments from the audience are going to be shot down I'm saying any any comments from the audience actually going to prevent you from doing that Kevin stop talking from the audience please stop stop stop stop stop both of you stop please um do I have a motion to adjourn so moved do I have a second second motion carries can we take a vote vote all in favor all in favor any opposed motion carries sorry