Mr clerk we have a quorum and call this meeting to order at 7:07 pm. please call the role councilman Schwarz councilman beler here I saw councilman Goldberg here councilwoman organ here Deputy Mayor Catz Deputy Mayor G here mayor Pagan here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 299 d223 sending a copy to the newspapers offish designated for 2024 by way of resolution number 2224 find a copy in Township clerk's office and posting on the municipal building bulletin board and the mayor hereby directs this statement be included in the minutes thank you Mr clerk good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's Council budget meeting Township Administration present at tonight's meeting are Dean kazinski our Township manager Doug ruson our Township Clerk Scott sammon our Township attorney and Ron Goodman with the Mis department for The public's information we are currently holding a hybrid format meeting we have people in person and on Zoom if our Wi-Fi at the municipal building has an issue where the zoom meeting drops we will aim to retrieve the connection and restart the meeting the next televised regular council meeting will take place on April 2nd with the closed session beginning at 6:30 p.m. and the public portion of that meeting beginning at 8:00 p.m. Town Hall will be closed tomorrow in observance of Good Friday and council did not meet in Clos session earlier this evening our first first order of business tonight is good and Welfare and I want to remind residents that they have a 3 minute time limit to speak and if you are on Zoom please list your first name and your last name so that our clerk can call on you we also ask that you turn your camera on when speaking on Zoom if possible so that we can see you thank you very much first up Sandy good evening Council please support the EK Recreations the center's budget request where young and old and everyone in between like the library it serves the common good and everybody's welfare good and Welfare what does it take for these words to have meaning here in EK we have a prime example of someone who defines the noble Concepts embodied in these precious words so one who serves the common good whose commitment is for the common good whose character is good whose word is good someone who while too busy to eat and sleep is never too busy to answer an email to show up for every tragedy and celebration and to roll up his sleeves and do the job at any hour day or night 7 days a week if needed someone who while sometimes neglecting his own health literally saved lives during the early days of covid who reassured a frightened town that there would be a better tomorrow who put his life on the line in his career in public service of over 40 years someone who has sacrificed for the common good and others welfare and someone who shrinks away from public recognition self-aggrandisement or self-praise in short a person of Charity of decency of Honor a mench I am the unabashed number one fan and president of the dean kazin fan club and I wanted to say this in public do do we have anyone in Zoom yes I have Keith Kaplan please unmute state your name for the record hello can you hear loud and clear three minutes you're breaking upap the floor is yours Decades of service to town um you will certainly be missed and there'll be more to be said on that later um I wanted to take a moment to expound upon some of the comments that I made at the previous meeting in an email dated March 1st councilwoman belur stated that there was an invitation being extended to the uh from the evna the East vo neighborhood association in support of a neighborhood effort to reject a proposed application this was the 61 Church Street property and she was clearly speaking on behalf of the East VOE neighborhood association and what's clear from the exchanges is that she was acting on behalf of the E voin neighborhood association when she appeared before the board of adjustment now a GoFundMe page was created by another one of the members of the group and uh the last message but which was uh entered uh just a month before Miss beler became the personal agent uh for the sale of the property said but we're not done this was on the GoFundMe moving forward a team of residents is partnering with the current property owner with the goal of identifying a suitable project that will enhance our neighborhood if you are on the East V neighborhood association evna mailing list will keep you informed regarding any developments and in the April 26th edition of tck voices which had listed at least the previous year Miss beler as one of the supporters of the newsletter it said will an applicant with a more appropriate and Zone consistent use now come forward and it answered that is the Hope in any event the uh the now far better organized and prepared neighborhood the easto neighborhood association will be in an optimal position to participate in any subsequent zoning approval process and the next developer proponent will have the advantage of working with an informed and competent group of Neighbors advocating for the advanced neighborhood now here you have a sitting council member involved in the master plan process sitting on the planning board appointing and not reappointing members of the Zoning Board of adjustment meing herself in what is supposed to be an independent quasi judicial body and I have serious questions about the ethical ramifications of what is happening when someone literally is making not just an application fail but then outwardly says you will not have another applicant unless it's someone we approve of is this appropriate behavior for a sitting council member and I'd like to know what ethical safeguards besides these standard ones that uh the uh DLS will come up with for the state the town has to ensure that our decisions are being done with ethics in mind for the uh zoning and various issues that are in thank you Mr Kaplan Jee irn um Jane Irwin tck the rotus center is tek's Gem it is used by all ages days and evenings seven days a week over 800 TX seniors attend classes at the senior center retirement of longtime director of the center Mary H was a Bittersweet moment we really miss her but when one door closes another one opens our new director Anna Jones and her assistant Ashley muchler are bright hardworking creative young women they bring a new vision for the center they're already planning a bus trip to a Broadway show teic residents are aging in place and as such are anticipating you will continue to provide the high level of interest and financial support thank you thank you Mr is there anybody on Zoom Doug Miss Christina markinson I was here last week and I would like to talk to you one more time regarding our greenhouse and Garden Club as as we discussed last week the structure is not sound enough for a new roof and that means we need a new Greenhouse which is a capital item and we are here tonight to hope that you council members have put up at least part of the cost in this year's budget maybe it can be spread over several years but I'm sure you are the experts when it comes to finances and you will find a way so um and maybe Grand Riders can do a good job and find local and federal grants I'm sure they are available so we are cooperating with you and hope that you will find a solution which is in a way good for both parties involved if we can help in any way please let us know so uh thank you very much for putting this item on your agenda we truly need your help thank you thank you Christina anybody on Zoom Doug Dr powersa ditto what so Sandy said about our manager we all all feel that about it ditto also what Jane Irwin said about the importance of making sure that seniors in their Center are adequately supported and let me draw a concern about the meeting that only two of you were president at last night a meeting called for some reason without full council's resolution to do so by the council zoning subcommittee I don't understand how it had the power to call that meeting or to empower the township current Township planner in a description of the situation A New Concept plan which she was unable to explain the source of so I asked that question very specifically and then she included and what she what she said with the next steps a process that I don't quite understand as I understand it neither the Beverly Road nor the AL the American Legion Drive Redevelopment plan can go forward until this full Council request that the planning board does in fact create such a Redevelopment plan and empower the planner to participate in the process of doing that and I don't think it's the job of the planner to tell the public that they were last night attending at the very end of the meeting not until then do we know that this is the last opportunity we have publicly to try to influence that process until such time as it might come before the planning committee sometime later the process for redevelopment in this town has been consistently mistaken in that respect it is only the full Council which can bring about the actual assignment of anyone to carry out a Redevelopment plan and I think it's about time that we got those those procedures if you're going to continue to follow the anr route for redevelopment in this town thank you very much Mr Berliner Obby Berliner Northwest lower Cumberland uh neighborhood association member pprb most parent coach participant referee multiple leagues and Recreation programs I'm speaking this evening on behalf of myself as a citizen not in any semi-official advisory capacity I am also lucky that I get to talk and don't actually have to make any of the decisions as you do first to note on last week's Library presentation great news that we are looking to reinvest in our great Library including its services and infrastructure however anyone who has visited other libraries in Bergen County knows that some are not much larger than a single room and of a fraction of the books or digital media that we have available and accessible on site it was suggested during the construction the library would relocate staff and materials to the rotus center rooms but I would like to suggest the Fieldhouse instead building us functioning HVAC water bathrooms power internet TVs and an outdoor space for addition programming this will help to ensure that current activities in neota are not displaced and you may even get a new uh Walkin Patron or two I would also like to speak in support of the recreation department and services as well as their programming provided I want to urge the council to not cut or drastically raise registration fees for permits and programs government does not function as a business and should not serve to turn a profit we are lucky and unique to have professional year-round programs these sessions literally serve all of our residents from every corner every neighborhood every age our youngest to oldest individuals and families planning growing and downsizing literally generations of citizens who have C at home the recreation department provides meals friendship support opportunities and strives to serve all in an equitable and dignified manner these programs provide both tangible and intangible benefits that go far beyond money's raised or deficits incurred summer camps and splash pads provide a safe healthy environment for our children to attend run around play explore and grow many of the staff are our neighbors local Young young people who are provided summer jobs to remain engaged earn some money and give back to the community in a productive civic-minded manner camps along with Nursery program to provide necessary cost-effective option for many workingclass families who would otherwise struggle to find Child Care allowing them to work full time and reinvest in the community every meeting at least someone is referencing our diversity in the rec department is the most visible manifestation of that summer camps vote pool nursery school after school sports Arts these programs allow us to position our children to practice what we the adults preach you need to be the you need to be fiduciaries and ensure that the numbers work cost of Labor is not cheap the New Jersey minimum wage is $15 and you may only have to uh have to pay $ 12275 per hour but as we have seen with the lifeguards the market does bear premium for qualified and quality staff there may be a discussion to raise registration fees one please make sure that any increases are kept to a minimum and ensure programs continue to be offered and accessible to all and two any adjustments should be consistent across all programs and impacted groups thank you thank you Mr bler anyone on Zoom Doug anyone else in Chambers no seeing No Hands good and Welfare is closed Miss beler would you like to lead us off first ma'am sure absolutely um first off I'd like to uh say uh to Sandy uh yeah I think that there are a lot of fans in the dean uh fan club so I'm sure between now and the time that uh he departs we will uh be singing his accolades um I also would like to say to Jane Irwin that you know certainly the uh Senior Center is really um doing some things that uh we want to all support and and advocate for so I am certainly there with uh with you on that the greenhouse I know we have to really kind of determine you know what are the uh the possible solutions um you know I know how it is sometimes you start on a project and realize that there are issues that go are that are you know greater than uh what we anticipated so I'm sure we can put our heads together and come up with a solution um M uh Dr Powers I just want to say that I uh in terms of last night meeting I was not there I was at an event that um I was a panelist on so I could not make it but I did not have much visibility into the planning of that meeting last night uh nor did I see the New Concept drawings I believe uh at the time I saw it was the time that was presented to the public I do feel that uh certainly no subcommittee should be uh planning meetings without the approval of of the entire board uh the council should certainly have had some type of input into uh the agenda what was being said what was being seen Etc and I was not privy to that so I would just simply say that as a reminder the plan planning board is a statutory board so we have to remember that they have an obligation to um to really approve the the the actual master plan so I'm really excited to hear that uh they will be receiving it hopefully soon and let's see what else um oh lastly I just want to say to to C Chaplan that uh I will uh had no input at all into anything as it pertains to the board of J M uh in terms of influencing or anything like that I want to Simply say that to you specifically to you because you seem to repeatedly bring up this this particular transaction I would put my 40 Years of real estate experience up against anything I understand ethics I understand the obligation to uh to make sure that there are no conflicts I'm well aware of that uh I just would like to say that that your targeted attacks are simply divisive they are hate-filled and they are discriminatory and I will ask you publicly to please stop it rather to use that energy for the good of our Township that is my recommendation to you thank you thank you Miss beler Miss Goldberg would you like to say anything uh no I'm just want to ask the attorney um to respond to any questions all right thank you Miss Goldberg Miss Oregon Deputy Mayor Catz Deputy Mayor G um yeah I just want to address um the comments that uh we heard from Dr Powers um I also had no inkling of what was going to be presented yesterday I didn't see the plans um this my Council colleagues we got so upset about a flyer going out um about leadership tneck and yet we will allow the subcommittee to make decisions about planning a meeting sharing materials before full Council got to see it and I just think we should be consistent if we're going to say that we don't do things as a subcommittee or we should do things as as a council I think we should be consistent in how we do that um if it was an oversight or Miss totally understand but going forward I would like to suggest that we be consistent and we not do things as subcommittee or as uh you know we're going to hold everybody to one standard we should be consistent thank you thank you pry Mar G as always thank you to all of our residents for coming out on this rainy night to join us thank you Sandy for your kind words about our manager Dean because we agree with you and we are going to miss him thank you Jane for your service on the senior citizens Advisory Board and thank you for always advocating for the Roa Community Center and its programming thank you Christina again for talking about the Garden Club and our manager will be talking about the capital budget shortly Dr Powers last night's Town Hall was for public input and no final decisions have been made about that project and thank you AI for your comments and advocacy as well Mr manager is there anything you would like to say or address about good and Welfare sir um no I certainly going to work with our grant writers though Millennium strategies and we're going to really work aggressively hard to see if we can come up with some sort of Grant some sort of funding I'm pretty certain we will find something and so we're going to work with you very uh very hard for that and we're ready to start the budget uh just quickly Mr sammon is there anything you want to say or sure yeah I just want to address the the thing over American lead to drive um I do want to be clear though that it is the it is legal and lawful for the zoning subcommittee to call or hold a uh a town hall on the um proposed Redevelopment project to American lead and drive if the council wants to limit that right to the full Council it can do so but as it stands now that sub the subcommittee can call for that um but I do want to be clear though you know as the mayor said it was a town hall seeking public input uh it was nothing no final decisions were made on anything regarding American lead drive and it is only full Council that can make those decisions um just a clarifying question there were a lot of documents shared with the public before full Council had eyes on that you're saying the subcommittee can just circulate documents without full council's approval or awareness because last week we weren't allowed to circulate even an agenda without the council reviewing it so I I'm just trying to get clarity on that an agenda agenda on what the leadership t- neck agenda people were really upset about not having eyes on it and yet we can issue an agenda for uh a devel Redevelopment meeting filled with very detailed plans that full Council were completely unaware of as as long as that information is not attorney client privilege the subcommittee can can disclose that so then why weren't we able to do the same so if a subcommittee can do it then an individ what's the difference between the subcommittee and an individual and or the town manager for example issuing an agenda I think I mean I think it depends on what what exactly it is I don't not I guess I'm not sure what trying to understand the difference between when we when Dean and I worked on a leadership uh te agenda that was super problematic but now we're saying it's totally okay for the zoning subcommittee to issue full-on Redevelopment plans and set organize townwide meetings like how was that how does that make any logical sense I think the difference there was that it was the um you don't have the answer I know what the difference was no I think I think the I think the issue is that um a subcommittee just has more inherent authority to release information than an individual um but I don't also don't know that in that case because I don't I don't speci remember the issue about releasing the agenda so I don't know I don't remember in that case if you actually were prohibited from doing it all right thank you both for your comments Mr manager we are ready to rock and roll and I think Recreation is first up correct y Mr Mayor I think um council member Schwarz just got on I don't know if count the clerk's on he missed good and Welfare so I'm not sure if he's going to want to comment no no no I meant I didn't know if he was roll called in or anything all right thank you um no thank you very much um actually on I've been listening um and if I did miss good of welfare I can still respond to it but I didn't I'm actually responding to the difference between if you want my the last night um last night was a subcommittee meeting and we um circulated or we actually say the planner hosted drawings rendering that was presented to the full sub zoning committee sub zoning committee reported on that at the council meeting and in writing to the public and to the public as well um so I think that's a big difference and uh again it's that's just my response but there is a very big difference between one person's circula calendars and agendas and a sub zoning committee following a uh following a sub zoning meeting presented to in a public town hall exactly what they said they were going to do at the prior council meeting and in the minutes presented from their sub zoning committee so I personally don't really care about the leadership T debate I'm not teaching it but there was no minutes there was no discussion of it and just popped up in our inbox Flyers about it so if you know uh it just sounds like a great program you're running but when you're going to come after the sub zoning committee and try to make that the same thing that's not the case at all with all due respect thank you Mrs Schwarz Mr manager the floor is your yours sir uh thank you so we have Glenna Crockett here tonight Glen is our superintendent of recreation and whether is Lisa stonick or assistant superintendent of recreation and I'm not sure if we introduced him or not maybe I missed it um we have um Isa Basi the township CFO was seated at the the end of the room uh who will be here tonight to answer any budget related questions as well so for Council Recreation is a count count number 370 that can be found on page 121 of your of your budget book uh the recreation operations account maintains uh all services um and needs that the recreation department needs for 2024 and just to go over some numbers in 2023 we adopted $464,500 uh this year uh Cola is asking for $481,500 that's a slight increase increase of 3.63% equivalent to $6,850 so Council you'll see two sub accounts where you really will'll see um I guess a notable uh increase in that sub there's 16 sub accounts alog together but sub account 220 uh summer camp programs uh there was an increase of 32830 and I'll let Glen explain that in a minute and also sub account 240 under holiday events you'll see an increase of $10,000 all the other remaining 14 accounts either remained flat uh some had a minor decrease and there were about three or four that had a very very minor uh increase so Glenn I just want you to cover the recreation programs and and these sub accounts that really uh show a noticeable increase and a need for that money this year okay thank you Mr manager our primary goal is to promote health and wellness for the residents of tenac social equity and conservation so we're in line with those pillars which is in line with the national Recreation and park Association um uh Mantra so account 220 for sport uh for summer camp programs the increase mainly is for our Sports and arts program uh what we're going to get back to is having trips so our trips and admission and vendors for our specialty our specialty um activities so that's increase of $30,000 for trips and admissions um in line with the steam um programs um you know for science technology and environment um and those kind of things um so the other account of holidays uh we're asking for additional money last year we did the ice skating outside for the holiday holiday tree lighting and that was very successful so we included it again in this year's budget okay GL have we maintained or increased services with this budget we're not losing any services in 2024 not losing any Services no and how are you with Staffing I know we had a couple retirements are you up to staff with we are in Full Staff finally after 2009 when we lost uh four of our staff members um now we're finally up to full Staffing okay and uh I'll just bring this up I know you do need a an oven for um the programs upstairs well um our oven really has not been functioning since we opened the building in 1998 uh we've had Public Service in there we've had DPW in there and just recently um it was determined that perhaps the oven was just a lemon so we've had a steam table there but uh we're going to go back to having a regular commercial oven and that's a 15,000 and we will cover that through Capital Municipal upgrades Andor Tron don't Wiz the DP one of the DPW budgets but we will get the the oven sooner rather than uh later uh we are serving meals again at the we are serving meals uh we have about uh 30 residents signed up weekly not every day but you know throughout the week and program fees just give me a little input on where we're at with program Fe program fees for the senior Center uh they don't pay any fees there's there no fees for seniors for any of the programs our transportation and disabled resident servic is of no feas to any of the residents in town a lot of people have been moving back into town or into town from covid knowing that we offer this service where local communities around us do not have that service and our uh programs for adults and for children are at a nominal fee okay do you feel we need an increase with the fees and know we used to evaluate every other year every couple years you think is a need if we do if we do increase fees it would be a nominal maybe $5 to $10 for a session we still want to make it Equitable for everyone and affordable for everyone to participate we don't want to exclude people from participating in programs and having nothing to do so ahe have mayor do anyone on Council have any questions for Miss Crockett Deputy Mayor G um have you ever I know um with the youth programs or at least the not the youth programs the summer camp programs and the preschool program or yeah Sunshine Garden um the fees are really low and I wonder is there an opportunity to consider raising them very a small percentage every year consistently and having families being used to the fees um increasing just to cover the cost of the program because I believe we can we could do that um actually uh in the flyer that we have prepared to go out on Monday we having their fees subject to change okay and there is an opportunity for sibling discounts and we do families can receive subsidy from um the county if they if they um are eligible that's awesome thank you Miss Goldberg is that your hand up yeah Mr Mayor um my first question is for for the camps and and all the programs have we seen what what's the enrollment Trend um for for the summer programs I guess since CO as it got gone down gone up what have we seen I'm just curious we're at maximum enrollment if if we are not at maximum enrollment it would be for the last session which is the session uh the first week in August okay otherwise we're at full capacity the rest of the Summer full so full capacity is how many kids about 125 to 12 130 a week for each of the camps um all right and then my other question is is for the additional um the shrimps for sports and arts that we're bringing back in um was that since Co that those were gone or I'm just curious when those well we haven't had trips in sports and ours probably for at least 10 to 15 years and we want to make it interesting for the children so trips and special events is something that we wanted to bring back is there any additional Staffing required to do that or is that staying flat the same the same staff will be uh required for trips and special events we bring other vendors in for for the campers to enjoy okay [Music] um I think that's all I have for right now I'll let someone else go Miss Belcher is at your hand yes it is uh okay um lenda thank you so much for your presentation um I certainly see that you know a 3% increase is certainly you know can justify the fact that the supply chain has increased their their the cost of doing business the cost of supplies and and so forth would you say that though um it's more attributed to the fact that you're you're bringing back some of the you know experiences of of having um you know the students um participate in off-site types of activities or you are you saying it's more the 3% would be you know more attributed to the fact that they're is um increase in pricing just in general well definitely an increase in pricing across the board everything has cost more our supplies our consumables um so that is basically one of the things that we have to take it take into consideration also hiring staff if they can get $15 a Burger King or or any of the other fast food restaurants why wouldn't they work there instead of coming to us when they have to be responsible for the things that they do so we pay a little bit more for our uh instructors and our counselors so we have better quality staff lifeguards as well right Glenn so absolutely we have no shortage I think we're one of the better absolutely municipali the only ones that I've heard that pay better than us for our lifeguards is New York City and is there's a need for that because if we don't then we don't have life fors for the pool correct great thank you anybody else on Council Miss Oregan the pool so pool badges um how much per family and how many do we sell a year it's not per family it's per person so adults for a new badge is $30 renewal is 25 children it's $15 for a new badge 10 for Renewal the numbers that we sold in 2023 we sold 174 adult passes and 744 children passes okay plus we had uh a number of guest passes sold what are what are the guest passes run and can anybody use them they were $15 a piece and uh we're trying to have a a restriction where the adult badge user has to purchase the guest pass and accompany the person to the pool okay thanks you're welcome anybody else on Council GLA thank you for everything that you do and your team as well we appreciate you guys thank you and GL before you uh leave the podium I just while you're up there just go over the three capital items that we have for you and I'll summarize Capital to council uh towards the end of the evening but uh we have three items in there uh for recreation uh we put in 500,000 that's for twoe bathrooms at tun Park and Brooks Park uh we also put in 50,000 for renovations to the hul court at V Park and there is uh 250,000 in there for repairs to the V Park Pool and when Mr Romeo our director Public Works uh goes over his budget he can explain a little bit about the uh the need for these repairs to keep that pool up and running for the next several years right prefab bathrooms especially for Brooks that's something that the uh senior Advisory Board it brings up every month uh we have now the new Walking path we're going to be upgrading the exercise area we're getting the benches installed hopefully by April the 18th of our next meeting so and of course tur hun park with our new playground there we're having a lot of foot traffic they poured the concrete for the the pads for the benches at Brooks Park the other they just waiting for it to cure and hopefully next week weather permitting they'll be installing the benches okay any other needs that you think uh moving forward we have the six-year Capital plan and each year you know we do have a a park in there the next park that is scheduled to uh that we're going to focus on of course is Sagamore we don't have it in the 2024 budget because we have yet to receive the uh Green Acres Grant and and once we get confirmation that we will receive money that Park will be uh included in 2025 and the other thing for 2025 which would be very important is a new van for our transportation programs anybody else thank you Glenna Thank you Lisa I I think councilwoman beler has your hand up oh sorry councilwoman Bel did you have your hand up uh nope that's from before thank you sorry my fault thank you all righty Dean um next I'm going to bring up Mr Romeo a director of Public Works and he has a fairly large budget couple different categories so uh we're going to start out Council so that you're aware the DPW is budget actually there's a couple different budget numbers but we're going to start with budget number 300 and that begins on page 94 of your of your budget book and just to go over some quick numbers uh P public works again is a very very active Department I get many both myself and my Deputy manager get many many requests uh for items that may not be in the budget uh we had to increase some of these sub accounts to make sure we have sufficient money in them uh to address any any needs in the township to keep us safe so last year uh we adopted uh 2,21 2017,18 th000 in account 300 this year uh Mr Romeo is asking for two 2, 57720 that's about a 16.23% increase and that comes to a total of $359,800 under contract services and Mr Romeo will'll talk about all these in a minute uh we also have uh sub account uh 230 which of course is our disposal costs um 239 which is personal safety equipment uh 240 which is streets and Sewer supplies and sub account 280 uh which covers outside repairs uh the other accounts either remain flat or s a a minor increase uh in the account number 300 so Travon can you just go over those five that I mentioned and the justification and the need for those increases uh start was 240 240 um because of the age of the infrastructure approximately 100 and over 100 years old it's a need of a lot of repairs right now and um we are trying to do it in stages rather than do all at one time so um it is cheaper if we could schedule um the repairs rather than wait for a breakdown and pay the emergency prices so we have um budgeted um a little more money in in um into that account this year so we can do preventive maintenance instead of um uh proactive maintenance um we did also um had an increase in disposal cost because of um uh the cost of fuel and just the rise raising prices of um the Commodities um recycling is is a commodity the prices go up and down and sometimes we make money sometimes we lose money so um some years um we have to account for the fluctuation in prices um for the what were the other account uh Contract Services 210 or 210 10 210 that is um Services uh we use for the repair and maintenance of um for example the HB unit in these buildings um um the generators um so covers the extra additional trucks for leaf removal that we bring on yes um well this year um Conan Goldberg she had um suggested we tweak um some stuff and we did and with that we brought in additional um equipment and due to that there was an additional course uh which worked out fine um and we also did um again some um preventive um repairs that um [Music] uh uh drove the cost up but it's not as great as if we had wait until it um it broke down and 280 the outside repairs we also saw about a $50,000 increase yes because um we have a lot of um um equipment and Facilities that are very old and P sour in the past the keep um those equipment and Facilities running pretty costly all right so again this is account summary for budget 300 and as I mentioned there's five accounts that really sore a fairly significant increase in 210 which is Contract Services that went up about 75,000 and change uh the next one is disposal cost under subcount 230 that saw an increase of about 126,000 now Travon with the disposal course with um Atlantic Coast fibers coming online again sometime this year and if not already will that help us uh reduce any disposal costs it should it should help us but like I said um those are Commodities and the prices fluctuate with the market okay and we're not making really any money on anything maybe coreboard a little bit sometimes we make um money on cardboard if um due to our collection method we don't have um like uh containers that keep all the um Commodities dry for example the cardboard and once it's wet it is it is treated as um garbage so they can't process that so we don't get any money for it then but if we collect on um on a sunny day and everything is dry we currently getting $4 um a ton aard yes sorry all right so not so not much uh so the other sub account that saw the significant increase Street and Sewer supplies but the r will mention the need for that that was $81,500 increase and outside repairs under sub account 280 uh he's asking for an additional 50,000 to cover his cost so under 300 as I mentioned 2023 we adopted 2,21 2017,18 in 2024 uh we're asking for 2,577 120 again that's an increase of 16.23% or $359,800 and this one actually saw a a little bit of a reduction in 2023 we adopted 521 $750 this year Mr Romeo is asking for $478,000 by $ 570 there's three sub account accounts to this uh decrease of about minus 8.28% or $43,900 with 310 um we had projected to do um overhaul of the uh of the booty pool and and um after budget considerations we had to um reduce our expectations and just um two repairs that would enable us to have the pool functional um for another year or two so instead of um spending uh 250 that we had requested um due to budgetary constraint we um reduce that cost to do just um the minimum required to keep the pool functional until um council could um uh fund a new pool instead of trying to put money into this pool which makes sense um to upgrade rather than replace now the repairs we want to make using Capital monies for the vot pool uh what what needs to be done and how long will that keep that pool operational for the repairs we are currently um proposing I'm thinking um like two to three years and what needs to be done uh with um with the pool we need to uh replace the deck remove all the concrete from the deck and some of the jet lines has to be um replaced the crack and broken so um we losing water um [Music] daily and um we need to um there are some possible trip and Hazards on the deck because of um the the loss of um water there citations in the um deck so we are just concentrating on the deck the Jets and of course um the pumps we have to replace one of pumps um and that's the minimum you're doing we're going to paint the pool also all right good all right so we're going to move to the maintenance account which is uh budget 320 and that's on page 106 of your budget books and that covers about 13 different sub accounts uh to run some numbers 2023 we adopted $656,000 um travana is asking for $668,000 an increase of about $1,850 or 1.81% um you'll see in here uh Board of Education you know we do have a shared service agreement with them um this generally comes up every year we do repair their vehicles we build them um and this covers just a lot of the maintenance supplies that are pretty much self-explanatory and again for the most part this uh this account under maintenance is staying relatively relatively flat anything you want to add with this account Tron uh yeah the reason why this account is has a minimal increase is because of um Mr Kinski here he has given us um a lot of the stuff we needed the tools and new equipment so we had a reduction in maintainance cost um compared to um previous years where we had old equipment and keep putting a lot of money into keeping them functional however we have gotten um a lot of new equipment um from with the support of the manager and um the reason why we have a slight increase this year is mainly we our um Parts and Repair um account went down but the outside repairs went up because we had like accidents and that kind of stuff and when those vles go out to fix we had um we had a little increase had it not been for that we would have been lower than than what we are now and just want to thank Council as well they're the ones that approved the the budget so uh vehicle wise you said you're in pretty good shape and now we got all can you just go over some of the new vehicles we've gotten in over the past year um we have gotten um two uh pickup trucks uh two Mason Dums a bobcat um a new um pack of truck for the parks um we have a new sewer truck um that is supposed to be delivered um the middle of this month um April the cost of $480,000 it's a big it's a big purchase um a new tree truck a new um chipper wood chipper and um we have some other pickup tracks on order I we have a couple on order and we got a milling machine as well we got a milling machine so again uh with with the thanks uh from from Council you know we um Council was able to you know pay us approve and to get the equipment that you need I think you guys are in pretty good shape compared to where you were a couple a couple years ago um so let's move forward to uh the DPW um snow removal account that's budget 325 on page1 of the budget book and this uh this account we're keeping flat so in 2023 it was 8343 uh it's remaining flat same uh same number for 2024 uh anything you want to you know mention with this account Tron uh with this account what we we did um uh we changed uh some stuff that we did in the past we tried to do all um the snow removal and um clearing inhouse and we were fortunate the last couple years that we haven't had any major snowstorms so um that's why we keeping it flat uh maybe global warming I don't know so okay that's that's all I have for DPW anybody on Council have any questions yes Mr cats your position is a very difficult position because the reality is this is what the residents see they see the leaf piles they see the snow and uh whenever there's been a change in guard in your position over the years I always ask did the previous person leave the secret ingredients because the truth is EK has always been admired and respected and and I guess envied by the neighboring towns you know I've had people from Bergenfield reach out to me during a snowstorm and ask like can you do my street as well so I want to say you excelled this year because you not only did the snow fantastic but you got rid of the storms so I'm not sure and I will say also this is really the first year um and being honest in maybe about 10 years that I got not one complaint or maybe I got it maybe I got one uh about the leaves you know sometimes these leaves that when one of the piles game picked up one of the piles G picked up one of the piles game picked up and this year and and and I know that you know councilman Goldberg and I have been like working on that with the manager to see how we can address it but I don't know if if there was a cause for needing to address it this year so I just wanted to publicly thank you praise you and keep up the great work thank you uh Miss Goldberg I think I see your hand up yep um first Deputy Mayor cats I want to add councilwoman Oregon because she was also pretty instrumental and looking at that so I think that was great um so thank you for the leaf collection this year it was great um and I also didn't get a single complaint which I know it's normally the Hot Topic of the year um I I wanted to ask uh first of all um do you I mean as Deputy Mayor cat just said you're kind of the the face of what so many residents see do you um feel that you have everything to really do what you need to do for the township properly a new DPW will be great building sorry okay well hopefully soon um but as far as trucks and everything do you feel that you have the equipment that you need to be able to continue the level of service for our residents at this time definitely yes okay um my other question what account was it hold on it was um account 250 for the tree supplies um I'm just trying to understand I don't know if this was a typo or where this is coming from but um I know we're requesting 57,8 40 and last year we requested 48,000 but spent 128 so I'm just trying to figure out what the incredibly high overspend was and why we don't need that this year or do we should we do we need that this year I don't know if that's a Dean question or you I'm not sure it it's showing Travon that we spent 128,000 in 2023 when we only budgeted 48,000 585 I don't know Isa if there was and asking for 57 so I just want to make sure that we're properly budgeted well like we we can't really that fluctuates a lot um depending on um storms and the condition of the trees when they are inspected um because we don't have a crane we need to hire a crane and sometimes um one three it might cost us8 $24,000 take down so sometimes uh we don't have anything sometimes we have several so that will fluctuate um similar to disposal cost he so you able to check through Edmonds uh if you're online with Edmonds yeah uh yes we'll just check Edmonds quick and give you a little breakdown of why that account was so high that's my other my only question if anyone else wants to chime in well they check we have the new sign machine as well Trevon so signs were able to pretty much make whatever we need in town yes we did yeah forget to mention that so Mr manager there um there's several transactions that pop out we had a loan for E clay uh light infield mix about $112,000 for that you had several uh mulching at coolage Mao Park Ammon Park MLK Park V you had let's see what other large transactions again these are just large notable transactions I'm finding so then I guess my question is is what is being asked for enough given what that's for like I just want to make sure that we're covered so is that 57840 you think enough for this sub account Tron 250 we we could we could do it an increase but we we Tred to keep it um okay all right I just wanted to get a sense of what what that was and and what that if if that was maintenance potentially needed for year over-year but and that's uh Mr manager if I could add there was I believe this is a one-time expense there was an urban tree canopy assessment for $10,000 believe that was part of a grant that we had to put out so I don't think that's going to be a reoccurring expense but this was the appropriate line to charge for that okay thanks anybody else on Council no Mr Romeo thank you thank you to your crew you guys do so much to help our hometown and we are so grateful make a statement real quick before um I I became director in 2001 and I had I had um very little experience I was superintendent for like um I superintendent for like a little over a year and um I had no no like no rule model nobody to look up to to like guide me but um I had um Dean you know a true true public servant and um he has been very supportive of the DPW he has given us everything that he could and um true Council um petition for equipment um we accomplished a a lot um we we comp a lot because he believed in me he gave me the opportunity to um to Excel and when um when we encountered um situations where um the budget was was a problem and I came up with crazy ideas he believed in me and that and gave me he never micromanaged he gave me that opportunity to um to move forward um I was I I um I lost a lot of sleep since the last meeting when I when I heard he was he was going to leave because I can't imagine um T without Dean I mean he has a lot of institutional knowledge and that goes a long way because um when I have a problem um in song and I could come and say Dean he knows exactly what I'm talking about he will um say no let's go talk to Issa we'll find the fans to do it go ahead and and that kind of stuff so um I don't know I don't know what tomorrow brings it wouldn't be the same it will be it will be different but um I emulate Dean a style of leadership a true true um Ser servant and I strive to follow in that um in in that in his footstep and hopefully I could have a legacy as his own and that is all I I I would like to say thank you so much thank you Dean thank you so much and and Tron I trust as I as I always tell Council um he he's to get it done person I get so many requests whether it's from Council or the public and he is the subject of most of those requests and unequivocally what I'm telling you whatever I asked for he gets it done somehow some way he finds the resources and uh I I don't micromanage I trust my department heads they know what they're doing it's a it's a great team and everyone plays a little bit of a role in this including Issa you know with trying to find money uh where sometimes we don't think we have it but um I I have the utmost faith and confidence not only in trabon but all the department heads and they really do a wonderful job they really think outside the box that's what I want I I I I enjoy them it's refreshing when they come up with ideas and again if it doesn't work out uh we go to plan B but uh you know as I say it all the time I'm fortunate I'm blessed to have the department heads and a great team that you know makes us successful as an organizations so thank you very much for those kind words thank you thank you J okay next up is engineering right next is engineering Miss Farah galani hi Farah and welcome and so we're gonna go over Council um the engineering account it's 165 it's a uh small account but you can find it on page 43 of your budget books and in uh this this also had a slight increase uh from the previous year so in 2023 for engineering uh services and other expenses we adopted 315,000 $730 in 2024 uh engineering is requesting $364,950 that's an increase of $ 48,52 or 15 37% uh really the um the increase comes from profession Prof Services by far I'll let you explain a little bit about your account right good evening everyone um so um for uh increase U so should I explain about the increase in the Professional Services I'm sorry increase of increase in Professional Services yeah so just yeah cover sub account 29 uh 219 218 and 241 so 29 sub ACC County 219 um it was no increase um 16 uh in 2003 we have 16,500 and uh in 2024 it's 16,500 even so uh and it's mostly our strong water permit fee and strong water awareness program and then some other DP D fees which we pay from this account um and then sub account 218 uh it has um in-house engineering consultant fee and uh it's some increase in that and then we have outside engineering fee which uh we have little bit more increase in that um par just cover exactly some of your responsibilities as the in-house engineer I know what you do and it's a lot it really is I work with you every day and um you know whether it's grants whether it's projects design it's a lot of work but just cover what you do day in and day out on a daily basis so um review uh residential plan and it's been increased in that uh uh those plans uh I think almost 50% increase in those residential plan uh like if somebody is uh uh incre um uh addition having some addition in their work in their home or new new houses new houses are not that much but mostly people are doing some addition in their houses so we have to look for it any drainage condition uh I also um uh grant for um there are like every month there are several grants we apply for and I they uh do the concept plan for those Grant and um uh um the cost estimate for those grants um and I work very closely with the gr writer um also uh any day resident all all the time they come and they have any um issues with the infrastructure drainage condition or any other uh issues so um um so I have to respond to them um um also um so yeah basically those are the and the St Water Management uh I'm also the strong water coordinator for the town so I have to do uh uh the annual report for strong water management and uh for that there is like throughout the year we have to do certain things to make sure that we comply with the strong Water Management it's very very tedious work especially the applications the Green Acres the grants um both far or salana and the staff do a wonderful job very accessible to me responsive to me so I appreciate your hard work with with everything thank you thank you Dean and I Echo the same thing which Travon said uh Dean is the great manager and uh yeah we we love work uh working for working for with him and yeah it's great working with him anybody on Council have any questions yes Mr cats and uh this year thank goodness nothing um I just wanted to find out how we're looking with the um U the alternate parking lot next to the um alternate parking lot for the roota center the but the simple version not the fancy version with stripes and the stones yeah how's that looking so yeah that's my only gift that I'm looking for for this season this holiday season so we we did uh prepare some concept plan and some concept steaming for that so it all depends how much uh uh where the money where where the money is coming from so but it's a simple simple version like just a dump truck three tandems stones yeah yeah but if increase uh if there is a grass and we are increasing um um non-permeable non nonpermeable we're going to need a dry well but uh uh if we are increasing um the surface uh surface for the vle vular surface if we are increasing that then we have to do certain requirement uh with G to take care of what type of surface increasing if we are increasing like uh vehicular surface where vehicle can can um park or vehicle vehicle can uh uh run on that so if we are increasing that motor vehicle surface then um we have to do certain uh requirement so we make sure that uh there is uh no no negative impact on environment uh because of that okay so we make sure that we take care so you think it's going to be a good holiday season for all of us this year yeah it's looking Dean is that looking that way or I think so I think we'll be able to make it work okay sounds good thank you and far before yeah before you go um you want to go over some of the capital projects and how many streets have we resurfaced over the last four years four or five years a lot right we have over over 100 100 I have a I have the whole whole map which I think we're in a 130 area over five years yes so that's quite a few we caught up there's still a little we got to chip away a little bit more but we've made a significant impact in the road infrastructure in town and also we received several grants for the roadway uh we rece uh and this year also we received almost a million dollar um Grant um in uh um in in in the roadway surfacing for for for roadway surfacing um we received 550k from ngj doot local aid grant um for fight Lane Improvement we received 250 almost 257 for Palisade Avenue and we received uh 147 from cdpg so it's h yeah so for 2024 we put in capital for Road resurfacing 2.39 million and and Council should be aware that a lot of these grants we get as I mentioned grants are great but a lot of these grants we have to put the money up first and then we get it reimbursed so the 2.3 will cover some of these grants that we have to put the money up first and then we will get reimbursed by the different um organizations we also have 150,000 in capital for traffic safety measures and we usually take care of the traffic caling striping and generally in the fall we get that done and we'll continue to hit some of the problem problem areas uh we also put a quarter of a million dollars in for emergency sewer and drainage repairs we're going to focus on queenan road that's one of the areas uh and then of course we have Bell Avenue the BIOS swes uh 400,000 and the Bell Avenue uh retention system which is 1.3 million now we have to put this in capital we need the money uh because we do have the grants uh we'll get that money when we're done with the project but we have to put this in in capital and raise the money first and pay for the project before we get reimbursed um can I ask a question on that so we lay out the 1.3 million by bonding 5% 5% down yep how about two years later how much later do we get the money back we just have we have to show them proof that the project is done and of course the Bild and then 90 days later there's a wire I how long's the far usually take when we get these Grant is different but as soon as we submit the grant they give like within one or two months and then that money the 1.3 comes back and we pay down the bond or we can put that into Surplus um you have multiple options you could I actually learned this uh about a year or two ago from our former B Bond Council you can apply to debt we typically refund the bond ordinance with it and you could if you don't have any project you know and depending on how the bond ordinance was originally written you can move that back into Capital Surplus or you could use it for another project staying in capital I mean it can't come into regular Surplus that could be used next year's yeah you can't like kind of mix between the two with separate that's what I'm saying so the wire comes in but it's cigar yes you can though put it towards the debt service you can do that Debt Service budget for next year no meaning the bond ordinance you can use that money for the bond ordinance to pay down the debt on that ordinance so for example if it was ordinance 42 d224 you can take it and say hey I'm gonna throw it at there to pay that 1.3 million I borrowed down or you could just refund the bond ordinance and next time you have to do like a park Improvement you say hey I have an ordinance with money in it I'm going to hit that for the budget side got it yeah so when we're doing Capital we really should almost have two budgets how much we're doing Capital to spend and how much we're doing Capital get reimbursed meaning if we're doing $20 million in capital next year which is a seen amount of money but 10 of it's coming back that's a huge mental number for Budget well if I recall on our spreadsheet what we do show is like debt authorized your down payment and then we can make like a net column so you could see what really the net number is we can do that okay thanks it does not it does not hit the Swiss bank accounts though that's that was my first question but now I'll go to number two Swiss bank accounts it does not hit there you you know where I'm going with that yes thank you Mr shorts anyone else on Council thank you Farah and thank you to everybody on your team we appreciate you we have three more to go mayor uh managers account which is on page one of the budget book that's account number 100 uh not much changed in 2023 adopted 75,200 uh this year it went up $4,000 uh to 79250 and the reason for that increase is the grant writing consultant Millennium strategy their fee went from 42,000 to 48,000 I don't think we had an increase with that account Isa for a couple years right yes uh for the grant writer it was a flat rate of 3500 a month since we brought them on in 2016 across the board this year their prices have risen I know in other towns it's risen um and I fully support using that organization as our grant Rider yeah I think they do an excellent job and besides grant writing you do support us and you do recoup the cost for disaster storm recovery I've said it several times but with their assistance we've recouped over a million dollars for Hurricane Isaias in 2020 and Ida combined in 2021 so I I there's seven sub account accounts under my budget again they're all U self-explanatory stationary supplies uh tolls meetings office equipment uh professional dues and then you have the grant writing cons consultant and public information is's uh 12,000 in there that covers the ten times recycling calendar and annual support and then the manager has a training budget as well of 16,600 that not only do I use that but many of the uh departments inhouse outside of police and fire use that use that account as well so again uh for 2024 I'm asking for 79,2 that's up 4,00 from the previous year and then we'll move on to the Council budget and that can be found on page 18 of your budget book and that is account number 110 uh Council had an adopted uh budget in 2023 of 183,000 in 2024 uh we are asking for Council is asking for 132 2,000 that's a decrease of 51,500 there's four sub accounts to this um which covers a couple different things your Seminars the New Jersey League of municipalities conference annual conference um you also have your special projects uh discretionary funding uh tck day leadership Teck uh signage which covers the fairly expensive brass plaques that we do uh when we done with projects um the co Memorial which uh we're going to finalize very shortly and and then you have what we did do is we moved one of the big reasons for the decrease we uh moved the website design to the budget of Mis or it department and then of course you have your discretionary funding which is your um professional training which is about $3500 uh dollars so not not a big account uh but this covers some of the projects that we need to cover from from the council that's account number 110 at $132,000 Mr manager is um the empathy training for Advisory Board of community relations in here um that's not specifically but we'll use one or two of the uh sub accounts to draw from and uh he's going to speak about that on on Tuesday the cost and and the contract that I just received from fdu yesterday uh but we'll have we'll have monies either through the manager training or through one of the sub accounts in um in the council um in the council line item leadership Teck is not costing much at at all uh so we'll have monies uh left over from that um so we're fine with u getting the initial empathy training done the train a trainer uh is a is another story we'll have to see where we can draw from that's a little more expensive than regular but we'll we'll get it done anybody else on Council have a question for the manager uh the last account we have uh and a person that needs no introduction uh to my right is our clerk Doug ruson that's a budget account 120 that can be found on page 20 um we adopted in 2023 a budget of 127 127 uh and $25 in 2023 uh Doug is asking for 129,000 actually that's going to be that's that's not correct uh because I did remove something at the 11th Hour uh 5,000 from that so um Doug is actually coming in a little bit slightly under budget from last year it will be in that 120 should be 124 675 and I'll um Doug will let you know where he's taking that extra 5,000 from so in 2024 he's asking for 124 675 Doug yes thank you Mr manager good evening Council folks back home uh residents with us this evening yes as we know the clerk's office really does get to interact with every aspect of our Township operations but what's really cool about the clerk's office is that our budget doesn't necessarily reflect that it's mostly things that we're doing uh with our hands with our staff as you know it's me your Township Clerk and we have uh two residents that also work in our office Kristen and John Kristen being our Deputy clerk um tons of you have seen them and know them at this point without them I don't know how we would be able to get a lot of the things done that we get done and yes manager he uh did mention that in our budget one of the big differences that we're seeing is um our code maintenance I I I believe the documents that Council has in front of them should be reflecting the correct number for code maintenance now um it it's at 111 it's not changing from last year uh and that's because we did a huge code revamp a couple years ago so the cost for our supplements for our ecode which many residents council members enjoy uh on our website the supplements are much cheaper now because we uh got on top of that huge recodification that we had to do um the other differences that we're seeing is really just trimming the fat of some of our operating budget things that we're noticing that we don't really need to dip into as much um we're a pretty self-sufficient Department like I said a lot of the things that we work on and spend our time on are things that do not cost us money other than time um some of the big projects I just want to let you all know about that we're working on this year um we all know that the website has been a long time coming um and thankfully I think that might have been in actually council's budget and I I think the manager touched on that but you'll notice that we did not have to put any money into that line item this year because we have enough earmarked from last year's budget to handle that um and the website is definitely coming along very nicely looking for a soft La launch hopefully before the summertime uh definitely don't hold me to that but we're trying and and uh the other things that we'll be working on again are advisory boards for the first time probably in Forever enjoyed a rather Hefty budget this past year Grace to us from Council which I know that a lot of them were able to use I think a lot of our volunteers um might have just been a little a little shell shocked that they actually had some funds at their disposal for different projects and initiatives so I'm really looking forward to this year hoping that we'll be able to fund their ideas help with their projects um like I mentioned the Township Code we are working on that on a rolling basis the price tag to it really shouldn't be so high that's the key to stay on top of it and uh of course it's going to be a very very busy election year we have a council election we have the presidential election um come June time getting ready for the primary and then of course we have our general in November we will definitely be focused on that as the time approaches and something to not stress us out but just to think about and put on the radar um I know all of us know our agendas we all know our minutes um that are on the website publicly available I'm very proud of TX format for things our format for our agendas in our minutes are very Regal and very nice compared to a lot of other municipalities no offense to other municipalities um and it has reached our ears that the serer of our software is actually ending the software's life uh halfway through next year um or I believe at the end of next year so towards the end of this year after we get our website up and running to a very good kind of autopilot State um that's going to be the next kind of technological overhaul that we're looking at is updating our agenda software hoping that we'll be able to get the same quality of product that we've been having and then some I have no idea what that price tag is going to look at like at this point everything's getting more expensive um but you know hopefully we be able to make it work that's really all I have to report on thank you for all your hard work they do an incredible job and um appreciate all the work to do for my office as well Deputy Mayor Catz um also great job um what did you say the number of opras that you did in 2023 was rearing 1,400 1500 too many you keep that yes we do yes yes we do and that's actually through a software that we purchased a couple years ago sdl and we do um we did track it through there sdl has been a big help in my department some of our other departments definitely for opras also really streamline the process chance can you share that number with Council 2022 and 2023 just to get the absolutely and then can also um what about the merchant and Resident uh tags your office issues them right absolutely can I can we bother you for those numbers as well I'll get that to you tonight perfect it does not be T tomorrow tomorrow morning no not tomorrow it's a holiday Monday that's it Monday we can get them Monday we can and once we get the Oprah numbers with the council elections coming up if there's a violator on there we'll just have them run for Council and then we can uh have the OAS go down and we'll see where she where Council when Goldberg is but hi um and okay just for Oldtimer sake I got to ask a question we asked of the clerk every year um how are we on the backlog of minutes how are we doing there is no backlog of minutes sorry I had anybody else I think it's important that uh council member Schwarz points out what he's been pointing out which is that under you and your great organization and your office there is no backlog of minutes and there are many people or residents not many residents a handful of residents that have spoken in the past about that concern and that was something that you addressed immediately when you took just because of the prior clerk may be in the room it's really dating back multiple I just want to make sure it's dating back multiple clks just that record it's not also working really hard to become can I if I can correct the record it was actually in the transition that we made sure we were caught up I'm just putting it out there with the 380 plus opras by individual in two months Municipal professionals are spread thin sometimes I just want to point out it was it was council member Schwarz that brought it up not me okay I don't take it personally you know you should you should he's a mench don't worry I don't take it personally anybody else on Council Mr clerk thank you for everything that you do thanks thank you Council manager I would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity with the microphone in my hand to also talk about the last six years I'm not going to talk about the last six years in entirety but the last six years of my life that I've spent with our Township manager which has been definitely one of the most enriching experiences in my life I remind everyone here I'm actually only 28 years old so six years is a pretty big portion of my life and I've spent a lot of that time here in Tek growing up uh with our residents with our community with our Township and I've spent most of those days this last six years sweating with our manager over a bunch of different things our CFO Our Town attorney and we we really work hard and our jobs sometimes get difficult you know sometimes get logistically emotionally difficult like I just said Municipal workers are sometimes spread very very thin and the type of management style that our manager was able to bring to this Township to our community culture company culture is really a product of this man being a true son of tenek it's it's able to be seen by the workforce by our policy leaders and makers by our community and really you can't ask for a better gig from a Township manager someone who grew up here went to school here knows the community has seen the community change for decades almost three times my lifetime we'll be sharing a lot more greatest hits of Dean kazin over the next few months just quickly with with Doug um you know I remember getting the call actually my my daughter actually called me and said would you mind speaking to uh a friend of mine and he's wants to get involved in government and he wants to talk to you so I said sure and I said who is it and he said uh Doug ruson I said okay and Doug and I had never met but my daughter daughter knew new Doug from Ringwood and uh so I had a good conversation with Doug and you know he really had just this passion desire for government work uh to be a civil servant and we had an opening a four-time opening in a clerk's office and gave him a call and Doug came right on board uh that led to uh an opening a full-time opening in the clerk's department and we shifted him right over we saw the the caliber and level of his work as as well and of course he worked very hard when uh there was the opening in the clerk's office when our clerk was transitioning to CFO and and Doug studied very hard it passed the clerk's test with uh on the first try with I think a score in the upper 90s I think 97% she got the highest grade in that test offering who's counting yeah so he's done wonderful wonderful things in a short period of time he's he's been here and again a pleasure to work with uh you know he's got tremendous energy um I I don't know you know hopefully he keeps up that pace uh but uh just an incredible asset to the organization and again um I will certainly miss him you know in a couple months but uh we're all gonna miss you yes no thank you for all you do thank you thank you Mr Clerk and I love the Eric B and rock Kim line that you used about the microphone in your hand Mr manager anything else the last thing we have is I just want to review the 2024 Capital Improvement budget uh I I did make one minor revision to remove 300,000 from the capital budget and that is under the fiber optic project I spoke to our Mas Department today and there's not a need for that right now so that will be removed that'll bring Capital down to 8195 million so under Police and Fire Equipment desperately need police cars we put the 540 in there uh to cover police cars we have to replace the acoustic panels in the range uh that's at the Firearms range that's 45,000 uh the 200,000 uh we're putting in there for the ladder truck that's the additional funds we do have the option of waiting to 2025 if we need to do that uh and of course the fiber optic project is coming out uh under streets and roads I mentioned we're putting in 2.39 million um we do have some grant money that will come back out of that we have our traffic safety measures traffic caling the rumble strips uh that's we put in 150,000 there may be some other speed bumps going in in certain locations uh emergency sewer drainage repairs so we're going to focus on queenan road that's a quarter of a million dollars and then of course you have the Bell Avenue both projects and that will be Grant monies that will come back to us but we have to put the money out first that's 1.7 million parks and playground improvements the V pool is mentioned that's 250,000 renovations to the hul for to B Park uh 50,000 the preat bathrooms in Brooks Park and tum Park half a million do uh the library we have 500,000 in there for the interior Renovations Municipal Building upgrades and repairs is uh some projects we need to get done and we kind of write the um the ordinance to make sure everything we need here is included including Renovations for engineering department that's at a little over $1 million uh roof replacement at the pump house in Oak that comes at a cost of about 60,000 the generator replacement for the radio repeater uh which we need is um 10,000 and I put in another half a million for the DPW facility at you know it's 500,000 that brings us to a total of 8.19 million and then the following Pages you'll see the six-year Capital Improvement plan uh we have uh expenditures uh for the police department on there again this is not in stone the you know can stuff can be shifted around here and there you'll see some of the entries for the police department um we you know every year we're throwing in in 2025 uh we're putting in a million for public works and and the goal for me with Public Works so that everyone knows is that again we're in the process with the uh special engineer and with the lsrp uh to finalize exactly where this can go we have to apply for permits uh we have to do the conceptual plan and design uh I'm hopeful that that is accomplished by Year's End and that sometime with Council approval and funding you know we might be able to get a shovel in the ground in 2025 so that that's kind of my timeline for that um engineering you see a bunch of different projects on there for the six years following of course we always put money in there for Road resurfacing traffic safety measures Municipal parking lots we will get a small one done uh this year in 2024 uh probably will be the parking lot at station 4 uh Recreation we have a list of parks each year that we we are going to look to uh to renovate um we did throw a skate park in there for 2025 again this can all be changed this can all be be moved um P again page two or four you you'll see all the parks and and the plans for improvements for these Parks as the years go by uh fire department I wanted to bring up that you'll see fire fiber optic project additional funds uh that that's being removed you'll see 500 across the board for the next four years that that will be taken out so discount that um and then just the normal gear that the fire department needs turnout the staff cars exportation equipment um and then in 2027 uh they'll be looking to replace one of the engines uh for Squad 24 uh the following page has Library uh improvements 2025 we have um 250,000 for interior upgrades I would assume that would be for the bathrooms with the library and then we have Municipal facility upgrades uh we always generally put a million dollars in and we do chew up that million dollars in many different uh Municipal facility upgrade projects in town uh we also have to focus on in 2025 we really have to make a concerted effort 25 and 26 to digitalize our our records I'm working with Doug on that desperately needed and then DPW has a list of equipment that needs to replac needs to be replaced in the following years uh again this can all be shifted this is not in stone we're not held to this uh this is just a uh conceptual really plan moving forward and some of the needs that these departments need so that really concludes the the six-year budget um we're going to hone down on just a few other things within the next couple days and week and hopefully get together with the budget subcommittee again for another another meeting um technically we're supposed to adopt the budget uh introduce the budget I'm sorry um either March 31st or your first uh council meeting in April um we're not going to be able to do that so I think we should shoot for April 16th there's really no consequence to it we we do lose one point for Best Practices but it's not going to impact us so April 16th I think would be the good introduction date we have to wait 20 these are 28 days these are 28 days uh and that would bring us to the second meeting in may we are under State review so it may be it may take until sometime in June for the state to review and give us approval for our budget so uh that's that's kind of the the timeline right now thank you Mr manager Mr Schwarz a few things first of all um as Alan son will definitely remember um every reval time we always spend a little more time on the budget we go out I think in 2014 we went out even May or even June if I remember correctly because we really try to drill down appropriately because there's so many people are our eyes on the budget so giving up whatever we need to do to get it right is more important and we'll discuss that afterwards as it relates to a cell phone tower that we discussed in our in our budget meeting two just two or three quick questions on the capital budget first um es is there $100,000 and my math not adding up I'm not sure if there something there's definitely 100,000 missing if if I'm correct total cost less grants down payment net is debt authorized is a $100 differential somewhere if you can just take a quick look at it or tell me where I'm wrong I I could be so um fiber OCT I think we definitely I mean the chief basically says take it out so I'm I think we could there's other ways to have there's there's other ways to have redundancy than spending another 300,000 for fiber and I I'm working with my on that there's a a much cheaper way to do that okay um so those are two things I wanted to um put together that comment ask about the um in the introduction okay um police cars sorry police cars how many cars was that that would that would cover was it 6 Isa six or seven police cars the 540 and the up I believe it was even 6 to8 potentially depending on the vehicle but at least six and we haven't had it in a few years correct is that very difficult to find more we got a few in but we C we certainly need to to get more because these vehicles are raging high mileage they just need to be replaced unfortunately um Co screwed everybody up with getting delivery getting cars in and um they're coming in and drips grabs and these are the SUVs SUVs you preferably you know we want to get the tahos tahos are a little bit bigger uh and they were able to fit the equipment that we need in there now that the police use so first line Vehicles will be like that's pretty oversized yeah yep tahos if we can get them they you don't we don't know if we can get them no no electric it may be a hybrid um you we're not the electric is not going to they're not available when I could be able to get the do we um do they teach you an academy or we do the field training here how to kill the cars or within a is that like take burn zero to 60 up the hills on like that's specialized in housing right yeah that's uh that's one chapter of their training yeah Okay g yeah I was just wondering if you could walk me through the mechanics how the I was wondering if you could walk me through the mechanics of how um we get when we get reimbursed the grant money that 1.7 million it's not like we're going to pay down our principal early what do we do with those dollars yeah so I mean we that's why that's why you know tck is unique I really have not seen that before until I found out about it in one of my smaller municipalities they typically tend to do that we are have a lot more wiggle room with our debt and have that debt service in the budget we've actually been told we can up our debt service in the budget if we wanted to to make a stronger impact on that debt down payment it actually funnels back and through capital and as I said before to councilman Schwarz you can then because our bond ordinances are fairly Loosely written repurpose that funding in the future so you don't have to raise it again um so again you have two options you can pay down your principle or you can use that for another project in the future of similar value so our bond ords for example for roads if we get a grant from the county or the state it'll say Road resurfacing program including but not limited to the following streets so because it says including but not limited to once I get the money back if in the future I'm short in a year because we had a a higher cost than we expected for going out to bid I can go back and charge that Capital fund so just listening check um so you're saying we could take that 1.7 and apply it to the the next year capital budget yes provided again the bond to the bond Council rewrites the ordinance very Loosely which they've been doing for us they say including but not limited to Road surfacing sidewalk curb replacement yes thank you you're welcome Miss Oregon that's my line I trademarked it um I know there's a lot that we're juggling with the votey park bridge but are we putting anything anywhere for that well we have um we're going to use rescue plan monies for that the remaining monies that we have for that so on um on the agenda Tuesday you'll see a resolution that approves the design from the structural engineer he will give us uh the name of a contractor that can use we're going to handle it as an emergency because is uh and you know work should begin you know sometime spring to repair again I think I mentioned it's going to run us about a quarter of a million to just do some repairs that allows us to open a bridge but then we're going to have to make sure we budget uh for the following year with capital putting some additional monies in there to make permanent and we have we have Grant applications in so I'm hopeful we're going to get uh we have um what is it safe streets Farah Safe Streets grant that we applied for which we should hopefully get some money and there's there's another Grant too that we applied for so we should be able to get to get some money to offset that cost and I just wanted to also add that um the contract for CSX that I've been asking for I don't know for a while just just came today so I want to see because I know that that was used in the past for the underpass so that I'm going to look at get to but literally they found it today so I'm sorry the bridge is coming the bridge is coming up on Tuesday night there's a presentation you said on Tuesday we're gonna have a resolution that approves the uh the use of the structural engineer uh so that we can move forward with sorry I thought it was a presentation on no no any anybody else on Council have anything they want to say no good manager thank you so so very much thank you to all of our department heads in that case our next order of business Mr clerk do you have to read anything or can I make a motion to approve resolution [Music] 998-2457 should we vote on this first okay councilman Schwarz councilman beler that sounded like yes councilwoman Goldberg yes councilwoman Oregon yes Deputy Mayor cats yes Deputy Mayor G yes mayor Pagan yes adopted Mr Schwarz the floor is yours sir one timely item that we came up in our budget meeting and and we can definitely talk about it further but we do want to have a resolution on for Tuesday night we do we want to have a resolution on for Tuesday night to sell our cell phone tower this is something that we discussed as subcommittee and as a council probably on and off for the last few years for monetization purposes um again um I've personally sold my Towers in the city as many people have been they've been being bought up by funds that basically like that stable return people they're paying they're paying a top dollar right now and the technology may change if the technology technology does change you've got worthless you've got nothing um we're looking at we believe about $2 million um if we goto contract if we put out an RFP and goto contract that money can be included in this year's budget which will help bring down the projected increase significantly um not to say we have to go ahead with the sale but we need to go ahead with the RFP and what we're looking to do is have that RFP listed for Tuesday night if we have consent in shaking hands from Council so that we could get this going in time to use for this year's budget again we could talk about everything else later but that's critical for tonight do we have noding heads on that thumbs up for me okay and then we can discuss an hour later but I just want if we could please Mr clerk Mr attorney have that resolution on for Tuesday night can I ask a question while we have this CFO here real quick I'm I'm sorry councilman Goldberg I just don't want to lose councilman Schwarz real quick just a resolution put out rfps um to put out an RFP to sell the cell towers correct got tow singular Miss Goldberg yeah so if we do this and the RFP is 10 days because it's under contract it can go into this year's budget is that correct just so I understand correct and that's why we're trying to expedite in terms of we beg coincon have a council meeting on the second so in theory um we can have that when we do our a budget uh in May or late April we'll you'll be able to use it at some point yes provided provided as I confirmed with the order we have a signed contract which is the man said would also probably get us to June with the delay because the state would have to examine it you can include in this year's budget and are we talking about using the full amount we didn't have that conversation yet we can more than have it now but it's late we can have it at the next meeting it's we can have that argument no we don't I'm not arguing I'm just asking I want know it's a healthy AR Isa we have Issa here so that's my thought I'll fill in Council so they know what's going on um okay I I have a question go ahead uh yeah I I'd like to kind of go through um kind of like a pros and cons uh of this um in in in advance of the resolution um so that for those of us that don't sit on that budget subcommittee could really kind of get some visibility into some things that may um be you know vitally important I understand that you know we want to do some things that can really relieve our our um you know budget implications in terms of the year but if we could kind of uh comp you know compose some type of you know pros and cons maybe this is something already in your head uh councilman Schwarz but I think it would be a benefit for all of us to have that oh 100% And I wasn't sure if we want to do that tonight or Tuesday but I'm more than happy to start it now um we're hoping to get to it doesn't it doesn't have to be tonight it doesn't have to be tonight I'm just saying everyone's interest councilman Oregon is dying to hear this so um it's a um it's very exciting um we bring in the sale of a tower could bring in about $2 million right now that Tower which was approved by the planning board I think in 2006 um has several carriers on it and we see sorry we see $100,000 a year in rent from that uh because of that rental income stream and the long-term value of it will bring in approximately $2 million if we agree to sell it we'll get a onetime payment of say $2 million we will not get any rental payments at all so in 2025 in part of 2024 we'll have to reduce our budget by 100,000 in the pro-rated share for 2024 um so I'll see a net of $1.9 million and we can then say let's offset our increase that we're seeing right now which right now assumes is about a 7% we believe we can get it down to five I'm not we're going to drill in a little bit more so I would benefit Mark I would benefit from seeing this like on paper I I really would and I mean I think it's it's it sounds great on the surface but I think that in and and it could be Tuesday in advance of the resolution I think we we want to see what the numbers are and and my only other question is from a legal perspective maybe this isn't a question for the attorney is this something that we laterally can do uh does it require any kind of land use um you know board approval or anything like that because you mentioned the planning board was instr uh involved with previously I just want to make sure that we have the we we have the the capability of doing this just as a council so you know like I said it doesn't have to be tonight but I think in in advance of resolution I think we should have some something on paper so two two things first of all it's it's a good question we we do not need approval from anyone else that the the council can just can sell it on its own uh the second point is I know you're asking for res for resolution to put in R RFP we don't actually need a res resolution to that we have you know four n heads we can just put it out the RFB um that's not something that needs to actually be formally approved so if if we have the Ning heads then then you know we can work with purchasing to to put that out and then we have more time while that's out disc more yeah exactly so great so I'll make that motion because we could take action to go right to resolutions that we saying in the I don't even we don't even need that neither beautiful as far as creating PowerPoints ahead of a sale I don't think I'm a PowerPoint or I don't think I'm leag um qualified to put down that on writing but I think once we do get the RFP back you'll see and we'll have those illustrations that you're asking for once we get into writing from the um from the biders yeah so Denise just the way I think about it um that was really helpful for me um we the the downside to selling now is that we lose that steady stream of income right that in in theory we would get in perpetuity but the risk um for staying for not selling is kind of like um how the New York City cab drivers held medallions for so long and then Uber came along and their medallions went from being worth a million dollars to almost nothing and so the risk to not selling now is oh my God if there's new tech if there's an Uber of cell phone towers that comes along the value that we can get today we may not be able to get in the future so that's the the downside yeah I totally get it Le leasing versus S selling I I I totally get it I just want to make sure that you know we are asking the right legal questions and making sure that you know we we we're covering all bases that's all thank you anybody else considering how we have four nting heads Mr manager yes just a couple things I think we need to think of and I discussed this with Scott you know we selling I have to look into this a little bit are we selling the land and the tower um are we setting a minimum price um are we going to include any restrictions on on the land or Tower um you know things to that for that nature I think just have to down and we we can put in I'm sorry just for for for that we can if the council wants to give us specific instructions on what they want we could do that or we could put as part of the RP you know give us multiple options here what if we sell just sell you the land what if we just sell if we sell you just the just the tower what we do both give us your prices for for all of them and so we can we could also put that on the the app and then maybe you have more information to evaluate actually if we sell them the land it becomes taxable and then you really don't lose your entire 100,000 you can continue to tax them on that that's literally what I was get thinking to well I I'm I'm not sure I'm not totally familiar with is it a larger property I remember when we did it we went out and got a company to give us a cell tower during a Time by the way that people are so against cell towers um and any Towers or antennas um and we used our property to do it the only thing we did do was we gave at one point them uh ESS um to access the property I think that was done in a planning board meeting at one point um but if we sell them the land also in addition or separate then we can charge taxes forever so I mean unless you guys want to give us specific directions on it we can just put it out for you know multiple option it may give you more value by the way not just the antenna can we ask the tax assessor to just calculate what the value is of the land in in terms of tax Doge thanks I I was gonna say I totally agree with Deputy Mayor cats and just quick question does it hurt in any way to have on the RFP both options and then we I mean go back to the tax assessor after but since um we're going to do the RFP can we have both options and then evaluate and get the like can we do it all at once or do we have to wait for the no no we can we can we can put it all all in one I'm sorry if we're not going to offer the sale of the the land then the second option would be a rental agreement will be given to the purchaser of the antenna it's another option we would you what would you be ping away sorry would be willing to pay for rent mean we're not we're not giving them this is about the cell tower not about the tou of property so if you know if you want to separate that we can separate it but we should definitely separate it in the RFP that they can either buy the property or rent the property and when the RP goes public in the next few I know it's not easy to write but we kind of under the gun we can just publicize it because there's a lot of guys in this area in the city that's what they do it's it's an entire industry of sales and brokage on this they're all very quick to act we have a draft already of U Mine I think it's mine Hill that just recently sold on so do have a um and then lastly was there another Tower maybe this is for Clos CL session was there another tower that was in town that we were talking about taxes is that Clos session or not it's Clos session Clos session could we list other non non- Township Towers to list in close session Mr clerk okay so we we'll go because it is potential litigation not to be the attorney pretty good there go thank you Mr schz anyone else second all those in favor please say I hi thank you everyone for joining us tonight we hope you have a happy holid holid and a peaceful evening thank you so much