okay welcome everyone I'd like to call this meeting to order uh Madame clerk please read the adequate notice compliance statement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated April 17th 2024 it was uh subsequently noticed um on April 17th that we were moving it to today um I just want to note that for the record and it 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 it the system at the deis and return it thereafter okay roll call please Mr Boer here miss Hamlet here Mr minegar here Mr palowski here Mr Smallwood here Mr Varan present president Allen here okay we're going to say the Pledge of Allegiance Reverend hariel would you like to lead us in the pledge okay to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with Liber and justice for all okay Madam clerk please read the explanatory notices regarding hearings comments and close session a close 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 me meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channel 36 and Verizon channel 30 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on httv on Comcast 36 and Verizon 33 when invited to speak please come to the lecturn clearly state your name and address spell your last name and speak into the podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement please give her email a copy to the city clerk's office at city clerk at city of summit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes in length thank you okay do I have a motion to approve the minutes of our regular and close session meeting on uh March 19th 2024 and April 2nd 2024 so moved do I have a second second okay great um and I would like to also approve the minutes of the community Forum um of April 9th 2024 I'm sorry I just have a quick question I know for the minutes Rosie I know I owe you a statement is it okay that I still add that afterwards it's still noted in the minutes I just would need your statement okay I apologize I haven't you okay it's okay um sorry yes that's okay do I have a motion so moved do I have a second second thank you okay um all in favor I any opposed motion carries on to reports Madam mayor thank you earlier today a few members of council and I proudly attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a research and development building at Ken View's new Global headquarters a pivotal event for Ken viw and a momentous occasion for the entire Summit Community the event was attended by Governor Murphy and his team Ken view corporate leadership and state legislators among others in my remarks I described Ken VI's choice to establish roots and Summit as a key moment for economic growth promising new OPP opportunities and Innovations within our community underscoring summit's growing reputation as a prime location for business we extend a warm welcome to Ken viw anticipating a future of shared success and prosperity it will be exciting to see the positive impact this new neighbor will have on our community each week I record a new Monday's with the mayor video this week's update focused on bicycle safety and the importance of always is wearing a helmet when riding a bike no matter what age while it is only legally required for people under the age of 18 I strongly recommend this for everyone next week I will be focusing on Mental Health Awareness Month which is in May and what we have planned here in Summit look for more information about that on the city website and in my videos on the city of summit YouTube channel and on social media the summit pal annual fishing derby is this coming Saturday April 27th and Sunday April 28th from 8:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. at the municipal golf course at one at 189 River Road the pond at the golf course will be fully stocked with more than a thousand rainbow trout including 10 prize fish which are over 21 Ines in length attendees are asked to bring a fishing rod and reel Bait and Tackle will be available for purchase admission admission to the fishing derby is free and all residents are invited to attend Summit Municipal Golf Course membership is not required the event will take place rain or shine and the summit pal will be providing free hot dogs and soda for all attendees thank you okay thank you administrator Rogers thank you council president good evening everyone uh just a reminder the 2024 Municipal budget public hearing will take place on Tuesday March 7th at 7:30 p.m. right here in the council chain Chambers May 7th May 7th May 7th I'm sorry good catch Council March March oh my God May so sorry um after final construction work is completed on Oxo Lane this week milling and Paving are expected to be scheduled for next week uh the dates for this phase of work will be shared on the city website and social media once finalized and the contractor will notify residents in the affected area prior to the start of milling and Paving the uh office of health and Vital Statistics has launched a new online portal uh for animal license registrations the deadline to renew dog and cat licenses is May 31st applications can be submitted online using the uh using the portals for either dog or cat licenses at cityofsummit.org after approving the application a member of the health department will send uh the applicant a payment request by email online payments May must be made by credit card and then finally the next Summit free market U event will be held on Friday April 26 from 12:00 p.m. to 2: p.m. at the transfer station some residents must have a permit to access the transfer station to attend uh permits can be purchased online through the city of summit Parking Services Agency at cityofsummit.org uh visitors are limited to 60 continuous minutes at each Summit free market event for more information on the summit free market please go to Summit free market.org and that's all I have okay thank you council president thank you okay so I would like to um say happy Administrative Professionals Day to our incredible team behind the scenes at city of summit uh we recognize and appreciate the dedication hard work and inv valuable contributions of our administrative Personnel across every city Department their commitment keeps our city running smoothly and efficiently day in and day out and make Summit a better place for everyone uh summit's Earth dat cleanup on April 13th was a great success with 242 residents and members of different Community groups and clubs coming together to help clean up 10 public sites around the city volunteers collected approximately 1,200 pounds of trash and which is incredible um I know and um peanut gallery um and applied 10 yards of wood chips to the trails at Martin Brook Park and Wilson Park thank you to everyone who volunteered their time um for this important cause and of course we want to thank Donna Patel who drives and um helps manage this important event every year um The Summit Farmers Market Returns on Sunday April 28th the farmers market is held weekly on Sunday from 8 8 amm to 100: p.m. in the park and shop lot on the corner of Woodland Avenue and DeForest Avenue um for more information on vendors and Farmer Market events go to Summit downtown. org okay um now we have a proclamation mayor the floor is yours thank you sure um city of inate of new jogn I think it's on yeah I don't think it's on is that better that's there we go start over will okay so we have Gretchen Boger O'Brien from Casa um whereas the city of summit in the state of New Jersey recognizes the problem of child abuse and neglect and is committed to helping its victims and whereas all children deserve to have safe nurturing and healthy homes that Foster their well-being and whereas court appointed special Advocates Casa has invited volunteers to advocate for children throughout Union County who have been removed from their homes due to neglect or abuse and whereas Casa is focused on protecting the safety and well-being of Union County's foster children defending them from harm and ensuring they are provided with the court ordered Services they need and whereas beginning this month April 2024 Casa of pic and Union counties will operate under the name Child Focus to fully support the multi-program approach to mitigate the negative effects of child abuse and now therefore I Elizabeth Fagan mayor of the city of summit Do hereby proclaim the month of April 2024 be recognized as Child Abuse Prevention month in the city of summit and urge all residents to become aware of the work and mission of Casa and encourage our community to support the efforts to raise awareness of the program and the need for the community members to provide a voice for the children in witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and caused the Seal of the city of summit to be affixed this 24th of April in the year [Applause] 2024 I'm gonna try to so my back you but I'm speaking to everybody um I just want to thank you mayor and to the city council for um helping us bring awareness to this important issue I'm gret and Boer O'Brien and I'm proud to work with the nonprofit Child Focus um and through which court appointed special Advocates program operates I've been with Kasa for 12 years and have been an advocate myself and although my case closed years ago the child um actually was in foster placement here in Summit um and um she's now reunified with Mom and I send her a birthday card every year and we're still in touch to the microphone sorry um so it's it's really a life-altering um opportunity and a program and um we're thankful for summit's uh contribution we have Advocates who live in Summit we have funders from Summit um and we are working to reach all of the children in care just last year we had just about 300 children in foster care just in Union County and hundreds of them still need a Cass of volunteer so they do not have an advocate yet um children living in foster care are doing so through no fault of their own but their lives are forever altered the process of being removed from their family is is traumatic and these children have been through multiple abusive experiences that most of us can only imagine one important aim of the casa program is through advocacy in the family court system to mitigate mitigate the negative impact that trauma and abuse has on a child's life our hope is that through the support of a kind caring well-trained Casa volunteer we will ensure each and every one of these children is on a path to a safe and happy home we are proud to say as I noted that many of our Advocates and funders are residents of summit through this Proclamation and through building awareness of the realities of child abuse right in our community uh we hope that even more individuals from Summit will take the opportunity to um learn more about becoming a Costa volunteer we need you we have hundreds of children waiting um we also really need men I'm going to make that pitch um and um we welcome anybody to just come and learn more and po ually become a volunteer and we thank you for this recognition during April thanks thank you so much thank you so much okay we're GNA go to historical minute thank you council president um when we had to change the meeting from uh Tuesday to Wednesday our original presenter um had a game so he couldn't come um but thank hopefully his big sister's here to pinch hit um so uh I'd like to introduce uh CLA palowski she is a senior at Camp Place heading to SMU next year and the prettiest girl in the whole world thank you Dad and thank you very much for having me here today um I'd like to take this opportunity to share a little bit with you all about Bryant Pond Park a man named Oliver Hayes owned a homestead at 215 Springfield Avenue in 1800s he amassed 270 acres in the area between Morris Turnpike and Springfield Avenue and from Hobart Avenue to the railroad the caretaker of the hay estate in 1859 was William H Bryant son of Aaron Bryant in about 1867 William Bryant built a home on what is now Bryant Parkway on land farmed by his father Aaron Bryant and his grandfather Cornelius Bryant before that in operating this general f generational Family Estate William Bryant built a dam to create a 12 acre Springfed Lake that abounded in fish and was surrounded by spacious Woodland he named it Spring Lake today we know it as Bryant Pond and the land surrounding it Bryant Pond Park Bryant ran a mill with a huge wheel he used to grind wheat Rye corn and buckwheat he also built two large ice houses on the property some obtained practically all of its ice supply from the pond in the winter residents skated on the pond and used it to row boats and fish during the warmer months residents picniced free of charge on the ground and it even became a destination for some in the 1880s Mr John B McGrath operated the Spring Lake Inn now the Huntley Tavern side note Mr McGrath gave some its first uniformed baseball club the old red stockings who played across the street from the Inn West of the park Union County AC acquired the property owned and operated by the Bryant family for Generations in 1930 and commissioned the famed oldstead brothers land Landscape Architects to design the park according to the sign on Springfield Avenue at a spot some may mistake for Morris Avenue the olid brothers quote theel Brothers envisioned a pastoral open space for passive and unprogrammed active Recreation centered around Bryant Pond the park was to be a central feature of the Bryant Pond Parkway part of a w a countywide Parkway system invisioned by the Olstead brothers and the Union County Park commission for nearly a century now Bryant Pond Park has has provided the Hill City open space to enjoy so many outdoor activities from sliding to fishing to skating and to walking in recent times our beloved Pond has suffered a buildup of sediment and unwanted vegetation weeds grass and the like sadly as the pond has grown shower shallower the supply of fish has diminished and the Beautiful Heron that once frequented the park has left for fishier Waters but hopefully we'll come back soon you may have noticed the arrival of heavy machinery in recent weeks Union County has finally set the stage to Deep in the pond and restore this Jewel of of summit work began on April 17th and should be completed by Midsummer Bryant Pond Park is listed on the New Jersey register of historic places I credit Edmund B rafus in his history titled Summit New Jersey from poverty Hill to the Hill City for much of the information in this report thank you thank you excellent okay so next we have a presentation on affordable housing from our city planner Joe Buress he is a special master and a lifetime achievement awarde from the from the blouson schools school at Ruckers did I say that right you did okay um and tonight Joe is going to outline for us the planning process which is going to be closing out of 2024 how we're looking ahead to 2025 um and tonight it's less about the law of s50 but how the um the timeline is going to play out from the new law that was passed so just want to be clear on that yes thank you I just have one quick question yeah do you have this historic minute all your Council meetings oh we try to that's fantastic I've never seen that and I've been doing this for 40 years I've never seen a another municipality do that I think it's a great idea we're special thank you Council I will give I will give councilman flowski credit he really wanted to bring it back this year so and I was only copying was former council president Rob Rino had put in place uh in the past so it's very very good um one a much more mundane but also very serious topic uh it just about a month ago the governor signed into law new affordable housing legislation it dramatically changes the way we deal with affordable housing and the process going forward so I want to really touch upon two things just Identify some of the major changes in the law and then talk about the timeline because it's a very tight time frame within which we have to take actions um the most significant I'm just going to touch about half a dozen specifics of the significant changes one is that legislation has formally abolished COA now I know when I say this in other venues people say they were ployed but the reality is when we look back on the first and second round of Co which is is the Council on affordable housing which up until recently oversaw all affordable housing work in the state um we complained about first and second round initially but I think now we're going to be looking up back upon it as the Golden Age of affordable housing because the regulations were about this thick and it was pretty easy to manage um now we've got close to 100 pages of legislation and more is to come um secondly the legislation dramatically tightens the time frames for various actions and we're going to get into that in a moment uh critically well whereas historically municipalities were to get were able to get um a um definite designation and complete immunity from affordable housing um lawsuits once you got your housing plan approved that is no longer the case uh right now that has been replaced with something called presumptive validity is a much more watered down version of your full and complete uh protection and Immunity from litigation and um any interested party can now bring a challenge uh before What's called the program and I'll get into that in a moment alleging that despite the issuance of a compliance certificate that you would now get that either your Town's determination of what your affordable housing number is or your housing element and fair share plan itself or the ordinance is implementing the the housing plan are in violation of the Mount Laurel Doctrine and then you would be fighting with those litigant not in the court but before the uh new organization called the progam in the statute now the legislation also imposes significant new coly responsibilities on the part of municipalities um a lot of it has to do with data Gathering and uh responses to challenges and how you deal with that it also imposes significant new limitations on bonus credits that we've all been able to rely upon in the past what I would like to do is start oh and the final thing is it creates what's called this affordable housing dispute resolution program and then throughout the legislation it just is referred to as the program which sounds very orwellian but I'll leave that go for now but I want to start with the very aggressive time frames within which we have a number of uh steps to deal with and I know some people might want to that information down made copies for everybody thank you do you have enough yeah okay what's what's interesting is the fourth round technically begins July 1 2025 but with this new legislation you actually have certain things that you must complete in 2024 and it starts off with by June 18th of this year you are obligated to provide DCA for of Community Affairs with a detailed accounting of all non-residential development fees that you've ever collected and in this you see some of the details that have to be provided by SE by mid-september of this year you have to do the same thing for all the residential development fees that you've collected now um I think Matt and his office are going to be instrumental in helping putting all that together I hope Matt is still here Matt you're gonna be very busy I apprciate um also by September 16th all municipalities are going to now be required to provide DCA with a whole host of additional affordable housing information about what you've accomplished in the past and they want it broken down into categ ories that we've never had to deal with before so it's a lot more detailed in terms of characteristics on housing types uh tenure of housing affordability levels the number of bedrooms in the affordable units um the date they were approved and occupancy restrictions that you may have imposed on these units now in addition to that it asks for information on construction starts certificates of occupancy and the like I'm not going to to read all that is there but uh for the council you can see what uh needs to be done now by October 20th DCA is going to be publishing their estimates of what your housing obligation is they are um what's interesting it's a nonbinding assessment of what the number is uh because you as a municipality then have an opportunity to examine the information and decide whether or not you want that number adjusted Now by January 31st of 2025 you are obligated to adopt and it's the council that would do this adopt a binding resolution setting forth either your um your determination that DCA had it correct or um what you think your a new determination of the number should be now interestingly enough within 40 48 Hours of that determination you are obligated to file that information with the program and the legislation actually says that if you don't do it within 48 Hours you lose your immunity until you prepare your housing plan so it's critical that we file that information in a timely manner um by when by February 28th any interested party May file an action with the program challenging the municipalities adopted forth round obligation if there are no challenges um then on March 1st the municipalities agreed upon fourth round number is in fact established by default however if there are challenges uh then the program is designed is required to make a determination on on challenges by the end of March now every professional planner and lawyer involved in affordable housing is questioning this I will tell you that under the third round approximately 400 municipalities participated in the third round I know for some of the towns we've we represent and I'll cite parcion as one we had over 15 objections to our plan and it took years to resolve now this legislation says the program is going to resolve all objections Statewide in 31 days I'm surprised there wasn't more laughter at that but you know that's what the regulations say um by June 30th of 2025 you are required to adopt your housing element and fair share plan and with it again within 40 8 hours you are obligated to file that with the program and if you don't you lose your immunity so there's steps built into this process that are designed specifically I think to hurt the municipalities um but you have to pay attention to these time deadlines by August of 30 uh thir by the end of August of 2025 any interested party can then file objection to the plan and then you would again appear before the program to to try to resolve any disputes that you may have and if all goes well by March 15 of 2025 or 26 excuse me you will have adopted all the zoning ordinances and implementation mechanisms designed to implement your housing element in fair share plan I'm going to be sitting down with Matt over the next couple weeks to iron out exactly what information has to be provided by June and then September so at least we'll get started on the process now in addition to that I just want to touch upon one or two other issues in terms of the process DCA as I said is going to prepare housing need numbers for your housing region and it's a 4Count region as you know it's Essex Union moris and Warren County and then they distribute that affordable housing obligation to all the municipalities in the region and there are 98 municipalities that get the number distributed um they also will determine what your Municipal perspective pres perspective obligation is and this will have to be done as spell out in the regulations in accordance with the judge Jacobson decision um in that Mercer County cas where she had a 41 day trial analyzing what the proper methodology should be now there is some flexibility in terms of assessment that's built into that methodology so that's why the regulations always also allow you to analyze the numbers and see if you agree or or or not now um in terms of the preparation of the housing element and fair share plan itself it pretty much follows along the lines of what we've done in the past for you but there are some additional in some additional information that they now require that was never part of the plan in terms of the way in which credits are being provided that has changed dramatically most significantly rental bonus credits which had always been part of the process have been eliminated and that's critical for a lot of municipalities there are some rental Bon some bonus credits that have been added uh in an effort to encourage uh special needs housing which is a very significant benefit uh there are bonus credits also added regarding uh those units that may be within one half mile of a train station and you get half a unit credit fore each of those units um the age restricted bonus the number of age restricted units that you can get credit for has been increased from 33% to 50% which is also is a plus there are some gray areas that still have to be ironed out in the regulation I already mentioned one there's a few others which I won't bore you with but in summary you there is a lot of work to be done and let me just take off what we need to do and it's important for the municipality to be very proactive in this regard for example one of the things we will have to do is start by evaluating our third round plan and decide what has worked and what hasn't because that's one thing that the new regulations say you might have to adjust if you find that there are certain components that haven't been generating affordable housing you have to gather the information on your housing trust fund monies and identify it as I said earlier uh one of the things I have suggested to other municipalities is start immediately by preparing all the background information there's a lot of census data demographic information that has to be included in the housing plan um that is easy to do and get out of the way so when the housing numbers are uh published we can hit the ground running trying to figure out how are we going to address that number um one of the things I also suggest is let's look at our vacant land adjustment we undoubtedly know that whatever the number is the DCA publishes um it can be adjusted downward because we just simply don't have have sufficient vacant developable land to accommodate a large number so we should look at what we did for the round three plan and see where it has to be adjusted we are also now obligated to look at potential developer that develop sites and what may become available for redevelopment small or not bigar uh Redevelopment during the fourth round and then how that would factor into what we think our uh realistic development potential may be for the fourth round um one other factor that you should recognize is there's the state plan is about to be published with a new a new state plan is going to be published uh within about a month's time there's a cross acceptance process it's built into that process that affects your affordable housing issues and the most significant thing for you is to understand that you must file with the county that you want to get involved in the process and the importance of that is because it's the county that does the negotiation on your behalf with the state you do not get to negotiate with the state directly so um in previous years that was also the case it was was shocking how few municipalities actually participated but the benefit is that if they certify your plan as the way you're consistent with the state plan uh you are able to participate in a lot more funding programs in comparison to those municipalities that aren't participating so there's a significant benefit to you and there is an adjustment process if the state initi we recommend certain things it's through the cross acceptance process that we can get the plan adjusted and the plan Maps adjusted on the city's behalf I just briefly summarized about a 100 pages of legislation but I think it gives you a a jump start on what this is all about we will be preparing a more detailed report for you summarizing this in Greater detail wonderful thank you so much Joe I just just wanted to see if the council members had any quick questions as a followup go ahead Joe thank you for coming uh always such knowledge that we learn from you every day um the the the state plan was last done in was it 2000 I think that from what I understand the cross acceptance plan failed a few years after that and correct me if I'm wrong was was cross acceptance did it not work in 2005 or 4 if you if you remember the the problem with the cross acceptance process is that at the at the initial publication in 2000 it was a 426 page document and then they realized that was pretty hefty and that's probably why only roughly a 100 municipalities participated so then they prepared a second document that was a whopping 34 pages and everybody thought that was simply joke because it just didn't carry enough weight or heft to really detail what the plan really was all about and that's why it simply died on the vine at that point and the reason I bring that up I think it's important we talked about a lot of the deadlines and the um the requirements for the fees but who is and I know we've talked about this in Committee in the Mount Laurel committee but whose responsibility will it be to jump start the planning board on the endorsement process and the cross acceptance process and that checklist that you've provided us the next time yeah I actually uh We've provided the council and I believe the planning board with the checklist and the manual and there was a third document oh and our memo okay and um the next time we meet with the planning board I want to get that on the agenda to discuss it with them okay perfect so the planning board has their marching orders as far as that's concerned they will they will okay thank you very much okay okay one one clarification for me was the region can you just um talk about the what region we're in and who's in that region with us the state has broken up into six housing regions your housing region if I'm not mistaken it's identified as two or four I forget now two thank you okay and um as I said it's it's Union Essex moris and Warren counties 98 municipalities in that 4 County region uh um we don't know what the numbers will be yet but what this um DCA is going to do is look at the housing affordable housing need obligation of those four County four counties and then whatever that number is that it gets distributed through a formula to all the individual municipalities and it's based in large measure on your percentage of population versus the Region's percentage and a whole bunch of other indices is broken up that same way perfect okay okay thank you we look forward to having you back well thank you and thank you for putting me do oh wait we do have questions sorry um so presumptive validity right we we use that now the set asdes right um no the the set aside is simply the percentage of affordable units uh in the development that would be set aside for low and moderate income households uh the presumptive validity issue is replacing what was formally your judgment of compliance and Repose from the courts and instead of being given through the courts full and complete immunity from affordable housing litigation because you've proven that your plan uh affirmatively addresses your obligation now they're saying the best that you'll get is this new term called presumptive uh validity which doesn't protect you to the same extent that we had protection before and it buil into it is the ability for uh any interested party to challenge your housing plan your determination of what the housing obligation is and even the way in which your ordinances are designed to implement your housing plan because the flip side of that is that the municipality used to use that in terms terms of Builders who wanted to build we would say that you know it's presumptive validity that there's a set aside it's not challengeable right but now it's kind of the other way around yeah it's kind of turned the whole concept on its head at this point because the one thing we always talked about was the fact that participate in the project because the end result is such a positive the end result is you're not going to get sued during the uh the entirety of the round because you've proven to the court that you're affirmatively addressing your obligation and now all of a sudden you don't have that luxury anymore and and my last question is with the units the number of units does the court look at it as you know an axiomatic basis of Truth meaning uh these units come out and you know it's like one and one is two right we all knew that to be to be true so the court say well there's a th units we are assuming that this is true and this is what Summit has to do uh it is there is is the negotiation with the court do we is there or is it with the county or just can you just explain that no now the negotiation will be with a affordable housing dispute resolution program and it's supposed to be in it excuse me the legisl indicates that initially is going to be populated by retired judges and they will have staff and they will have it's built into the legislation said special Masters however just this week and I received uh letters from the various judges that I represented the Supreme Court just changed that term so now it's called special adjudicator it doesn't roll off the tongue as easy but so it's a new term that will be used throughout the state um but they will have the program will have staff to assist the judges in reviewing all these cases um but it's an effort to get it out of the court that they've established the program um because it hopefully would be less costly to the municipalities can I ask three quick questions yeah absolutely so number one thank you um number one would be so between October 20th 2024 and January 31st 2025 Imagining the possibility that the state uh obligation uh is higher than what the city might think is reasonable uh instead of having to enter into that dispute resolution program is it possible to just simply have a conversation meet somewhere in the middle and then the city can submit a a plan that's that number right is that is that yes the only fly in the ointment is that again any interested party can raise a question and dispute her challenge that so then it's uh it's correct right that we have to make up any missed obligation from our third round in the fourth round correct that's number two well that's not completely clear okay and you know I this is going to get into the weeds a little bit but it's very important the the regulation actually says and I want to get the correct quote and you I gather there's a bunch of lawyers here in the room so um vacant land adjustment towns you have to identify sufficient Parcels likely to redevelop during the current round to address at least 25% of the prospective need obligation that has been adjusted now a number of people are going around the state saying oh my God we have to do 25% of our unmet need which would mean and I'll just make up numbers here if your obligation was a was 500 and you did a vacant land adjustment to prove that you only have to deal with 100 the unmet need would have been 400 and then you have to take 25% of that number we've discussed this in our office a lot and because it says the prospective need obligation that has been adjusted if you adjusted your affordable housing obligation through the realistic development potential down to 100 I think it says you then take 25% of that number number so there's this dispute that we've started um in the field and at some point it will be resolved but I think that's more realistic because if you've already proven that you don't have enough vacant land to address your large number why would you then have to take 25% of that large number when you've already proven that you don't have enough land to deal with it so that that's a significant issue that has to be resolved the regulation at the moment is not yet clear okay um I guess that that largely erases the need for the third question I guess my uh my comment would be I I guess it should be our Focus that we should meet Our obligation for round three regardless of what's coming in round four um and then just one final quick question is is can the same interested party challenge Our obligation twice the first time around and the second time around after we've adopted our fair share plan I would say yes under certain circumstances I know I'm special master in one municipality where a developer has three different sites that he's challenged the municipality on I'm assuming that's well yeah okay thank you all right that's it for me that's it okay wonderful okay okay well thank you again thank you MH thank you and thank you again for putting me on our open drive home save okay thanks thank you by Joe thank you okay um at this time we're going to move to public comments um we welcome comments from any member of the public about issues not on tonight's agenda um whenever an audience member reads from a prepared statement please provide a copy to the city clerk at cityclerk cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard please speak once and limit your comment to 3 minutes additionally we need you to state your name and home address if you're speaking on behalf of a group please um still State your home address along with the address of the group you're representing okay uh council president respectfully can I ask for a bath and break please sure yeah okay we'll take five appreciate it goe welcome back that was our Social Hour um okay do I need to read the public comments again no I think we we've opened the comment okay I we're opening up public comment sure come on up um is there a timer or should I time myself in we have a timer oh that's cool okay my name is David Hoffman I live at One New England Avenue at the manly Court departments very manly um I'd like to thank uh the opportunity to speak to the council all of you um one quick note I noticed that we're looking at a resolution for the homeless and it's a dire problem and ironically we're talking about affordable housing I hope that's approached uh not in a de demeaning way but in a way that shows dignity and compassion um I love living at Summit I adore Summit and it's a place where people should be able to come and afford to live anyway that being said now the firehouse what to do with a firehouse the new one is being built and it is Big it's the biggest Firehouse in the area and we can probably say that my firehouse is bigger than your Firehouse um but what do we do for the people 365 days we have a beautiful Community uh Golf Course subsidized with tax dollars and it's wonderful we have a town pool we have schools we have a gymnasium down by the old cell Gene place all wonderful facilities but we can do I think something magnificent in the center of town here we can create a recreation center for seniors in the morning for kids after school you know for the kids that run into town and besiege CVS and 7-Eleven they're not in the club they're not in the band they're not doing the plays but they're looking to congregate and be with each other and I was thinking a nice Recreation Center where they could play where they can meet eat and play would be a wonderful thing um that would be after school and for the evening for adults now what do we do when we really want to meet eat and play we bowl I'm not sure how you how many of you remember bowling when you were kids but it was a wonderful activity and it's a social activity and something to get people out of their basements away from their video games and playing with each other you know there could be leagues at night for empty nesters for firemen for teachers after school there could be a pro shop where the guy gives lessons and the kids learn how to actually bowl and not drop the ball on the Alley the alley itself could be covered with a hardwood floor it might be for ballroom dancing there could be all sorts of things available with imagination Vision there could be arcade there could be a game room on the second floor with chess imagine a summit chess club anything is possible we have Town property and it's valuable we don't want to give it away for dare I say nail salons and shishi restaurants I mean that's cool but we already have them let's have a summit Recreation Center featuring Firehouse lanes and I have 6 seconds thank you for letting me speak thank you thank you okay we're trying to figure out how to keep the the light on the light on give us one second just reset it okay all right please sayate your name and your home address my name is Norman Miller I'm at seven Primrose Place in summ and uh I have a different Vision I think for the the uh Firehouse uh I've been a board member of the Summit Civic foundation for over 20 years and I'm currently the board president The Summit Civic Foundation uh owns and manages 24 units of affordable housing on Dennis place and Weaver Street near the high school for over 60 years we've offered duplex homes of two and three bedrooms uh for families working in and around the summit area now uh with a high home prices and affordable unaffordable rents the need for affordable housing has never been greater in Summit it is very difficult for many who work in the city to find affordable housing it is especially difficult for young families the proposed 42 units on the firehouse site uh provides much needed housing for working families and allows them to enjoy the benefits uh from all the wonderful things that Summit has to offer including great schools rec Recreation facilities convenience to transportation and a supportive and welcoming uh Community because Summit is largely a builtup community it is difficult to find location for new housing the availability of the firehouse site on the corner of Cedar and Broad provides a unique opportunity for the city to create housing not only uh to fulfill our affordable housing obligations but is a place for hardworking families to take advantage of all that Summit has to offer the summit affordable housing Corporation of which I am a board member has put together a very attractive proposal for for the use of this site uh While others have shared the details for the prop The Proposal it is important that the city act expeditiously to take advantage of State funding which will disappear at the end of the year so I strongly urge the city and the council to act upon the proposal and to continue its long tradition of supporting uh Working Families thank you thank you thank statement if you oh Mr Miller Mr Miller can we have your statement may we sorry I don't know how to we're gonna go back to this one okay they're not going to be able to see that one though I don't have to send it in then no no you won't have to send it in thank you thank you thank you um give us one second they won't be able to see that one is there timer on it yeah okay can you put the timer on I this one's go this won't it might buzz but I don't know off oh here we go I figured it out you did I'm sorry give me one second I was hoping that you were still having trouble and that would go in my favor with the diing um I just don't know how toet it so there you go okay perfect okay and then let them see it yeah all right okay Janet thanks hello good evening my name is Janet molbeck I live at 40 Russell place I've lived in Summit for over 40 years now I'm the director of interweave and Interfaith nonprofit founded in Summit serving the summit and its surrounding area as such I'm proud to be a member of the summit Interfaith Council Summit Interfaith Council exists to seek the welfare of the people of the city we believe that providing affordable housing is more than a legal obligation it is a moral obligation simply stated it is the right thing to do we were very happy last month to hear our mayor our mayor and our council president make a commitment to affordable housing and we encourage you to move forward and keep Faith with that commitment affordable housing makes it possible to for the people who serve the critical needs of the community to live in the community they serve and affordable housing makes it possible for people not only to come to Summit to to educate and raise their children but to stay in Summit to retire here in their later years yes affordable housing is simply the right thing to do uh Summit H has much to point to to take pride in in building affordable housing but the road to accomplish that has not always been a smooth one back in 2009 I was part of efforts to raise funds toward summit's first Habitat for Humanity project it wasn't a given there was resistance to the idea of affordable housing and fears around affordable housing existed then as they do now but Summit Interfaith Council and many community-minded nonprofits and civic-minded people came together to make it possible At Home in Summit is a nonprofit is a nonpartisan group of community members that is advocating for a plan that has been proposed by The Summit affordable housing Corporation it is a proposal to build an affordable apartment building on the site of the current sum Sumit housing Summit Firehouse a four story 42 unit building the plan is fiscally sound more importantly it is likely to succeed because it Springs out of the commitment from the community to affordable housing and follows the new the blueprint of collaboration and partnership as we move forward clearly it will help us to stay in good state but more importantly is the expression of Janet your time's up sorry thanks sorry commitment thank you thank you Janet it's not sounding sorry Janet it'll be in the minutes actually hold on okay there we go think you can just come up I think I did it here you go can you just reset for minutes think I got it we'll see not very techy but I think we got it thanks this is not about affordable housing this is actually instead about dangerous uh traffic conditions in Summit and uh ionically I can you just state your name and your home address yeah sorry it's okay uh my name is Tisha bender and I live at 66 Glenside Avenue in Summit MH and I I actually have a PhD in the ethics of Transportation Planning so this is quite ironic so what I'm about to say okay so um I'm here to speak about dangerous traffic on Glenside Avenue and its side street Balter role plays and I should know because I live on that corner I'm aware that Glenside Avenue is a County Road 527 uh but it does intersect with the city street of Belta Ro place so I think there should be a coordinated effort between the city U of summit and Union County to rectify this issue let me tell you about some traffic accidents that have occurred at this intersection last May the 9th uh 2023 a driver merged too fast from balur Place onto Glenside Avenue turning left sideswiped a driver already heading west on that road swerved spun across the street plowing through my fence on Glenside Avenue doing a semicircle across my front lawn and then plowing into my side fence on Balter rooll place where it became wedged and then only 11 months later last Thursday April the 18th a driver was heading too fast West on Glenside Avenue from the center of summit turned too wide and fast on Balter rooll Place mounted my front yard smashed over the stop sign and plowed into my fence where it became wedged I have a police report for both incidents and these are not the only two incidents about 3 weeks ago there was a three car accident on Glenside Avenue West uh heading west from which two of the cars were write off and the air bags deployed in all cars and additionally last December at about 1:00 a.m. a car was traveling too fast up Balter Ro Place towards Glenside Avenue bumped into a park car so severely that it flipped the park car onto its roof and several years ago the pole supporting the power lines at this intersection of Glenside Avenue and Bal Ro Place fell down as it had been bashed by by an 18-wheeler truck coming up B Ro place and trying to turn the corner onto Glenside Avenue and the whole area was without power while the pole was being erect a new pole was erected now that so-called new pole already has a crack all the way up it from being bashed by other trucks and a tree that had been across at the opposite corner 25 Balter Ro place was hit so frequently by these 18-wheeler trucks unable to turn easily from Bal Ro place to Side Avenue that it was the tree was dangerously leaning towards my house and had to be chopped down and a few other concerning factors I'm concerned about the safety of my yard and I think my grandchildren should not play in it for fear of being hurt by any vehicles and I have to time up ma'am I'm sorry right thank you all right thank we will take your statement absolutely um we'll make sure that yeah that it'll be in its entirety in the minutes oh good and you'll you'll hear back from us thank you very much thank you thanks and I do have a neighbor who wanted to talk about the same issue so sure yeah she'll raise her hand we'll be she'll be recognized supposed to raise my hand sorry I didn't raise my is that the new rule is it okay I'm up here okay great hi Amy deia 1s6 Road um first of all thanks for the big cleanup day I think that's awesome that that um that that happened in town I think the amount of trash is alarming um this is something that I've talked to you know many people over the last few councils about out and I'm just wondering if perhaps there's a possibility of an ordinance that would limit the businesses downtown from putting trash at the curb every single day um and perhaps an ordinance that requires a dumpster behind buildings because Springfield Avenue and Summit Avenue are you guys all know they're wind tunnels and if it's a windy day no matter how much someone packages um their garbage or their recycling it it blows all over the place I'm always picking up stuff when I walk through town I live not far from town I can get to town and fill a garbage bag I do that frequently so I just think maybe it's something that we could take a deeper dive on I it's just not really working the way it is and it's great that we have a cleanup day but once a year isn't enough and uh I don't feel that um on a regular basis we're really maintaining tree Wells and curbs and sidewalks it's just all over downtown so thank you thank you okay um council president I I would just request if M CIA would kindly put that in writing and send it to us yep by email okay and then I'll refer it okay thank you thank you Daniel Jackel 28 Morris Avenue I've been in contact with Anita Musa about this Brian Parkway situation I understand that she's written to some Council people uh but I wanted to comment on what uh councilman Varan said he said there the three reasons that uh Brian Parkway was made one way was speed volume and safety and I I certainly think if we were to make streets One Way based upon speed you would just have chaos as far as volume that can be important but I see it as people some people saying there's a lot of volume on my street you know give it to somebody else that's not really fair and then there's the issue of safety and I think if the I had given some examples the last meeting of traffic safety Necessities in the area and I would just ask why would it have taken 7 years to get to this point if there really was a traffic safety necessity and for the the streets that are getting the load now you know the Morris Avenue uh Broad Street Orchard Street uh all the intersecting streets um do they not care about volume do they not care about safety do they not care about speed they absolutely do and the this this traffic which is now being diverted um is causing a hardship and and the City of summit knew it how do I know that they knew it well you wouldn't be looking at the traffic light at Morrison Orchard if you didn't realize that what you're doing is just shifting a lot of traffic West and councilman Varan mentioned that there was over three ,000 cars um that were on Bryan Parkway that's why we had to do it well where does the let's just say that the one way cuts that in half and you have 1500 cars where do they go you know you have 1500 cars that are then going to other major streets that are very busy and residential that's not right what how do I also know that the city of summit knew what it was doing there was a very very clear map in the August 16th 20 2023 tap into and I would recommend everybody just look at that where it shows that the one way is going to shift a lot of traffic onto it says it says there's a caption diverted traffic right on Morris where I live I live right right around the corner from an Musa and then um on to Orchard August that map was repeated in the October 5th Summit uh tap into please take a look at that August 16 this was prior to the trial and of course when the trial occurred Anita stated what was happening and then she restated and but the council said no we'll do something we'll um we'll do a secondary study but she's telling you what's happening during the trial and then she comes to the April 2nd meeting saying that that uh that traffic is massive on her street Relentless I think was her word so please reconsider thank you thank you hi hi I'm the Reverend Julie yor at Christ Church in Summit 561 Springfield Avenue I would also like to speak in support of the affordable housing plan put forth by the affordable housing Corporation and supported by the uh members of summit uh the atome in Summit group that has uh sprung up in in support of this plan um it's as you know to build 42 units at the site of the firehouse and seven seedar Street and there's a time pressure to um if you're if you're planning to uh go with this plan if you're planning to adopt this plan or to look at it seriously there is a time pressure to adopt it so that at as soon as possible so that the money that is available can be used um it if the money isn't used by the end of this year it reverts back to the federal government so I encourage you to seriously consider adopting that plan and um I think it'll make significant progress toward uh fulfilling the state mandate and it's also the right thing to do thank you thank you can I have your statement or I just have notes I can type something okay that's [Applause] fine good evening Don Nelson 20 plan Street n n little over a year ago there was a heated discussion at the council chamber here about the COC continuation of care I forget exactly what it stands for uh but it's been a year and I'm wondering if there's been any uh minutes meeting attendance progress anything that's benefited Sumit since we had that heated conversation about 52 53 weeks ago and I'm just curious through you council president I believe council member Varan and council member Minar were key in that so if they could answer those questions are there any minutes progress anything that's benefited us since we've joined that or have we joined that organization I'm curious oh yeah finish your statement and then we'll close public comment we can answer some of the questions that's my statement okay well that's it okay pretty quick thank you oh sure thank you so the question um Mr Nelson is Did We join the COC and um what's the update is that right okay I know there's been at least two meetings this year I'm not sure when we joined last year I'm sure there were meetings I know they meet like every other month or something like that so I'm just curious what's going on okay thanks thank you sure yeah come on up Ariel Williams um 68 Glenside so it's late and we all families so I won't harp on what's already been said but I do Echo the comments about tra and I do want to also just echo my neighbors comments about traffic and traffic safety on Glenside AV Glenside AV it's a County Road it's it's truly as as a resident as it feels as though it's become a highway it is not an exaggeration to say that people drive upwards of 60 on that road I have a 2-year-old my neighbor has several grandchildren you cannot be outside and feel safe and that is wild to feel that way in Summit a small tight-knit community um I have video footage of all of the accidents which my my neighbor has spoken about today they are frightening it is not an exaggeration again to say it is it's it's very possible that the next time someone drives into her front lawn they could hit her house and hit her in it and it's not an exaggeration to say that me being next door it could happen to me could happen to my cars it could happen outside when I'm with my daughter so anything that we can do as a community I don't want to harp on the problem but I want to help to find Solutions anything that we can can do working together to find whatever we can do a traffic surveys which was done similar to Bryant Park um anything to again find solutions to make this road safer for um our community it's become um you know a bridge between 78 and 22 and it's really not a road that's frequented by locals anymore it's it's become a a a pass through um and so again um just want to bring light to that and the safety I mean there are traffic incidents that are happening people could die and that is truly The Next Step um so just wanted to Echo the comments and and thank you for the opportunity thank [Applause] you good evening I'm Diego H Aral court and I have some concerns about the budget and I want to ask you to consider them before buing on them and studying them over the next two weeks on the revenue side number one why increase the municipal tax levy by 5% or 1.5 million instead of using the general fund to save to the same extent as last year last year the city used 80% of the balance this year the starting general fund balance increased 16% versus last year to a record 11.7 million but yet the plan is to use only 70% of it the unused portion of the fund increases 73% precisely the 1 and A5 million increase in the municipal tax levy why squirrel away a record 3.5 million as unrestricted cash many in the past have asked why should any government hoard taxpayer dollars instead of letting citizens do the saving I oppose the same question along the same lines Why reserved $5 million for uncollected tax when over the last 5 years uncollected tax never exceeded $524,000 on the expense and liability side an analogy most parents when they take their kids to the candy store they only give them $5 rather than 100 so why double the capital budget in 2024 and at 10.5 million the 2025 capital budget is five times the 2023 capital budget doesn't spending 12 million in Paving roads or 6 million in one field sound a bit like giving a kid $100 at a candy store number three what's the plan to protect our valued AAA rating if this Council okays the Deb required to pay for the capital budget as proposed Moody's last year criticized our 388 per debt to revenue ratio is borderline too high so what are the tax increases required to protect this ratio when phasing an approximately 20% increase to our total debt over the next few years number four why not contain the 4.2 in% increase in Municipal service cost after all General government is up 15.3% Community programs plus 5.1% Community Services Plus 4.6% not to mention the 46% increase in deferred charges and and reserves I'm not sure I fully understand or agree with the rationale for reducing sewer Capital spending over the next 5 years um and finally the number of pensionable employees increases by 2.8% and all else equal doesn't this create a 2.8% increase to our pension obligation in summary the numbers say that the summit residents are being asked to pay higher taxes and increase reserves to fund what appears to be runaway spending not what I would call fiscal Prudence thank you did you send in your questions also through email we'll take that I was just sa here okay anybody else yeah come on up everyone Carlos Hernandez from 85 Butler Parkway um I'm here to urge the uh common Council to hit the reset button on the tatlock fields lights insulation project proposal removing it from the 2024 budget is not even taking a temporary pause on the proposal by now the common council is fully informed regarding the strong concern and mounting resident opposition to this proposal you also are well aware that of the troubl history attempts to install lights at tatlock including unmet promises broken agreements and uncap compromises your predecessors made to the tlock community unfortunately ly the current project proposal is rooted on a non-transparent climate illustrated by the lack of the following two critical pillars number one collective decision making decision to recommend the project were of a few citizens without the necessary diversity of thought that is there was no upfront participation whatsoever from tlock residents number two accountability the common Council specifically did not demand or expect a solid uh credible analysis of field usage at existing summits sports facilities public and private that demonstrated a clear need to light any field not just that lck even with the common council's recent openness to increase Community engagement forging ahead with the proposal project is wholly on sound why because he lacks the necessary underpinnings to benefit from some from some form of credibility among the vast majority of the most adversely affected residents of the T block Community the common council is now at a pivotal moment facing kind of like a fork on the road so to speak which way are you going to proceed the right way would be one where the common Council lives up to recent statements uh recent printed message by mayor Elizabeth Fagan titled feedback from residents provides a Cornerstone which specifically refers to the community expectation for transparency accountability and collective decision making in order to leave up to that Spirit the common Council uh should set up a committee with diversity of thought membership and also demand proper transparency and accountability and ensuring before such committee brings forward a recommendation to the common Council that it first shows the existing sports facilities throughout the city are being optimally utilized the wrong way to proceed in the current path that is to continue to pushing forward on this tainted project proposal and therefore it is destined to continue facing Universal opposition from the that L's most effective most effective uh residents thank you thank you thanks Henry basman 18 Harley Road lights at tatlock on October 2nd 2018 Elaine Anderson then presiding officer of the summit Department of Community programs board told common Council quote field space shortage was identified in the 2006 Field Master Plan and there is a shortage of space or fields are not available but no facts were given to support her claims in March 2024 Mark aeroski said quote we always have had problems with field allocation Sports continue to grow and overlap we don't have the fields to accommodate all the activities again no facts were provided in both presentations a slide showed 20 recommendations to increase field Avil availability of the 20 most seven of them affect l tatlock park only two recommendations would affect Memorial Field which is the only other large field the city owns and one of them is to erect lights why wasn't that on the 20124 proposal in 2018 Miss Anderson said each recommendation was evaluated for estimated cost impact to Neighborhood implementation effort impact to the field situation and overall Poss ibility and probability have anybody have any of you seen a report of that evaluation I haven't after the 2018 presentation council member Mike McAn asked has the board done any initial community outreach around some interest from a different neighborhoods the interest would be lights on some of the fields Miss Anderson responded we have not done community outreach on them we've worked with the sports presidents who represent the communities around the fields so the only people consulted on the impact of recommendations were people with a vested interest in implementing them a 2018 recommendation was to modernize the Anderson Fieldhouse Mr aeroski reported that the update of the Anderson Fieldhouse would go to bit Zone has anyone shared the design with common council with the people of summit or even with the tatlock neighborhood the tatlock lights project should not go forward until we have fact-based information rather than claims without substantiation by groups that would benefit from the changes this project should be halted until a full Four Season audit of all field usage is made and I say usage not what the sports clubs request you are responsible for judiciously spending taxpayer money you have an obligation to learn the facts before allocating City funds thank you thank you Henry incidentally yes I I I don't go with that modern technology I use my old stopwatch direct much more much easier to use right all right hi uh miles kelmanson 67 Butler Parkway um so I'm also here to talk about lights um I attended one of the uh small community meetings a few weeks ago um and in that meeting uh councilman Smallwood Mark ozarowski and David Guida discussed their intentions uh for the stadium light usage um and they said two points one Stadium lights are meant to extend the daylight hours for organized Sports and two uh the current High School football coach like weekend games so there won't be an increase in night games so um I'm here to say that those statements can't be trusted um first of all Mr ozarowski walked back the first statement 30 minutes into the meeting um a neighbor said that it would be great to have lights so her son would have somewhere to play pickup games with his friends at night so I asked Mr ozarowski about it I said I asked if the stadium lighting would be able to be used for residents for non-organized sports and he said yes and then Mr Guida like shut him up real quick and and added that nothing is decided yet and that scheduling is part of the conversation and it's still all a possibility so um I agree with Mr Guido I and rather than speculate on what might happen I'd prefer to look on what has happened um if I've looked around at other towns and I've yet to find any examples um where a town has Stadium lights and is not running them constantly um regardless of the promises they made to neighbors um New Providence for example uh promised to the neighbors that the lights would go off by 9 UM and now that's been pushed back to 10: um they also hold every home football game at night um in mendum Township where the director of parks and wreck happens to be summit's assistant director um the old football coach didn't care for night games well that coach retired um and the new coach likes night games so um now all the games at are at night in mum Township as well um and and even last week um I was the guy working with my lawn sprinklers um saw the sign in my yard and he was like yeah you don't want that I live in Denville and those lights run all the time so I actually looked it up um and act and and the truth is Morris Catholic in Denville holds every home game on Thursday or Friday nights um even Summit hasn't kept its promises um the tatlock tennis court lights were supposed to go off by 9: originally but I regularly see them on till uh 10:30 when I go to bed um every town I've looked at with Stadium lights has them running constantly and has their home football games at night um that includes mum New Providence Milbourne and yes Morris Catholic where my sprinkler guy lives um now I now do I think councilman Smallwood Mr ozarowski and Mr Guida are intentionally trying to deceive us no I I I actually believe their intentions are good um I chatted with them a little bit uh after the after the the meeting and and um I I think they're trying to do the right thing for the town um but um I I I think they actually think that Summit will be different and that we can actually do this without disrupting the neighbors um but but I do think they're being a little optimistic here um I'm going about to run out of time so um I'm just going to finish up by saying um I just want to remind you all that uh while your positions here are temporary your decisions are not um choices you make today can have lasting effects for decades thank you Mr cson on the character of our town and the quality of the lives your thank you thank you thank you very much than I'm waiting for the time time to set but I'll be short my name is Eric soberg I'm I've been a member I've been a resident Summit AT at 46 Laurel for the past 30 years and raised my kids here all went through the public schools here and I love Summit um I I've been coming to Council meetings uh for the past couple months to know about the affordable housing which is very near and dear to my heart I'm part of the at home at Summit Group and I've been waiting and I thought i' hear it today what is the status of the mount L committee's recommendation what what plan is being done I think it's being done in behind closed doors and I just want like I would like to know what's happening and I think the public wants to know what's going on and so I'm asking for a timetable when we will know more about what the recommendation is from the Mount Laurel committee thank you thank you Michelle cinon 67 Butler Park way in looking through the stadium light proposal I saw measurements for spill light but it doesn't specifically address glare glare is defined as excessive brightness occurring in the normal field of view and its impact is related to the contrast of the light source in the background as an example think about when you're on a dark Street and you look at a passing car's headlights and then look back to the dark Road even though the lights not might not be pointed at you which would be spill light your eyes have to take a second or two to adjust back to dark Road according to a study by fairf County Park Authority in Virginia glare can be a serious safety hazard for example for drivers and pedestrians in that it demands attention since one's eyes are naturally attracted to Bright Light and at night this destroys the eyes dark adaptation glare and excessive illumination when cast into surrounding residential neighborhoods not only detract from the quality of life but can make it difficult for pedestrians and homeowners to see their surroundings Butler Parkway is dark our street lights are dim you literally can't see someone across the street from you we're not even allowed to run electricity to light poles on our property in order to keep things dark if Stadium lights are put in the contrast of the lights with the dark Street combined with the reduced visibility due to parked cars and increased traffic is going to cause a huge safety problem for people walking dogs or walking to Magic Fountain to make it worse as miles just said it's pretty likely that night games are going to increase over time like they've done in every other town with Stadium lighting we also just saw the chaos that happens with with larger events at tatlock a few weeks ago during the track relay event and on top of the usual chaos night games bring another problem to the mix drinking I won't ask for a show of hands but I'm sure many of us in this room have had a drink or two at Friday Night Lights so now we have the perfect storm we have a dark street with glare from Stadium lights causing people to not be able to see their surroundings we have traffic and parked cars that reduce Vis visibility and prevent emergency vehicles from getting through we have a large number of cars and pedestrians on a couple of streets that are not meant to handle it and many of those pedestrians and drivers have been drinking if Stadium lighting is installed how does DCP and council plan on ensuring the safety of community members many of you up here ran on a platform of safety those of us who live close to tatlock have warned you that this is a dangerous situation our DCP and Council prepared for the lawsuits you'll be faced with when a child gets hit or someone dies because emergency vehicles couldn't get through in time thank you anybody else no hi my name is David helmouth I live at 211 Kent Place Boulevard I have two unrelated matters that I'd like to bring to the attention of the mayor and the council I'll keep all of my remarks underneath three minutes uh the first remarks I have are related to the police department's drone program um all of my remarks assume arguendo that all of the benefits of the Drone program as explained in the news articles I've read and the other public hearings and statements I've read and um and U watched are true fundamentally uh my wife couldn't be here because she she's watching our two small children but fundamentally we are fundamentally opposed on philosophical grounds to the existence and presence of the drone in town um our founding fathers would be a gas at the creeping nature of the surveillance state that we live under and I think this is just a step too far my property AB buts Woods I admittedly I do not always close my shades in the back of my house and I don't want to have to I think there's an old Trope that reads that people who are law abiding don't have anything to fear from police surveillance I think it's fundamentally false so I I just wanted to make the council aware there there are at least two voters in the town that are just simply opposed to this program and at minimum that it should not be expanded at this point the other remark I have relates to tatlock but not about the lighting um my 5-year-old loves the tatlock park some of my neighbors seem to be under the false impression that their dogs are people and I would ask that um signage around that playground for little children be improved to remind my neighbors that their dogs even on a leash are not allowed on the playground and that the grass field behind Washington Washington school is not an offleash dog run thank you thank you okay anybody else before we close Okay I'm going to close the public comment period um one thing I'm going to say there's a lot of questions here tonight um and rather than pick and choose which one we ones we answer um I think we need to direct the questions to the appropriate committees um at right at this point because I don't think we're going to be able to get to everything so we will make sure to get back um the questions I heard were the COC and we'll go through the list but the financial questions COC at home for Summit um and the tatlock lights in terms of the Committees um the listening session so we're going to have to get back to everybody through email okay okay rather than having a full dialogue may I respond to the c one real quick sure is that okay just a quick for Mr wson okay um I actually had this written up beforehand so it worked out nicely um so please note that the membership in the COC which stands for the Continuum of Care uh membership of the COC includes organizations here in Summit that work directly with our unhoused population including the members of summit warm Hearts Grace Bridge Outreach Family Promise these nonprofits stay up to date with uh resources available to them related legislation making its way through governing bodies and hearing the good and bad from different uh organizations around the county uh in March we received updates from Bridgeway Services uh an organization that provides services done house folks in Union County including Urgent Care Services Supportive Housing uh and Outreach and diversion Services uh they work with local police and Community providers to identify people who need these services in care uh Prim primarily with uh mental health needs uh members of the COC also provided updates to the group um on cash assistance availability housing assistance availability food pantry vouchers utility assistance mortgage payment assistance rental or security deposit assistance um earlier this year this group provided updates to the on the point of point in time count which is an annual count they do around the county of unhoused individuals someone had 23 as of that count Also earlier this year a draft of the updated countywide standardized intake process was completed a draft that's still in progress they uh that will when that's completed it will help um organizations like Bridges Outreach participate in a standardized intake process across the county making sure that people who have no home have their history known and the conditions known no matter where uh they reach out to initially for help it's saves resources having a consistent system of record like that um blue uh so on days when it's cold or days when it's too hot there's those alerts we were notified of those things uh the results of them and these these organizations can discuss problems they they had with that they definitely talk about uh lack of funding for these these types of things as well uh and finally there was an update and there always is uh that New Jersey has a lack of affordable housing uh which they mention every time 200,000 units plus are needed in the State uh that contributes to some of the issues we continue to see in this region people who are unable to remain in their homes including some folks in Summit are affected by this there is a connection between a lack of affordable housing across the country and housing vulnerability and yes even homelessness um that's just that's one update from two of their meetings um it's typically a discussion among organizations and how organizations can help others funding wise that's the main thing Council yes thanks for that update uh councilman M you mentioned that there's a I missed the second one but there's a county standard is that is that in regards to case management if they're working on a new stand standardization form format standardization form so I guess my question is when we joined the COC one of the reasons we joined the COC was that um through you council president I'd Like Chief zagorski to potentially answer this one of the reasons that we joined the COC was that so our police force could have access to the uh homeless management information system I know that was something that we talked a lot about um because we didn't have that uh is that something that we have achieved in the first year Chief no um would you mind maybe I'm sorry would you mind just speaking to the microphone I'm sorry I was just I said no that's all okay so we don't so um I think a takeaway for me and something that was really important and was that in order for us to solve and and improve homelessness we have to have these individuals seek case management and monitor how they are how they're moving through the program and without our police force having access to the homeless management information system it hinders our ability um to help them actively seek case management you know I know most of the homeless individuals in Summit and I think the most frustrating part as great as all the nonprofits are and helping them is is really truly I had some conversations with some EMS members today uh really following their case management and seeing how they uh work through their progress so Andy if you could help us with that and see if we could make some progress I think that would be great I think one of the most important parts of this is that Bridges has operated as Bridges Outreach has operated as a one of the main intakes they do have access to the hmis system and I think um uh the the CEO is not here but he talked about U the police when they do when they're the initial line of of intake do you reach out to Bridges do you reach out to organizations that are that are the that can have that have access to him okay okay councilman ban did you have any no I was just going to say I I don't want to put the chief on the spot I don't think the police are meant to be professional case manag management for the homeless population right I think all the organizations in Summit that that are doing that professionally certainly have access to that system and that's that's the important thing I don't I don't think that we would want to put the police in our position of becoming case management that's not at all what we would want I'm certainly not recommending that I'm saying one of the reasons why we were told or encouraged to join the COC was for that I have I am agnostic to whether or not they should have the homeless management information system if it helps great you're the professional you're a chief you tell us but that was something that was really we were all c for the that was one of I don't even recall that being part of the initial conversation I think many of the other organizations the nonprofit organizations in Summit having access to that system was the most important thing we can go back to the tapes I'll forward to the transcripts May so I would just like to say that there is a resolution on the agenda this evening that will help us hopefully address some of the conversation we're having so and I'm hope hoping that my colleagues up here will support this and we can move forward and you use what Andy has found um from his meetings at the with the COC um to move forward and really be productive around this topic council president yes counc I just have a couple comments about garbage and some things that I heard okay okay uh I think garbage in the street is a problem I live on Mars Avenue um you know we could have did Earth Day for two weeks on Mars Avenue uh one of the issues is and I talked to um our our engineer Mr Mr shreer about this is uh the pulling of the garbage out on the curb um we're actually not supposed to do that uh the the garbage miror is supposed to come in the backyard and dump the garbage and then take it out I mean I think that's half the problem if you look at um mors Avenue Springfield Avenue the garbage can are out there all day they're blowing in the street you know they have there's you know incremental pieces of trash everywhere and you know really litters our our neighborhood so um engineer shreer I think we're working to improve this to where we can have the uh DCP actually um uh comply with the law right if you want to talk about that I don't I don't think most people know that there's a law that you can't you know bring your garbage out to the curb yes through through you council president so in the next few meetings the Department of community services will be bringing forth a new Solid Waste ordinance which is essentially trash and garbage uh as part of that we'll roll out a public campaign for what you should and shouldn't do with with your waste but also a big part of that will be focusing on the down town where there's some challenges that the ordinance prohibits what people can do but there might not be infrastructure for what we might want them to do uh and just how we could work with that so we're still working with SDI and internally to just have a process in place so when we do roll out the ordinance we can enforce everything that's in it and like I said we'll do a public campaign for also reminding that you know in in Summit the rule is is rear yard pickup so and that that also includes uh residential houses right so yes that that's primarily for residential houses so yeah yeah um so uh the other thing uh I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing on glide Avenue and ball to straw I looked at the on Google Maps and I'm trying to figure out what you're you're your your gate is different colors I guess that's because cars have run into it is that my yeah the the fence yeah ising sorry okay so what what I what I ask you to do and I'm I apologize I'm a new councilman up here I get excited try to fix things um if you can get in touch with me so that we can address this at the Safety Committee and figure out what the issues are right I know that Glenside have no people do speed I mean um the other thing is uh Orchard Street uh we talked about that in our Safety Committee safety committee meeting as well um and to do some type of traffic Stu study and see what we could do um in regard to that one way um and last but not least sorry I have one more here uh last but not least the drones um yeah listen I I completely understand the privacy concerns um you know fortunately our our Police Department documents heavily when that drone is in the air everything's recorded uh and that drone really literally saves lives um hard speeding cars that they're chasing every other night you know um looking for people that are in the bushes you know with the thermal uh Imaging so um there is a significant trade-off but I think privacy is is key and I think they're all recorded so what we can do is um you know have conversations with the police make sure that people are monitoring that the Drone is being used uh for appropriate reasons so council president thank you council president I I have three quick things first is a couple of other so topics that were missed were the downtown trash Glenside parking Glenside Avenue traffic Brian Parkway drones right but second is for consistency sake moving forward we should just try to set an expectation of what the response from us is going to be right and three if we're not going to answer the question and comments that people have we should and say we're going to get back to them via email then we should ask them for their email right otherwise we're going to have to be chasing people around and we're not going to be sure how you know we we need to we need to figure this out okay yeah well Mr hock had 15 questions so I don't know if I can that's what my respectfully because he had good questions I'm just saying that we can't answer every IND perfectly reasonable but we we got to ask him for his email right we got to we got to and everybody else too has that we need to respond to so you you ask them after the meeting you go to them and say hey what's your email what's your contact information speak yeah there's the possibility some people could leave though and if we want to just make sure we're you know responding appropriately I think that's reason understod I've never had a problem getting in touch with folks well we'll be in touch yeah um and if you'd like to send an email um it's city clerk cityofsummit.org um and all of our emails what you should do is send send us an email it's our first initial and last name um so J Boyer G Varan L Allen what's that city of summit.org at cityofsummit.org so that's how you would get to us don't copy all of you yeah what's up don't copy more than three Council people oh and only three Council people can be on an email at once so but lot of rules um uh I don't know if you say ladies or ma'am um ladies so it's okay no for Glenside and Balter STW if you could actually send us an email cuz we're going to um we'll do an official Dar okay you did every time yeah go ahead yeah that that's fine um I you know I'm really responsive um and so as council president on Facebook we're really active so I'm just um councilman Boyer War I really easy to put in so you get message me that's cool I don't know about Facebook maybe maybe email for me also welcome come yeah I can do that too we like to go take field trips for sure um yes so and most of the individuals in this room we we know um in terms of the summit at home we know who to get a hold of go ahead councilman palowski yeah I just want to say that um you know sure we could take emails um I think we say repeatedly during these meetings if you have a statement or any questions hand them to the um to the clerk um or email them um and finally everyone on this Das has many emails from Diego Hoy so we won't have to look too far and I meant that respectfully the questions are great so um councilwoman Hamlet uh yes just a a quick comment regarding the trash I sent an email to uh regarding the downtown business trash I sent an email to Nancy Adams on January 29th um and I know I've been speaking with director shreer a lot about this but I I've reviewed the ordinances on trash and I asked her how are the businesses being notified that they are in violation of a specific ordinance uh through SDI or Summit downtown uh it seems fairly straightforward but perhaps they don't know what the rules are um do we have some sort of Welcome packet within SDI to notify the businesses and uh through you council president director shreer I think that the drro specifically states that trash has to be in containers and how do we enforce I mean there's literally people putting trash bags on sidewalks in Summit downtown every day and I think that the frustration is we're just not making progress towards solving a seem what seemed to be a very simple problem yes to you council president the the trash does need to be containerized and and many people do follow the rules but a lot of the bags you do see downtown where we've actually had staff members go through them it's not coming from downtown so it's easy to say if in front of say 512 Springfield that you could summon and find them but we're finding it's coming from the peripherals of town so it is people going to the train and just leaving town that do drop it so it's a little bit uh trickier um but it is something we're looking into and we're trying to chase through our our um Solid Waste Foreman but um it is a lot of those bags you see are actually being dropped I mean I will say Dr shager I I'm sure you're right in some instances but I literally see the business business owners I mean and I speak to the business owners they take the trash bags from their business and they just put them I'm sure you're you're right but I there's a lot of business I think all they just need as a garbage can and they take the garbage can I don't know hopefully people don't steal them maybe they can I don't know tie the garbage cans to the brick or and for some of it is the actual storage of it so that's where we have to we do have Outreach and we've been working with some of them but it's just some some places don't even have area 4 a container uh or they don't have alley access so it is it is tricky but we're we're trying to find something that appeases all we've done some experimental like evening pickups so um but that might result in some fees and then you don't want to induce demand so it's um It's Tricky but we we'll roll something out this year I mean this has been an ongoing conversation for a couple years um to the point where um DPW has had to go through trash bags to find out who they belong to um so figuring out the right solution has taken some time but I know that we're getting there three council president do we do we have an ordinance a no dumping ordinance and maybe that's a question for law on labor we could um if that is happening maybe you know Bob uh Council mski maybe you and I can talk about this and maybe put up some signs and start finding folks right yeah that should be included if there is an ordinance for you were saying the um what ordinance are you working on well ours is the solid waste which is just the processing of trash in general for the city but in terms of littering uh I don't know off top of my head where it is in might op the police code but it does exist so we do have littering ordinances and dumping ordinances okay okay and that's no dumping not littering right that's a difference that's a difference exactly that's why I was going to say can you put dumping into that ordinance or is it separate well we'll have to check it sounds like solicitor Jacobi is looking that up but okay um yeah I forgot how they fall cuz there there's police ones there's also DCS ones so two parts of the ordinance so okay and I will say that people bring down their trash cans because they want to be helpful guilty so um good to know that you you're not supposed to do that um anyway are we it's under the police code L prevention regulations okay meaning it's under the litter Provisions that you cannot dump yeah you can I mean you can it it covers everything everything okay that's great laundry Dr it's pretty it's pretty broad you can look at it but it's under the police so people can get summonses for it you get a summons that's what going to be my question okay so we'll talk about it in health and safety excellent okay and cap as well okay we ready to move on yes please okay okay all right okay excellent excellent all right we're going to move on to resol just a final statement send your questions to city clerk at city of summit.org okay thank you all right we're going to move on to resolutions the first one is finance councilman minegar thank you council president this is number 1199 and this resolution authorizes the concurrence of the 2024 excuse me with the 2024 Board of educ board of school estimate certification of required funds the board of education budget makes up approxim 50% of property taxx Levy in Summit and this certification of funds required is for 72 m182 68 I move to adopt this resolution great Council com sorry Council comments no second please who second second thank you yeah Council comments no public comments all right roll call please not NE Neary but I'll be happy to Mr Boer hi Miss Hamlet hi Mr migar hi Mr palaski hi Mr Smallwood hi Mr bartan I president Allen I motion carries thank you Rosemary okay um councilman Boer for safety and health thank you council president this is resolution ID number 11203 authorizing submission of the New Jersey Division of highway traffic safety State and Community highway safety Grant application and execute Grant agreement uh the grant program offers Federal funding to enhance pedestrian safety covering initiatives such as impaired driving control increase seab belt and child restraint use traffic law enforcement focusing on speed aggressive uh distractive driving and safety uh improvements for various Road users including bicyclists and pedestrians uh the police department plans to request 15,000 I move to adopt this resolution second okay Council comments public comments us too okay all in favor I any opposed motion carries all right next councilman Boer thank you council president this is uh resolution ID number 11198 uh authorizing the appointment of two new police officers uh I have a quick question since this was I wasn't in Clos session can I uh talk about the police officers okay thanks um police officer Earl Lindo uh will be starting on May 8th 2024 Earl is a one-year veteran of the East Orange Police Department and aard Ortiz uh starting May 8th 2024 aado is a 4-year veteran of the urbon police department uh I wish both of these uh to uh gentlemen a safe and um and good career in this beautiful community and I move to adopt this resolution second excellent Council comments public comments okay all in favor I I any opposed all right motion carries uh laon labber councilman palowski thank you council president uh this is resolution ID number 11201 there um there have been some changes to this since we posted it in the packet and uh We've socialized them with council members generally but in order to uh put this resolution forward I'm going to read um what some of the changes are the first uh whereas Clause we've removed the word exponentially the second whereas Clause we've revised to read as follows whereas the homeless population whereas as the homeless population increases more individuals are left residing and sleeping in public spaces we've then added uh a third uh whereas Clause that says whereas this situation presents challenges to the health and safety of the homeless and also impacts the broader Community underscoring the need for compassionate and effective Solutions then we've also added awarehouse Clause that states whereas the city aspires to minimize Andor end homelessness in Summit the city of summit continues to experience challenges associated with homelessness a way to identify and pursue Solutions and uh reasonable actions the city can take to address this complex problem is to work with the state county and local resources committed to assist the homeless mayor Fagan has requested a task force to do just that I move to adopt this resolution establishing the mayor's task force on homelessness and Summit I second great thank you Council comments I'm actually okay go ahead councilman you talking about me yeah yeah thank you um thank you madam president I'm glad this issue has now become a priority for the mayor and Council and I'm happy uh with most of the changes made thank you councilman palaski um as a result of the pandemic the closure of the train station overnight and other factors uh there's a big increase in the number of homeless individuals reaching a peak of over 60 at the end end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 and which was subsequently brought down in 2023 to about 20 people mayor raist without the formality of a task force I think we called it a working group uh pulled together the stakeholders involved in this conversation for the first time at the end of 2022 for several productive meetings to coordinate the efforts of the groups working with the homeless this group also met with officials from Bergen County which has achieved functional zero homelessness for chronic and Veterans and Mike Callahan director of the state's office of homeless prevention to learn about best practices director Callahan suggested that we join the Union County Continuum of Care or coc for short despite uh council members Allen and Hamlet voting against it Summit did become a member of the COC the organization that brings together all the agencies and organizations in the county dealing with this issue right away being part of that group allowed council member minegar and the n profits in Summit to witness firsthand how professionals with expertise in this field approach the work the importance of coordinated entry the importance of diversion and the need for ongoing care even after housing is achieved and the obvious connection to affordable housing are all regularly emphasized by that group the warm Hearts program along with Grace ship Bridges and several other groups came together to more closely coordinate and professionalized services that were already being provided and as I said the number of homeless individuals in Summit fell in 2023 from over 60 to around 20 the Interfaith Council which is primarily responsible for warm Hearts is owed a tremendous debt of gratitude for taking on an outstanding share of the burden what happened in this community last year the way so many came together to wrap their arms around our neighbors is nothing short of of amazing thank God for warm hearts and I also need to thank Bridges the organization most clo closely responsible for the dramatic step up in case management that has actually led to Long long-term stable housing for many in this community and certainly many others within their service area throughout the state folks in this community might not know that the warm Hearts program was hosting homeless people overnight in the winter months their program cost $3,000 to run this past winter and it ended in March so now without anywhere to sleep we are seeing some of these 20 homeless people again in public spaces like the train station the bus stop and the library that is both non-s surprising and an important piece of background information as we continue this conversation I have three more things I'd like to say first I will not stand in the way of an effort to attempt to do the right thing and Tackle homelessness so I will support the creation of this task force second I am hopeful that this is not just going to be performative so the council members can go on social media and boast about all they're doing when in fact many others are doing the hard work the people who are actually involved in dealing with homelessness are extremely busy people they are dealing with the day-to-day of case management and very difficult personal situations of the unhoused they're also already attending COC meetings I hope the new task force does not waste their time but rather adds to their ability to do their jobs also I think it only makes sense that the council member who is the liaison to the COC should be on the task force and third the way that we can show this is real that we're really committed is to take three steps in addition to this task force first put our money where our mouth is we know warm Hearts cost roughly $100,000 let's put it in the city budget we're in the process of reviewing the budget right now our budget is a statement of our actual priorities let's make this a real priority right now we've seen counties tackle homelessness and we've seen other towns do it too second let's commit that we're willing to actually listen to the recommendations of this group and be open to all of them part of the reason we have homelessness is because some people have an income but rent is simply too high we must have a real discussion in this community about about the pros and cons of local ordinances to address rent stabilization and rent assistance third we know that unlike what councilman Boer said at a council meeting last year this is more complicated and cannot be solved with quote one phone call we know that homelessness involves a variety of issues from mental health to substance abuse to the very real lack of Supportive Housing getting someone a hotel room or even actually into an apartment saying good luck and closing the door is really not enough it's my very sincere hope that council is actually serious about tackling it and that it will consider all possible actions to address these interconnected issues in a comprehensive manner thank you okay before I go to the floor um for the council members I just want to say um you're particularly edgy tonight councilman Maran um I voted no because um there wasn't an option to abstain on vote um because you've never given us the opportunity to abstain on votes um and the reason why we why I I I won't speak for councilwoman Hamlet um the reason why I had voted no aside from not being able to Asain abstain is because one I did ask to be on the working group um and was not included um there were many people who went down to or went up to Bergen and did a field trip to see functional zero and did not feel that it was important enough enough to share it with other members of the council if it was so important and non-political um I was not a part of that and third um I there when you go you went to the COC website there was a dead link I did my homework when we actually went through the COC process I called Morris County I called um Essex there were other counties that had fully functional websites working and you could actually see how the cooc worked and I said why are we signing up for a program that I can do no homework on so respectfully I was not saying voting no to helping the homeless or the COC I felt like there wasn't enough information and it is our job as council members to not be political and do our homework and make sure we have the right information so I just want to make that clear and I'm going to give it to the floor councilwoman Hamlet uh yes thank you council president you know Council uh ban I find it personally offensive uh that you continue to say that I voted no on the COC when you well you well know that we could not abstain so that must have been a really long speech for you to write but what I'd like to ask you is have you ever been in a homeless shelter have you ever spent quality time with homeless people because I do it all the time and in fact I haven't been to a homeless shelter and I I actually said to the mayor there I said let's go let's go to the homeless shelter I spend more time with homeless people I would I challenge you right now to tell me five homeless individuals names in the city of summit I spend time with these people so I find it offensive that you do not value my interactions with these homeless people and just say that I voted no on the COC thank you councilman Manar council president what expertise do you bring to their situation that's what I want to know they don't need a friend I'm sorry may I yeah please do not interrupt council president calling a council member who expresses himself passionately especially about this issue which is extremely important you called him particularly edgy tonight and that's pretty offensive no one up here would can you imagine any of us ever saying that to the council president it's pretty pretty edgy there council president no one would do that um I do have some comments um on the topic of goal setting and assessment this group will deal directly with folks in a very vulnerable condition we need to not just have the overarching goal of minimizing and ending homelessness in Summit which is an honorable one for for sure and included in the resolution which I'm glad about but measurable periodic goals that are realistic and achievable in these periodic births be it monthly or quarterly uh Etc um I hope that the community members who are asked to join this group will have a meaningful connection to the unhoused population either professional expertise in areas that such as mental health counseling or other Medical Care trauma informed care social services or even past personal experience with homelessness and finally although it is Springtime one of the things this group really needs to consider pretty soon believe it or not is how they will function in the fall and the winter in conjunction with Summit warm Hearts um I agree with what council member bartan said they are uh what an amazing group they did some amazing work this year um if anyone from warm Hearts is here tonight thank you you know who you are um I hope this group will work with Summit warm hearts in their during the colder months as well we uh we've gone from an unhoused population of around 67 in 2022 to roughly 20 something in 2024 experience and expertise really matters in this type of effort and we need to make sure that we build on what has already been accomplished in our city by the professionals by amazing collaborations and service organizations that exist for this purpose thank you before just because you guys councilman palowski we have to give people an opportunity so what we have here is um a very good resolution for a very good purpose and um it's disappointing that councilman uh uh Varan uh took it as an opportunity to make a defensive speech um and councilman migar also campaigning from the deis um but we won't let discourage us uh we will move forward with this and continue to do the best that we can for everybody in this town thank you thank you councilman uh thank you council president you know councilman migar when you asked me what expertise do I provide in homelessness I provide empathy and what I also provide is as a veteran we noticed a huge gap in the veteran homelessness services that Union County and Bridges when when we look at the veterans who are coming to Bridges and you can talk to Rich from Bridges we've really solved something as a veteran by me reaching out to them as a veteran and now we have contacts at the county that is how I will continue to provide value maybe not expertise but empathy and value thank you council president I believe the Robert rules say we have to go around once right to hear everybody before other Council persons talk three or four times um no no problem uh C woman Hamlet here's the problem right this is the problem with you know stuff like homelessness drug addiction affordable housing um you make it all political and at the end of the day nothing gets done right so if I found one person somewhere to stay is that a problem like it what how do how do you make that a negative thing oh um councilwoman Hamlet you you found one person to um you know have permanent housing and you know you put that on Facebook and the person was so excited and everything what's the negative what's negative about that like that I mean completely political we had people living in the bus station last year and then we talk about how we decreased homelessness political right like but I will say this the Supreme Court just had a hearing the other day and I guess I had nothing to do for three hours so I listened to the whole entire thing and I want to tell you that the arguments were um very passionate on both sides and it opened my eyes to a couple of different [Music] things one thing is that you know the proponents that argue that law which criminalize uh sleeping in public say that it's a fundamental right you know just like eating drinking right everyone has the right to sleep and when you think about that you know it it really it really makes you think right you're in a public space you got a blanket CU this was about a blanket right you couldn't have a blanket in a in a cardboard box right like you know you get a summons for that you could do that so you're in a public space you're laying down and you got to sleep listen the and the mayor knows she's a she's a she's a doctor you know sleeping is essential for living I can understand that now the other flip side of it is you know how do we balance that with continuing to have our activities in those public spaces when they are occup by folks sleeping in it so imagine the Village Green right and we have 50 people the Supreme Court says listen you know you can't criminalize people for sleeping in public spaces so now we have 100 people in our Village Green everybody's sleeping now we can't have any shows right there's no you know ice skating I mean this may sound like a mundane thing right because people are sleeping and but you know we we need to still continue to be a community right we can't have people just sleeping everywhere so it's like we we come around in a full circle what are we going to do with homelessness we've been dealing with this for a hundred years so let's not make it political and say um yeah you know we we solved it last year we decreased it last year and I hope this isn't a uh an attempt to politicize this I mean what if the mayor didn't do anything right then we be saying why is the mayor not doing anything about homelessness so the mayor actually comes out and says I'm going to start a committee on to investigate homelessness and how we can attack it then it's like well this is all political I hope it you know I hope it's not I mean what listen we we all need to stop we need to stop we need to come together and we need to work this thing out together forget about last year forget about the COC New Year 2024 right what's figure out what we can do with our homeless population I know like cilman Hamlet I know several of them my wife gives folks backpacks she's such a good person backpacks pants socks underwear sees them on the street in the 7-Eleven she knows like most of them right I mean so let's stop playing the games let's stop playing the political games let's move on let's accomplish something whatever we can accomplish together and stop this back and forth not debate uh councilman maner we'll stop this back and forth you know accusing people of being political and move as a team to solve the to solve the problem thank you thank you uh thank you councilman Boer three council president I I just want to say that um I appreciate that it is time to um unfortunately tonight like Council plowey said um we have something on the agenda that is it has a lot of opportunity for a lot of different types of people with professional backgrounds um who and personal backgrounds who want to come together and solve this um and so thank you for the levity councilman Smallwood did you have something come back to um I'm clearly not a politician because I didn't have any prepared statements on this topic um I did think that we would be 20 minutes into this resolution and talking about it I this is I'm actually dumbfounded right now I I I this is probably one of the best things that this Council eles I've been a part of in the last three months that that we've done so far I don't care if we have one homeless person 30 60 26 whatever you know counil 10 said we had currently one person's too many and I applaud Grace and the Interfaith Council and ship and Summit warm hearts for the great work that they do and we still have homelessness one too many and in terms of you know this committee we're going to have I think some very qualified people on this task force the chief of police or his design the fire chief or his design superintendent of public schools because I believe that we have some homeless homeless children and just to top to to I mean we have a a representative from the Board of Health representative from Overlook Medical Center um and I believe one of the things was adding five City resident at large because we wanted to have some five residents in the five different elementary schools in those districts so that we can help those children we can identify how many homelessness how many children who are homeless in those districts so in terms of you know having qualified people on this task force I I think we we're covering all of our bases here and again I I'm kind of mad at myself I'm taking up three minutes on this conf ation I I figured we'd be done by now and I'd be be home so with that this I'm going to give this my absolute 100% support behind this and I promise and of course you know politicians making promises and I did write this down I will not post on social media about how successful or unsuccessful this task force may become because I am not a politician thank you thank you do you want the last word because councilman Miner still has another okay go ahead councilman miger no it's fine I'm a supporter of this I think that's the funny thing the the the the the mention of things being politicized my three things were recommendations on how to make this better how to how to assess it how to set goals um I wanted to ask to make sure that community members had some kind of connection to to people who have experienced homeless in some way and to work with warm Hearts none of those are none of those are politics none of those are campaign promises or campaigning uh and I mentioned the numbers which was 67 and 22 to 20 those are numbers those aren't those aren't politicized those aren't politics things those are real things so I think this going to be a good thing I I agree Council I'm sorry to go I wanted to tell them I agree I don't think anything you said just have a quick um Can councilwoman ham can I had something one second I just this can we just confirm uh councilman Varan you don't need to do now I am just curious if that 66 was a point in time number released from Monarch I know the number from Union County was 667 but where's the 66 coming from because I don't think that was the point in time number in 2022 it was not sorry okay go ahead go ahead 67 67 was the count at some point in 2022 our highest number but where was that count from because it wasn't from the Monarch study is the only point in time count that Union County does right it was local count by that was that was people local I don't know if it was it was another but it wasn't an it wasn't the point in I think it's really important to clarify that it was not the point in time count in 2022 it's it's before we were it yeah that didn't that hadn't happened so 6 you can't compare 66 to 22 that's statistically not significant I think it is it's it's not it's not the I'm just saying let's interrup because I think what's really important is what Kevin just said sorry councilman Smallwood just said which is one is too many we know we have a homeless population in Summit the goal of this task force is very sincere and genuine I like to help people I've spent my entire life helping people um and I will ensure and we all will because it's a a mayor design it's a mayor um selection with Council approval we will all make sure that the right people are at the table because I don't want to waste my time I spend a lot of time doing things for free um and I want to be sure that if I'm adding another thing to my plate I want to make a difference it's really important to me and I would I would add that we I do believe that every single person up here wants the same thing and so let's not argue about numbers let's not argue about posting on social media or who does what let's talk about Solutions this will be a way to to collaborate and have our amazing organizations that are al already doing incredible work to do it even better thank you I just round out with one quick thing so we are all in agreement right and we're all going to vote in support of it I think it's great that the community gets to see us having this kind of a discussion right I don't think the community wants us to be doing things in lock step or have no discussion and just pass it right so what I did was to provide the history and background State my hopes for this task force and that I would support it which I will second the issue with council members getting involved in the day-to-day of case management is that one we don't actually know what we're doing and two when a council member intervenes on behalf of someone but not somebody else it causes actual real jealousy and concern in the homeless community and it's a big problem and and the third thing is I my simple stated position is I do not believe people should be used as political pawns and it that is a political position so I'll leave it at that thank you what what are you saying you're saying that a council person can't see somebody I know Ron and you know what I want to get Ron um an apartment or whatever I want to help this person you're you're saying that the council person shouldn't be involved I think we need to be really really careful and to engage with the people who are Professionals in this field that's what I'm saying list I think if you're if you are a human being and you have an opportunity to give somebody or find somebody a place to live and leverage your your position as a council person or mayor even if it's one person do it it's r i mean that's that's ridiculous to say okay well I have an opportunity to work with this person to get them a an apartment or whatever but I'm not going to do it I'm going to let the professionals do it so they can wait six seven months or whatever if you have an opportunity to help somebody help somebody that I mean that's that's political not helping them I I don't I don't I don't understand and I'm sorry I you know but thank you thank you councilman Boer I'll leave it um I do want to recognize in some of my frustration around the COC discussion um because of my stance I do want to recognize that there are a lot of great organizations that have done an amaz amazing work and the previous mayor mayor rist um and her working group absolutely did come together to do the right thing because they really cared about the issue so I think to your point mayor that everyone at this um de cares about homeless and I think think no matter what you're talking about every single emotional issue that we touch in this day and age um Nothing fits in a perfect box and so sometimes we think if you don't take on the advocacy in the way that you want someone to then all of a sudden it's not honest or Earnest or empathetic and it's not real we all approach the things that we care about in different ways and so we cannot V vilify each other on how we approach this so I want to thank you mayor for taking the time to put this together um it's I know it's one of your um top priorities that you had talked about last year and early this year um I applaud you for doing this and I welcome all the volunteers that are going to be engaged on it so thank you I'm going to close um we're gonna stop talking about this now oh okay one last comment I just want to say we have spent a lot of time not talking about this slam dunk resolution and I'd like to hear if the public has anything they'd like to say about so we can put it to bed yes I would like to hear public comments Dennis and harryel 140 Broad Street Summit New Jersey I would just like to sum up with and uh uh coincide with What U mayor Fagan said I just want to phrase it a little differently I think that uh words matter task force matters committees matter she used the word she's looking for a solution so I would just say that all of those things matter but my uh synonym for solution would be action speaks louder than all of them so let's do the work and do the right thing thank you hi Claire to at 11 Sunset Drive um and I win the contest for for nitpick comment because I can't possibly improve on what Reverend Harel said um but there is a typo that you probably want to amend before you pass the resolution in the next to last whereas Clause when you get rid of all the ings um you changed investigating into not a real word I caught it thank you see Reverend Dr Robin Tanner oh I won't take all that time oh yeah okay you can if you need to uh for walr naav um president of the summit Interfaith Council let's continue our work get to work and do better work together I know all of those things are possible thank you thank you I just wanna hold on I'm sorry Peter hold on one second does councilman want to make amendments um yeah so is it too late because I know that councilman Boer wanted to make some amendments so has to make a motion okay correct Mr jaob taking a comment you take the comment but then a motion to amend the okay okay sorry go ahead Peter lejy 124 canberg Parkway Summit New Jersey um first of all I'd like to say that I'm really shocked that something positive and I think it was reflected very positively on by the Reverend is turned into a glass half full and people trying to get merit badges for helping the unhoused population really need to think twice uh I applaud what the mayor is doing I applaud what this this council is doing to try to help the unhoused population I have had experiences with the unhoused population I currently and in the past have and includes unhoused high school students so to say that a council person who served honorably in the military and understands homelessness among the veteran population is unqualified to help somebody or to say that the churches who have volunteers who have no training in this at all are not qualified to help somebody it's just absurd and as far as dialogue along this de here we're finally hearing dialogue because for the last 6 years I didn't hear any dialogue I was just hearing people being told to shut up so that's where I will leave it tonight thank you for this resolution mayor thank you Reverend very honorable comment and thank you Council for doing this okay are there any other comments okay um I would like to make a motion councilman Boer and councilman palowski were there additional changes that you wanted to make or are we councilman pki did you yeah I read them you read them right yes yeah we we we read them in your changes were read by the council yes oh your changes were yes and not just uh councilman Ban's I read all the changes from what was posted on Friday okay okay all right so motion and second was done excellent okay okay all right so I'd like to take a vote all in favor I any opposed motion carries okay I think that deserves a round of applause all right good job mayor okay I'd like to go to the second um law and Labor uh resolution councilman flowski this is resolution ID number 111 92 as per our discussion and close session I move to authorize execution of a confidential settlment agreement associated with our Parking Services Agency I second okay Council comments public comments okay all in favor I any any opposed motion carries all right capital projects and Community Services councilwoman Hamlet uh yes this thank you council president this is resolution ID 11047 which will endorse the submission of a recycling tonnage report for 2023 to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of recycling and planning I would like to move this resolution I second great Council comments I everyone's going to I know I know I know I do it to myself this is actually something that I should have looked at five days ago but upon further Rosie here's my question can we add we have to submit this no later than April 30th how do we add that do we have to do an amendment I just really want to make sure we have to get this through a August sorry April 30th it's now what's today's date 24th so it's Wednesday so through council president I guess director shreer do we have everything locked up as far as when she signs it all I think there's like five pieces there's compliance I just want to make sure that heaven forbid if you were on vacation next week that we we 100% get it there on on April 30th so I don't know if we need to put that in here if it matters or I think respectfully council president that U Mr Sher has successfully submitted that without that language in there before I don't know why it's needed now okay that's fine but that's my personal opinion that's fine that's um but the only other thing I wanted to say is that what's in the council packet we have at you sent me that email right we've added the actual 2023 recycling data versus what's in the packet so I don't know if that just is a minute thing for next time we just amend the minutes so we actually have the actual I didn't get a chance to talk to you Rosie today I apologize don't be mad at me so explain that again so what's in the council packet is a snapshot of the expenditure report but we have the actual 2023 Excel sheet that's like three pages to attach to the minutes or maybe when she signs it we just attach it to the minutes I would have to defer to you but yes if the council woman would like me to make that an denim to the minutes um is there any objection to that Mr jobi none okay okay sorry that's that's the only changes I have okay okay other Council comments public comments all right we're going to vote all in favor I I any opposed motion carries all right councilwoman Hamlet um your next resolution uh thank you council president this is ID 10948 which will authorize a resolution which will authorize the second 5-year extension lease portion of three Constantine place for construction and maintenance of one monopole and related facilities the dates are June 25th 2024 through June 24th 2029 I'd like to move this resolution I second okay Council comments public comments okay we'll take a votee all in favor I I any opposed motion carries okay moving on to your third um resolution uh thank you council president this is ID 11150 which will as discussed in closed session previously tonight which will declare a vacancy in the Department of Community Services Division of Public Works the roads unit uh which will be a full-time maintenance worker and this was pending closed session discussion I'd like to move this resolution I second okay Council comments public comments all in favor I I any opposed motion carries okay on to the consent agenda um council president excuse me for a moment um the fire chief had expressed an interest in showing sharing a video of the resolution that's number one under safety under consent absolutely if you're okay with that if I may yeah do you wanna do you want to preface it by saying anything yeah please please come on up please president yeah this just a resolution like in said agena to authorize uh fire department team to go down to National Fallen firefighters Mo weekend so um they're based at emers Maryland uh their mission is to uh honor and support America's fall firefighters and their families and organizations and also prevent fental deaths through every year do the big Memorial down at ersb Maryland where we have um all the firefighters that kill in previous year honored this year there's 226 firefighters be honored 8 of them died line of duty in 2023 and 146 died previous years from injuries and also cancer is a big deal in the fire a lot of them died from cancer from 911 another exposure in the fire service so um they're bring all the families in the team goes down from Summit on on Wednesday uh we help set up the event the event is on Sunday the 5th um good organization um people all the country come it's well attended the Pres of come the past organizations and weekend so it's a great great time to be at there so with that was up highlight from the events that came from 202 20 22's um weekend so quick March welcome you to the 2023 national fall and Firefighters Memorial weekend we stand with you honoring and remembering your firefighters as you cherish their memories I put a penny down on under my dad my hband David SN miss him oh like I would miss my heart my heart he kept my [Music] heart our fire heroes lost their life while Faithfully serving their family community city nation and their fellow man if I can tell so body he [Music] TR wrong my shall not be in [Music] rare is the individual who runs towards danger and rarer still is the individual who does so only to help others that is the firefighter that is the 144 fallen heroes we honor this weekend Heroes who gave their lives in the service of others it's my wish for you that the flame that you see here at theor morial sight and the flame that you carry in your hearts will bring you hope strength and perseverance all answ [Music] if I may there is one more program that's the foundation of like to um businesses and citizens to participate in a component of this event from March 1 to to May 1 to 5th uh night Delights for firefighters so welcome everybody to um show red lights and their home the businesses to honor all the firefighters leading up for the event on the 5th so thank you and you can also go to WWF fire here.org walk on the information how can participate other event at the Port the fire service thank you yeah okay all right it's a reminder why we appreciate you yeah the video is a reminder why we appreciate you the fire department okay um all right at this time I'm going to um we're going to vote on the consent motion sorry consent yeah thank you motion for consent agenda thank you do I have a second second wonderful okay do I have Council comments on anything on the consent agenda couple comments thank you uh number one is on uh the 11204 of course uh I'm extremely supportive of the uh fire department heading down there again and representing Summit uh at the fire academy Memorial activities uh the second is on um 11215 so I do not support the bid authorization because I do not support the capital project this funding is partially for a private piece of property that means council's taking everyone's hard earn tax dollars and sending it to a project on one family's property to be clear that money will benefit just one family and no one else in the community it seems to send a message if you show up to Council meetings complain and support the candidates who won the last election that you can be rewarded with public funds for your private project to me that is unacceptable it is a bad precedent and I cannot support it thank you three president councilman Miner um I have a comment on the same the same resolution so I agree with Council of bartan entirely on this which is why I will also not vote to approve it um this city is paying for something we are not responsible for essentially uh I have a very similar example I can give you some of my neighbors on Morris Avenue have complained about a utility company that destroyed the fence when cutting down some trees uh if that company is report repairing if is not repairing the fence is Summit now going to do so based on what we're seeing in this resolution if it passes this is now a reasonable expectation Summit taxpayer money now goes toward private property improvements council member of Varan also used one of my favorite terms um to me earlier today the word fiduciary yes I agree with you we are fiduciaries as council members we all have fiduciary duty to Summit taxpayers as a whole to do what is in the best interest of the city voting for this to me represents a shirking of fiduciary responsibility to the residents of summit they trust us to do what is best for everyone and this is a violation of that trust I will be voting against it and I hope some of you will agree with me here so I would like to request that we pull this out if that's possible from the okay thank you thank you councilman miger councilman Hamlet I was just going to ask if we're going to pull this out if we're going to pull it out we should do it appropriately yeah okay we'll pull it out council president yes counc make a comment yes we we also have a duty to protect the few as we do the many and in in this case there's a resident who came up here for three years and I mean the story about what happened to her property is you know is is is unbelievable and the idea to restore this family back to the original condition that their house was in because the city and the developer um destroyed their property I don't see how that is um un uniformed right I mean I think one of our responsibilities is to protect any individual right regardless of you know um if it if if there was a 100 taxpayers if someone wronged you I mean you would expect that you have Council people that would come up here and and and Umar and you know negotiate on your behalf you know if it's wrong what's wrong is wrong what's right is right so I you know I just wanted to say that all right thank you thank you councilman Boer uh councilman palowski I'm sorry wait really quick did you raise your hand okay you're next you want to go first goad um Council I've asked councilman plasy to go first and specifically um councilman Varan I believe we had a conversation with our city administrator and through you council president I think it would be important you know I've read the settlement agreement 5,000 times for Ashwood Court I've reviewed the zoning board approvals a few times today we've printed them out in 11 by sevs and we are obviously all genuinely concerned about the residence down in Ashwood Court regardless of how you feel that this may be taking one resident and fixing their property the facts are there are settlement AG there's a settlement agreement there's a zoning Board of adjustment jurisdiction on this property and we have received advice from our city administrator that is the city's responsibility to fix this property you were in this meeting councilman Varan uh through you council president I'd like to ask Michael Rogers for his opinion yeah so in addition to fiduciary responsibilities you have an obligation to uphold your end of a settlement agreement which that was a part of the settlement agreement so I would just want to remind the council to uh abide by the settlement agreement and this is consistent may I counc president uh councilman plasy first the only problem with this resolution is that we didn't do it a long time ago it's long overdue you should have done it last year that's it councilman minegar and then councilman bartan oh I'm sorry okay councilman vtan um so my position is as I read the settlement agreement it's not clear to me that we have an obligation to fund this the project is finished if this resident believes that more work needs to be done it's A Private Matter between this resident and habitat their neighbor councilman palowski said at a council meeting last year we should send habitat the bill we should I'm betting though that it's not going to happen and I'm betting that what's going to happen is that the city's going to take out debt and the taxpayers of this community are going to pay it off and habitat's never going to pay it so my my position is simply when we're using tax dollars we need to feel confident it's for the public good and I can't support it in good conscience that's where I am thank you m i was goingon to say Mr chobe uh did you want to weigh in on this at all we wrote letters on behal of the council to Habitat over this wall this isn't this was an ongoing issue and the wall I mean let back up the the habitat affordable housing went on this property and as part of that construction process this retaining wall was damaged we actually had Mr shreer go out because I was involved with it writing to the habitat attorney and it couldn't be repaired I mean it was so structurally um it wasn't stable you couldn't repair it so there is a settlement agreement and I think that you know this isn't I think the public should realize this is part of a uh the overall construction that took place in that property and that was and the and the damage to this wall was part of that construction so in that process I don't think this is It's not like the city council is going out and you know coming to my house and fixing my retaining wall it this happened because of the Habitat Construction and but for that it would not have occurred so there was a settlement agreement we did communicate I'm not going to reveal what we'll do with habitat that's something that we can discuss in in close session but we did have communications and I've had several letters to their attorney about this very wall and the settlement agreement which obligates the city and habitat to repair it okay thank you councilman uh Smallwood I actually everything he just said I was he answered my questions Perfect all right thank you do we have any other further Council comments councilman just one more I mean look under this settlement agreement okay there are several parties that are responsible for putting Humpty Dumpty back together again okay and we've learned that we can't count on Habitat for Humanity to do the right thing we can't count on the developer to do do the right thing and who does that leave it leaves us all right we're going to do this it's the right thing to do we should have done it a long time ago okay um okay on resolution 11 1204 are there any public comments 11204 is fire I'm I'm sorry I'm sorry uh yeah yeah 1135 my apologies um I guess I do have another question is that the right one no no isn't it 1125 yeah 112 11125 yes how about the as Court that's the wall right is that the one you're speaking on okay I'm I'm looking at the it's a very simple procedural question uh you don't need that um it says here that it's funding for this project has been requested in the 2024 capital budget and in my prior series of too many questions for you liking I addressed the fact that I thought the capital budget was pretty high um so I'm wondering if we are in habit of approving expenses before the respective budget gets approved thank you councilman I feel like that's a Michael question we're not you're not authorizing expenditure for anything you're authorizing the administration to advertise for a bid to submit a bid um and that will take place over time uh it's assumed that budget will be in place and we couldn't award a contract until funding is in place so there's a number of financing procedural things we'll have to do before that so we you're not authorizing the expenditure of any funds this evening okay councilwoman Hamlet and then councilman Minar uh yes I would agree I mean I think that the discussions around putting this in tonight's Council packet obviously we have to adopt the budget so we could never do anything in this project if if the budget was not adopted and I think that those residents would like the their property fixed at some sort of capacity I would like to uh ask three council president um Michael Rogers I was looking tonight around Time Performance for a contract and I was reading that the specifications for a contract can contain a fixed date for completion of a project um is that something we can do for something like this because I think the frustration from some of the residents is it's going to go out to bid it's going to be the summer time and then we're going to run into September October and they're still not going to get it fixed I'm just concerned that with this specifically maybe we don't have to do it for this one but can we put time constraints on um bids um I we do but on on the project completion yes we do that so we will okay that's thankk last year we put some parking polls some 15minute parking poles in the ground in the sidewalk in anticipation of passing later that week um a parking resolution 15-minute parking we got phone calls from the public um and I believe you followed up with me because you got angry phone calls and I I said you know what you're absolutely right this should not have been done before and I talked to at the time I talked to parking at that time and I said we should not have done this I do not see a difference between that and what we're doing right now and I would like to request to table this resolution until after the budget passes Mo you have to you have to move the table there has to be a second then there has to be a vote on that and if it so that's what happens you have to have a second do do you need a super majority for um tabling so we'll take a vote on it's a it's he so Mr miger made a motion if there's a second we do a roll call what nobody made a second somebody has to make a second and then we'll take a roll call vote isn't there comments after you table something right isn't it open the comments you have to vote on the table before you do anything else okay M do I have a second motion to right do I have a second I'll second okay uh roll call vote Madam clerk Mr Boer nay Miss Hamlet nay Mr venar hi Mr palaski nay Mr Smallwood nay Mr Varan hi president Allen nay motion fails so now you go back to the original motion okay um so I just want to make a quick comment and I'll come to you uh councilwoman Hamlet um councilman migar you are right people were upset about putting the polls in because I was also upset because people did call and they were not supposed to put them in how however I do not think this is at all the same thing um the polls went in at the time um that they we didn't even approve the the resolution so um this is to authorize a bid so there's no physical work that's actually being done I that's how I see the difference so councilwoman Hamlet by by the way counc Miner we authorized the parking spaces we didn't authorize The Parking Department who put the polls in a week earlier let's be very clear and the public called us and yelled at us what we should have said is that was the department that put the polls on we didn't approve to put the signs out before we put the resolution this is completely different you were in the committee with me you know that yeah putting the signs in was part of the sign part of the parking spaces it wasn't part of the resolution we didn't say go put the parking go put the parking signs in before we pass the resolution no we said put pass the resolution and then put the parking parking signs in no one directed The Parking Department to put the signs in before we passed the resolution you were in the committee with me well respectfully you don't see the connection between signs and then parking spaces exactly Park we're not directing the city to fix the wall right now we're directing to go out to bid to bid that still really that really assumes that our budget will be passed it assumes it you got to be honest you don't have to well you don't have to take the bids you can put it out to bid we can put out to bid for anything regardless if we have money in the budget for it or not okay fine well doesn't matter I hear what you're saying we heard we heard maybe we don't get the wall fixed okay council president I I'm just a little confused I what does parking and signs have to do with destroying someone's property I'm not I'm missing am I missing something here I can explain it if you want me to go through it again because I mean I I remember what you're talking about and I don't think people were complaining that it costs money to put the signs in I think people were complaining that the signs were already in before a resolution was ever passed which was assuming that it was going to pass yeah um I'm gonna let councilman miger respond and then okay so there two there's two different things I'm upset about the money being spent at all I don't think we should be spending the money on this at all I think it's private property that's one entirely separate issue sorry may I have my moment to speak I'm getting laughs from the right hand side which is pretty rude um the second thing is I'm asking to table this because I think we are doing something ahead of time we are assuming that this is going the budget's passing we're assuming all kinds of stuff and I said we should table this until after the budget passes so that we're not doing something ahead of time it's exactly the same as something we did last year yeah last year or two years ago with parking which is we were getting ready to vote on some parking spaces and in anticipation of that the city put in some poles in the ground and we yes we did not vot we didn't tell them to do that but that that happened ahead of time stuff done ahead of time before a vote is is a little upsetting so that's that's what I was getting at with my request to table council president I but I I still we're talking about someone's property that was destroyed and no one's taking responsibility for it so I you know I'm looking at this as not even a budget thing I'm looking at this as you know someone's property has been destroyed and it needs to be it wasn't done by them it was done by the constructure manager it was done by the engineer whoever it was done by right part of that was the city so statements like that will absolutely make us liable for it statements that destroyed by the city the city was partly liable for the destruction I mean that's well someone's property some someone's property was destroyed not by their own but by not by Summit okay all right um I just before I go back over here I just did you have any questions counc Bo um I thought you looked to me like you had a question I this has been a uh an awkward night like I just feel like there's so much lack of compassion tonight like oh my goodness um that that's it I uh councilman palowski first I I just my recollection of this whole sign thing was that before it was passed holes were put in concrete new signs were put in concrete was was put down I actually sent an email saying hey what's up and I was told by councilman migar oh we're going to take those away right away and I'm like what are you crazy you're going to take them away we spent all that money to put them in you're going to take them away for for a resolution that's going to inevitably pass I you know Common Sense is underrated these days wait woman Hamlet the last thing I will say is I think if director shreer had gone out for bid last week and we were talking about this resolution you might be able to compare that to the signs that is a favor that is a fair comparison if if director shreer put the bids out last week that is exactly what happened with the signs that is a that is a identical comparison but we did not do that re business administrator Rogers hold on I just want to remind everybody this we are in a settlement agreement we are abiding by a settlement agreement so there's this this is in no way the same thing what we're talking about with a parking it's not the same thing we have a legal obligation already whether you agree with it or not you weren't a part of negotiating that settlement agreement I know what it was about so this common council at the time approved the settlement agreement it was about repairing that wall there were three parties involved the city habitat and a perspective developer for that property that we still own over there habitat fixed a part of their their side of on their property it's the city of summit's obligation that's where we are we're trying to just get ahead it's a process to go out to bid it will take place after the public hearing on the budget and we'll we'll proceeded accordingly the funding has to be in place before a contract is awarded so any part of that s we're not we're not completing is there any part of that settlement agreement we're not doing you don't have to answer that question it's just hyp I won't because irrelevant to this yeah out of curiosity do you remember the year it was settled what year did the council I believe that I think it was 2022 no no no no the settlement agreement 2020 2020 2020 I think we eventually decided 19 2020 okay councilman Boer and then Hamlet and then I think we're done no I'm good I just I I I just don't understand why we're talking about mistakes from last year and you know I hope everyone learned from the the polls that were put in I mean I'm glad you all learned a lesson um but this is not this has nothing to do with that and in settlement agreement was 2020 and we're 2024 I'm just saying I mean let's again let's have compassion and move on okay thank you I would say and through you council president director Sher you you might be able to opine on this but the the appropriate venue going forward if if through the zoning resolution there are conditions right and how how long does the zoning board have jurisdiction after post approval director shreer two years for certain things typically they put in a clause for two years for drainage and other so so going forward I think it be fair to say if there are issues with storm water management or things of that nature then if if the city cannot help or assist then they would be able to appeal to the zoning board is that correct uh if now this one's and possibly did solicitor canine because this this was a complicated one where Al it it was a board application that became an agreement that had to go back to the board so well there was litigation and with litigation as well so I me there was there was a legal challenge this wasn't the the the the homeowners of of Ashwood Court the people who own this proper there was actually litigation there's legal council involved this wasn't it just came out of thin air there were there it was complicated before the uh actual building took place and if you recall there was lots of discussions about the entrance off of Morris aveno I mean that that was a whole huge issue issue because of I forget what there was an I think it was an Italian restaurant or an Italian Club if I'm not mistaken think that I'm Itali kind of caught my interest I'm a little hungry right now too I haven't had dinner so it's really getting away but all all this came came is was part of that litigation and all all you're looking at the sell all that emanated out of that litigation thank you okay public comment Don cherio 6 sash Wood Court it's my house okay let's set the record straight councilman Varan Council migar and I think you know it it's not about a retaining W even Mr yovi there is a dozen different things on this and we're not just talking about my property the property in question is the city's property that's being fixed here the retaining wall is a small portion of this my retaining wall which was broken and it's being replaced because of that because again as Mr jacobe said there's a settlement agreement where all parties mayor rtis was one of them signed this okay and the other portion of retaining walls being because habitat failed to put drainage behind it and illegally pitched the water which now comes over my wall FS my basement and the city doesn't want to go after habitat it's political and suspense with the ball the city is the big portion that is being fixed here the city's has to bring back down the grave the city failed to put basins in and the city property was illegally pitched and now drains into my private Bas which the city 15 years ago when my father owned my house asked us required us to do drainage work to the tune of $30,000 and then dumped it into my basin okay it's the city's property you're fixing not my private property yes there is a small portion of this project which is my retaining wall which yes they did break a portion the other portion is being replaced because water was illegally pitched off the habitat site and now goes over onto my property into my private drain system you guys the last Administration didn't want to go after habitat surprise surprise and that's why you're not fixing this you're not doing this let's call what is at the goodness of your heart you're doing it of legal obligation you don't do we Sue we win four attorneys have reviewed this four including Mr jobi you're obligated you don't want to go after habitat I don't care whatever you want to do but you're fixing the city's property that any IL legal plan was approved by the zoning board because the feeling was will they really complain I don't went on buying closed doors was it really a big deal yeah it is 30 grand my fin spent on our drainage system now habitat put their water into it it's not staying that way this will happen one day one way or the other it's a guarantee thank you any other public comments Peter Le Joy 124g I have a question really um was this work bonded and was the bond released to the of to the contract was the contractor released because I I really think the city needs to look at how it releases Bonds on public projects because I can point to any number of them where work wasn't finished and these people are made to post bonds if the boards aren't requiring the right bonds it's the city's Engineers responsibility to make sure we get the right bonds and I just have a it's just a general comment but I also want to know specifically were their Bonds on this project that would have covered this and have they already been released uh Mr Rogers I don't I don't know okay we'll have to get back to you on that that's a good question or I guess director shreer would you know that not off the top of my head no okay okay any other public comments okay we're going to take a roll call vote on resolution 11215 all right M Mr Boyer I Miss Hamlet I Mr migar nay Mr palowski an enthusiastic I Mr Smallwood I Mr Varan nay president Allen I motion carries okay we are now I do I have a motion to approve the remainder of the consent agenda enthusiastic move enthusiastically second um respectfully I believe we already had a motion in a second earlier C Boer and council member did we vote on the rest of the consent agenda but we pulled out the resolution we didn't vote on the consent agenda yet we pulled out the resolution and had a dialogue I believe you had a first and a second just to all in favor of the rest of the consent agenda okay Bo vote got it actually I should give the public an opportunity to speak on the consent agenda because they didn't the remain of the consent agenda you could do that okay do we have a do we have a public comment on the remainder of the consent agenda excellent all in favor I I any opposed motion carries okay um we are now at Council comments no council comments okay can somebody enthusiastically make a motion toj time to adj like enthusias do I have a motion enthusiastic make a motion to adjourn okay do I have second second all in favor I any opposed motion carries have a good night you guys