meing I called over this regular meeting of the Barona Council on Monday 6 of May 202 public meetings no of the open public meetings act have been satisfied respecting this meeting of the township Council the meeting time and date were included in the public meeting notice along with the public internet link and telephone call and information said notice of meeting agenda was posted in the municipal building and sent to the official of City Times in the Star Ledger at least 48 Hours proceeding the St time of this meeting the agenda and handouts can be viewed online at www.on nj.org council meeting a public comment period will be held in the ordance listed on the meeting agenda and instructions on how to comment will be provided at the appropriate time than CL you please call them all coun Holly here Council McGrath here councilman Roman here Deputy Mayor maoy here may Tor here may also question tonight is Deputy manager Kevin oan C and remain standing aliance United recently we've lost our member of Congress representative Donald K junor who was a true Advocate and friend of Verona and his M I would like to call at this time thank you see I talk a lot now but being of most of our visitors are not here to hear me speak we're going to change the order of business and I'm going to call up Miss Jessica Pearson the chairwoman of our environmental commission to present the awards for the 20124 environmental commission poster content this uh thank you very much for having this for helping us with this I want to first thank the mayor and Council for having us and the manager and Deputy manager for funding us and of course our municipal clerk Miss Kieran for everything that she does a lot of things um so a little bit about the uh environment enal commission we are comprised of nine members two of which are alternates and we mainly provide the recommendations to the township of Verona on any number of issues such as public land use Wetlands Water Resource protection green infrastructure recycling heal life habitat conservation and there's more but another really important part of our mission is to further Township wide education on many issues surrounding the environment um one way we do this is with social media um we have a social media wizard influencer genius who runs our social media pages and we've now started a newsletter um with the help of the Pio from the town um the public information officer has been sending that out for us we have a junior commissioner program that invites two Verona High School students to sit spend a whole year with us and attend all of our meetings and create projects which will be presented later this year and we also do assemblies at each of the elementary schools on the two topics that F that this uh poster contest focused on this year which is Recycling and reducing your uh single plastic use and no idling um I just want to say this contest has proven to be a really big educational moment not only for those that participate but also for all of us adults that see their artwork and understand how important preservation and living a more sustainable life is to the future of these kids and it's very very obvious that they're they understand it deeply and they are concerned um you will also note that their teachers have taken a stake in this as well and it's quite obvious that the teachers have really focused upon this through their curriculum you can see it you can see when you look at their posters that they really thought about it um and I also want to add that FN Brown makes participation in this contest mandatory uh and we've received 66 posters from their fourth grade class um that's one fourth grade class so talk about a tough you know a tough decision to make in so far as picking one winning poster from that um at any rate we are going to take a look at the entries that we got this year thank you be right back all you know pause for a second if you can all just maybe scoot down a little bit you can come in we're all friends here we make sure everybody sees you can scoot in this way there's some people on the hall come on in more than welcome you go in you could also now need chees [Music] this not house so PE PE okay [Music] fr St keep there any this is on it's on the right no Red Dot I need to there it is so as you can see insightful entries really amazing artwork and very thoughtful really thoughtful posters overall um I would now like the mayor to please join me to hand out the certificates and the awards to the honor from Brookdale Avenue School bike in the future Hunter bruh house that's all see your poster show it to the council there you go done you've already surpassed the mayor in artistic ability that's and show the audience there you go great job this is for oh thank you you want maybe just stand over here yeah we'll bring everybody back up okay um from Lanning Avenue School plastic Eliminator by Jaden Jen the council yeah Galler for you thank you from First Avenue School stop air pollution by Leo L Roa you can hold on to that okay there you go show the council really very awesome awesome so the gallery and from FN Brown School keep the Galaxy clean by Aaron Fry hold on that there here we have two honorable mentions from ethn ethn Brown pick up what people put down by Katherine Evans job that is frameable and from FN Brown also recycle by Michael pacero oh that's awesome well done great job so I'm gonna ask for and for all of you guys to go back front this is one where it's very easy to figure out the tall people in the back line here there you go nice line next to each other next to each other there you go shoulder shoulder get she's ask they like to say anything I just like to thank M pi and all the members of the environmental commission for hosting the contest is really a pleasure to be the Le on to this group who does work tirelessly for this town for sure uh and to you all thank you for your posters I think they will make a difference in educating the public and your peers unfortunately we're trying to solve a problem that humans created um but based on your artwork I have faith that if my generation can't do this your generation will fix it so thank you for your yeah I just want to say congratulations to all the uh everyone really participated in it it's it's a wonderful a wonderful adventure for everybody to do but I mean you're your artwork was just beautiful and we appreciate it keep it up because we want more contests like this so we can have music in councel it was a delight going through it and thank you to the environmental for all thank just want to say thank you to all the participants in the contest um first off for understanding the message and the importance of Environmental Protection and then also congratulations on your outstanding artwork skills um just like the mayor there's no way that I could draw anything that nice it's not going to happen so it's fantastic to see and then also thank you to the environmental commission they're incredibly active in this community they do so much for us from uh you know review of plans that are going to come in for the planning board to educational projects like this to advising us on public policy um so it's great to hear about the opportunities for young people to serve and to uh get involved in their education programs congratulations I'm sure uh thank you to the environmental commission for all of your hard work on this contest I too once had the pleasure of serving on it and helping to judge the contest so this is really lovely and to all the students who participated I cannot wait to see how your art progresses through middle school and high school it's one of our strengths in our community to have such a wonderful school system with wonderful Visual Arts so I cannot wait to see your displays as you go and get to middle school so good luck thank you than counil sure I just want to say thank you to the environmental commission as well and also really extend my heartfelt congratulations to all of the winners here today and I really hope that you do appreciate what a sincere honor it is to have been selected out of so many participants so you really were outstanding in your artistic ability and under and ability to understand the message which is a really important message for you and others so thank you for contributing to the dialogue about reducing idling in our community and I hope you continue to be engaged in our community and that we see you at Future Council meetings but for the moment I hope you really enjoy your prizes and hope maybe you know go get some ice screen your have a really great night and thank you so much for your contributions this evening please all are of course invited to stay for but now would be a good time to leave if of here thank you everyone for com as the uh recessional continues um going to start to arrest the marriage report as I mentioned during the moment of silence Vera mours the loss of Congress pain say to p and he and his staff were always welcome to help us um and my heart is with the the pain family and all of us County as together my heart is also with the Gasson family this week uh suffered two tragic losses to the family members a week ago today um Rona Mourns with you it was really a pleasure to see the community oping in true of Rona Spirit to support the family also like us to keep the First Responders who responded to that incident in our in our hearts and our thoughts um it's not a a difficult not an easy response it was certainly a difficult one and many First Responders very silently carry those from us uh so as a result please reach out to those see here to assist um I the honor kind of in the theme of this evening to attend the Forest Avenue recycling Museum and once again I was pretty impressed by the creativity of our third graders uh it was wonderful followups read F America there some of the inventions that they came up with were outstanding one of them helps him to remember all those days that I was sick at home watching crisis right there was a Plinko board uh which was a big highlight of getting to St uh there were some awesome inventions what was really most impressive was that every student explained their process and all of his steps it was phenomenal practice in public speaking and communication I have the honor of presenting the AR day Proclamation at the ARB Day event hosted by uh the Shad Tre commission up and by Liber field to thank the Shad Tre commission for all of their work and we did add two new trees to our Township's tree registry I was able to attend the wonderful Rona Foundation educational isol event on Friday it's always a wonderful uh event and it was great to see uh my fellow council members present and it was a pleasure especially with teacher appreciation week coming up to be able to celebrate the phenomenal teachers in this District who uh really make difference in lives of our students every day and finally I attended an excellent concert on Saturday in the BR Public Library uh hosted by the library of the BR High School chamber Wind Ensemble which is their most advanced group uh it was wonderful to have it in the small group environment in the fley meeting room downstairs it was really an impressive concert and I hope that they will continue to do like that in N we have several presentations we tonight proclamations will do police G first because it seems like we have several police officers in attendance um and you're going to read the proclamation time whereas the Congress and President of the United States have designated the week of May 12th through May 18th 2024 as National Police Week and whereas the members of the township of Verona Police Department play an essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of Township of Verona and whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties responsibilities hazards and sacrifices of their law enforcement agency that members of our law enforcement recognize their duty to Serve the People by safeguarding life and property by protecting them against violence and disorder by protecting the innocent against deception weak against oppression and whereas the men and women of grona police department unceasingly provide a vital public service now therefore be it Proclaim that I Dr Christopher tamoro mayor of the township of Verona in the county of Essex New Jersey to hereby Proclaim May 12th through May 18th 2024 to be designated as Police Week in the Town of Verona call upon all citizens and patriotic Civic and educational organizations to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and observances which all of our people may join in commemorating law enforcement officers past and present who by their faithful and loyal Devotion to the responsibilities have rendered a dedicated service for their communities and in doing so have established themselves an enviable and enduring reputation preserving the rights and security of all citizens witness whereof I have here onto set my hand that cause the Great Seal of the township of Rome in the county of essic state of New Jersey to be a fixed on this sixth day of May 2024 and I had a couple comments it has been an absolute pleasure to work with the members of the ran Police Department for the about 14 years 15 years I've lived in town at this point um especially interacting on the rescue squad there's never been a time where we have asked for assistance that the members of the police department I've ever said no and in fact they will offer they will go above and beyond any of you that I've ever had to call our Police Department not professionalism they are often the ones who do what others simply don't helping somebody when their house is flooding to answering the most significant medical and fire calls to very quickly investigating uh incidents that rock our town uh our Police Department is is outstanding and his leadership is top um this point like to call up all the uh police department officers and the council to except the proclamation put my name side up picture chief chief you got to get in let's trade it out [Music] there you go thank you I did U failed to mention one thing in my mayor's report and this is a good transition we honor police officers pass from present I'm thrilled to announce that former police chief and Township manager BR Huber will be the Grand Marshal of the 2024 Memorial Day Parade uh Chief Huber in addition to his service that hasn't stopped in Verona he's a member of the Verona Rescue Squad was an in country veteran in the viam uh so it'll be an honor to recognize Chief Huber his son is in the audience continuing continuing the service that Chief Huber started back in 1960s any other council members have anything to add for police I I I mean mayor I think you said at all uh our police force goes day in and day out above and beyond and I had something in my report to mention you know with what went on last week in Verona uh there there's just i' I'm a longtime resident I'm GR in Verona I was born almost born in uh I I think back of the tragic events that have happened in this town and and that is this is close to far above any other incident that I've ever heard of and our Police Department is usually almost 100% of the time first on the scene uh my my thoughts go out to you guys as well as the family obviously but uh for what you guys do for this town I don't think there's words for it so but thank you and God bless all of you like say one of the sort of privileges of of this position has been to get to know a lot of the officers on the Verona Police Department is in individuals and understand um everything that goes into this job and to hear a lot of the stories um so many residents have stories of asking for help and receiving just everything they could ever ask for from the Vera Police Department just how comp passionate how caring all of our officers are and anytime they have an opportunity to serve a member of the public they always go above and beyond um you know we live in a we live in a small town but there are also serious incidents and serious crimes that happen here um when those happen the police department is just absolutely outstanding in its ability to investigate and resolve those incidents and uh bring people to Justice it's just one of the great things about our community and I appreciate our officers every day this is a very complicated job that we ask them to do and every year just gets even more so so I thank all of you for your service and I really appreciate how you as part of the community so thank you very much um people often ask me you know what are the challenges with being in this role and um I say well one thing that I'm really fortunate in Verona is that we have a top-notch police force with Incredible leadership and incredible me men and women on the force and I don't have to go to bed at night worrying is my community safe are we being protected well because we have incredible Talent here on our police force and I'm just so appreciative of that and of course I worry about you as I am a mother and I don't think I'm old enough to be your mothers but as I get older and older I'm feeling that way as I'm watching uh I feel like the force is getting younger and younger um and certainly I want to Echo what the deputy mayor said after the events of this week I worry about your mental health and the stresses that you have it is not easy to be a police officer in our country at this time and we have to recognize that and the challenges that you all face and we just every day I'm so appreciative of how you are um really kind of the best trained and operating Force I would say you know in northern New Jersey I I really do appreciate everything so thank you thank you for your service privilege and honor of going last means everybody's already said it so will reiterate all of their statements but I will do so just by reference um however I do also just want to acknowledge something that hasn't been mentioned this evening which is the tremendous community policing efforts that that the Verona Police Department does I've really really appreciated your presence at various different community events um your engagement with residents schools with children um it is really tremendous it makes you a part of this community and it it just it really helps um and I've just been so grateful for it it's lovely to have this partnership and to feel like we are all one Verona and that is a big part of what you guys do for this community so I just really want to thank you for that but again that is not to say that I don't value all of the other things that my colleague said I just figured you guys probably want to leave this meeting but thank you so so much and I do sincerely mean it thank you thank you you get to uh join the legions of the lucky ones who exit at time very much thank thank you the next Proclamation is one that as I become mayor um the individual and the the group of individuals who um we recognizing this Proclamation really keep this town and this Council running um and uh it is oural clerks I have come to rely on Miss Kieran for her organization um for her quick thinking and for her ability to get all that information out that is necessary when somebody calls up and says I want to be married I just show up for about five minutes 10 minutes do the wedding Mrs kieran's doing all of that um Mrs Kieran is the author of our beautiful proti she's the individual that makes sure that not only we compliant with all requirements that are set forth municipality but that we exceed them and that we really um in our public facing role make sure that we're serving our community so um this is often the group that goes unnoticed in municipalities and it's really a pleasure to uh read this proclamation to recognize that group and give them the attention they deserve the proclamation reads whereas the office of municipal clerk a time honored and vital part of local government exists throughout the world and whereas the office of the municipal clerk is the oldest among public servants and whereas the office municipal clerk provides the professional link between the citizens the local governing bodies and agencies of government at other levels and whereas professional Municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutral and partiality rendering equal service to all whereas Municipal clerks serve as the information center on functions local government Community whereas Municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the Affairs of the office of Municipal Clerk's participation the educational program seminars workshops and the annual meetings of their state provincial County and international professional organizations whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments the office municipal clerk I'm adding whereas it is even more appropriate to recognize our municipal clerk Miss Jennifer Kieran now therefore be it proclaimed that I Dr Christopher tamboro mayor of the Town of Verona to hereby recognize the week of May 5th through 11th 20124 as professional Municipal Clerk's week and further extend appreciation to our professional municipal clerk pen for Kieran and to all Municipal clerks for the vital Services they perform and their exemplary dedication to communities they represent you can be in the center and we can surround you yeah do else sure I would love to say something uh I think the mayor touched on just a couple of what our Clerk's jobs and obligations are to the community uh she holder of all records in town and if anybody requests it goes through Jen so it's very her job is very time consuming uh if you drive by here you'll see your car out front at 78 o'clock at night so she goes above and beyond and we thank her for it because she makes us look good uh as a former mayor she definitely made me look at as mayor uh it it's it's a job that you really don't know exactly what it entails and you really dive into the town and see it so thank you Jen for all your heart um one thing I very much see in Jen she has this incredible passion and enthusiasm for this job the moment that uh she handed me my packet to run for office I was impressed at just how much of herself she puts into this role um there's a lot of things that have to be gotten right every single time there's a lot of details that go into this and a lot of continuing professional education and understanding of regulations um she does all of that and she does it with a passion for service to the municipality um I'll agree with the mayor and the uh Deputy Mayor that uh it's just it's not possible to do one of the leadership roles on this Council without that level of support so I really appreciated her throughout my uh tenure as mayor as well as my entire tenure of the council so thank you very much J for everything you do it's just a pleasure to work with you day um well I could go on and on about Miss Heron um no one has mentioned her exemplary work on elections which has gotten increasingly more complicated as the years go on and we're going to have a year with multiple elections this year um and she does it with such great and that is a huge operation in itself to just run and yet she's the keeper of physical records but she's also the keeper of Jen did we ever pass this or when did pass this ordinance um she remembers everything that we did is and it really goes back in brona's history um and I really appreciate her remembrance of things that we did um and um so that we can function well as we're trying to move forward so thank you Jen for all of your incredible work I would just add as well that Jennifer really shines when it comes to kind of that external constituent phasing engagement um really it really shows through when you're engaging with children and I've seen you presenting to Girl Scouts I've seen you engaging with kids just you know at our different Civic ceremonies and it's very clear that you're very passionate about your work including to the extent that you would go out and purchase Sophia Valdez future press because in that picture book municipal clerk helps the little girl accomplish her community service needs and you were like municipal clerk with the hero and absolutely was and always is and is always willing to help um what whatever it is whether it's somebody picking up a packet or somebody figuring out any of the number of questions that they may have when they come to your out so thank you for that and thank you for all of your engagement with the community and especially the children here thank than this evening um is for national teacher appreciation week and this Proclamation will be presented to teachers in the buildings and schools this week and it reads whereas teachers are the bridges of Knowledge from one generation to the next and whereas the teachers in our Public Schools reach out to every student regardless of race religion country or n of national origin family background physical or mental ability social or economic disadvantage whereas teachers provide opportunities to help prepare students for demands of higher education and the changing workplace environment and whereas teacher preserve and support a democratic way of life by helping students understand the principles that built this nation and have those freedoms serve as hope for people around the world and whereas teachers encourage and Propel our young people to reach for achievements of the highest quality and challenge students to become lifelong Learners and whereas most teachers perform this great service Society in relative obscurity often through much personal sacrifice and limited recognition now therefore be Proclaim that I Dr Christoper tamboro mayor of the Town of Verona to hereby Proclaim May 6 through 10th 2024 to be Teacher Appreciation Week in the township of Verona and witness whereof I here on to set my hand and call the Great Seal Township of Verona in the county of Essex state of Jersey to be a fixed on the sixth day of May 2022 and we'll bring that to the teachers um and Mr C I don't believe it's here he's not okay so our manager is not with us this evening um our Deputy manager will be at the mic thanks uh I will I will try to keep my report brief I know there are still two presentations on uh affordable housing projects but I will hit some of the highlights of the report that I distributed from a in Council late last week we do have a number of studies uh that are underway both at the East Water treat plant and uh regarding pool as well we are continuing to meet with our professionals we have a number of projects that are are scheduled to be queued up for our wastewater treatment plant uh we will be kicking those off in Earnest over the coming weeks and months uh the Wind Drive drink uh drinking water well is under construction we are moving along as anticipated and that should be back online by the year Fairview Avenue well we are scheduled to hold a public hearing for our diversion application diverting that property from the portion of the property that sits on uh that contains the wells from the Green Acres uh RI that'll be scheduled for our first meeting in June and then from that point we'll we will be putting that out to bid and that one continues to remain on schedule we have a number of other projects related to drinking water and storm water um continue to advance each of those uh we also have uh some updates on some of our energy initiatives uh the local government energy audit is underway we have the consultant coming to schedule site visits later this week and next week they'll be assessing all of the municipal facilities and presenting at an upcoming mayor and council meeting later this year uh additionally we are continuing to work with a solar consultant and we are hoping to have that solar consultant also come in on a feasibility study for solar potential onor useful um properties again that will hopefully be in June or July will be targeting uh the community center playground continues to to advance all the long lead time material items have been ordered and the construction will be picking up very shortly and they should be completing the majority of construction by mid June and the last will be the installation of play equipment and the restroom as soon as they are number of road projects happy to report that their went Avenue trees were installed and the paving is scheduled for the week of May 13th notices are going out to the residents balson Whitney windir neighborhood is is in the middle of construction and it's advancing we have not hit any delays on that project and Douglas Place will be kicking off later this summer we are still waiting for the final authorization from dot uh as far as ever field goes we were uh fortunate to receive uh a grant recommendation from the governor for Green Acres funding for the uh prop portions of that project uh we still have two Grant applications that are pending we've also been working cell there's been a lot of uh Collective efforts to try to reel the local responsibility of the cost for that project we'll have a more formal presentation on where the design has evolved to and what those local project costs are a meeting uh hopefully in June um we've also kicked off meetings with the the pickle ball Community we have designed some prary Design Concepts that we are working through but again we are uh advancing that project and we also have a couple couple of sustainable uh initiatives where we have been awarded a five member Green Team through sustainable uh sustainable Jersey PSG partnership they will be studying uh upcoming needs at Centennial Field and the pros and cons of different types of field surfaces that could potentially be used on Centennial Field uh we also have uh been uh approved for free technical assistance from a nonprofit organization called Beyond pesticides they will be assessing Veterans Field for a an organic field management program that we can use there and hopefully recycle at other uh public spaces I will keep my report to that yes you are marvelously adapting to doing the highlights thank you I'm trying so the public is aware this all and provides a detailed narrative report to the council uh that report this anding those highlights any questions from one question uh about the solar evaluation for our town have we spoke to maybe doing a collaboration with the Board of Education we have not we have not yet uh we we we have briefly discussed internally that we wanted to make sure that feasibility work for municipal facilities that we can have some momentum there and then the idea of expanding that discussion with Board of Ed would be a next step if we find this feasibility favorable thank you okay next up Mr uh the next on the agenda is uh we have representatives from coner realy to provide an update on the project presentation yes please introduce your good evening Sean Carpenter senior vice president of development for Conor for realy and Lauren Williams develop development manager well I'm I'm certainly glad that the crowd that was here when I walked in the room was not here to talk about affordable housing because generally speaking when we go to town meetings that's that's exactly what we're seeing with but luckily it was about the environment tonight so that so that was great um uh I I want to thank you for having this forum um behalf of the 500 plus employees of Conifer we we appreciate your commitment and dedication to affordable housing in in the community of Verona uh many of which are here in the in in the state of New Jersey um also in New York Maryland Virginia and um and all of the regions that surround it so right now affordable housing is a really really hot topic particularly in this state and and in so many areas that we work in across the country um and it's the number one issue facing uh uh many communities that we serve and that we we go to uh and just beyond our footprint I mean Conifer footprint is on the East Coast but when I go to places in the West Coast towns like this have the uh have similar uh issues where service workers don't have somewhere to live they can't afford to live in these beautiful communities so so we appreciate that uh Verona flatch has has been before this board for many years um and has been something that uh the township is has definitely wanted to put together um Conifer bought this development the development rights from another developer back in June of last year or April of last year and we closed immediately on the transaction with our financing and uh on June on June 27th and started construction um not not too long after say in July uh in Late July we're currently about halfway through and we expect that two of the buildings will be online uh in the in the First on or around the 1st of September um depending on on Supply chains and you know some some materials and things like that um we expect that we'll start the probably the most important issue that I'm going to bring up here tonight is what's going to happen with the applications um so right now um and I and I met with uh Mr O solvan and and members of the team here uh uh several months ago we had about 2 200 people on the interested list um we've actually gotten rid of all the duplicates and whatnot and we're down to about 13,400 folks on that list of which about a third have current ZIP codes that would reside in the in the township of Veron so of the 95 units there's a good chance that uh many of those many of those units will be occupied by by folks who live and work in this community um we expect that 24 of those units as I said will come online in in September um as a as a result about 90 days before that we like to start the process so we we have the interested list so at this point we'll reach out to those in the interested list um and let them know that on or around the beginning of June uh maybe June 1st it might be June 10th uh we will we will unleash a an application package they will fill out the applications and and it will be done not in a lottery system but on a first come first serve so for folks listening at home or who are in the room who are interested in this let folks know that this is happening and and folks will be date stamped as those app completed applications come in we will have a staff here we'll we are uh in the midst right now of looking for a local space to hold the the um uh the leasing process we can't do it on the site right now as as we're we're still kind of finishing up and the the last building that the larger building um building a will be will be done sometime later in that in that quarter so let's just say November or December um as part of that um residents will potential residents will be given a a date stamp as I said on their application they will be qualified uh under their under the income limits we have 20% 30% 50% 60% income limits here so they will be they will be allocated according to those now the 20 and 30s will be referrals from agencies and and the 50s and 60s will be um will be open and as as residents qualify for those um as I said they will be assigned a a unit and then they will sign their lease and they'll be able to move in as soon as we get our certificate of occupancy from from the town um that's the uh really unexciting part of of our job is that it's it's very technical uh it's Guided by the the I uh the Internal Revenue Service guidelines of section 42 um there's there's not much deviation uh of that New Jersey housing mortgage Finance agency provides a lot of the U the guidelines as to how we lease these up and that and we're following that uh exactly to the te so can I ask just a double question you said that the application will come out when the first 24 are built well people have to reapply as the buildings get built no so it's one application as soon as it comes out people should apply for yeah that's correct um once when Once folks qualify for the unit and there's there's a there's a there's levels of qualif there's qualifications on income credit and and criminal um that that they will qualify under and once they're in they're they're on the wait list so if they for instance hey I'm not gonna move I don't want to move in September I don't like this unit I don't like the location they could stay on the wait list but they may have to wait until we we we go through the entire and you are certainly more than welcome to use our community center directly across the street from develop as your site to host this so we've um that's a great point and we've we've had those conversations I think there's some concerns around that um but that was that was our first preference was to use the community center um but I think there was some Township concerns around that so uh there were there was some early discussions and there the concerns over rais were whether or not it was a Township sponsored project a project uh the tax credits would be uh coming through cont pay to rent space I think that's a which would be that's a disc yeah and that would be that would be our preference um it's right across the street folks can see the the site we've we're also engaging in local churches um but yeah and and the township is actually a participant in this in in a couple of different ways the township cleaned up the site although we cleaned it up but um but the township paid for the cleanup of the site before we took control of it and also made a um a a capital contribution into the uh Capital stack the U the Development question uh question when uh let's move forward to December all the units are filled you're in possession of a waiting list do you continue a list or now then people uh have to reapply later on or is there there's the running list or yeah yeah yes so so uh thank you for that um the the way that the weight list works is we'll keep the weit list open until we close it um and there's a process to close all weight list but but essentially we expect a a development like this and we have a development not far from here uh that generated about 6,000 applicants for 140 units so um I I expect that we'll get once the application process opens up I expect that we'll have number a lot of those folks will will not qualify but yeah we'll keep that weight list going but if if we're at a point where the weight list is about five years based on turnover we'll probably stop it at that point because there's no sense letting folks be on that is it gives a false hope but so so you have let's say 1400 100 get in the building uh do you do you weed through the other 1300 and get rid them like if if you don't qualify then you're excused or do you just keep that 1300 and then when a unit becomes available they start at you know 101 102 yeah so so so the the leasing department grabs them in chunks so so if there's five units open they might they might go through the first five and then the next five and then the next five um but but certainly if there's if there's 95 units and we go through the first 95 and they all qualify for each of those income tiers that I mentioned then then they probably won't go much Beyond 100 105 to to do the the income qualifications so the first the first group will probably be at like 100 125 so um thank you so I have a a few questions so when we first discussed this project with plaral and our understanding when they applied for the tax credits there were going to be five units set aside for formally homeless families and an additional five that were Ada for those that are disabled is that still the plan and how do those units get built yeah so there are 10 there are 10 20% units um right 10 20% units those are money for all the people um for the the set as sides um and then the Ada units are are are uh prescription by code so um so I'm just doing the math in my head but five five seems right okay we have exactly so and then what is the process for both of those if you can address how do those units get built those units have so so the units that are set aside on the um the 20s and the 30s those are so the the 30% units are what they call a 811 section 811 so those those are agency referrals and the 20% units are also agency referrals so um those will will come to us um from from Essex County or or other agencies that that are around that that are tied into hmfa the um the Ada units will be assigned as through need but they have to be marketed to to um certain organizations that will that will get that information out but we we don't rent out uh Ada units to folks who don't need those Ada units unless there's nobody on the wait list that would like that unit will stay open until we get to, 1400 but usually there we have a marker for that I'm getting way into the Weeds on Leasing and that's clearly not my question so my other round of questions um and our Board of Education president is here is about how many children do we anticipate you know coming into the units so can you can just confirm the two buildings are coming online those are the three mostly the three-bedroom units that are going to have families can you address a little bit and using your past experience um because we are most interested as a community on how this is going to work with getting um estimating how many children are going to come into our school system yeah I mean this is a hard question to answer because I'm walking a fine line of of making statements that that HUD and fair housing don't want me to make so so what I'll tell you is from based on a past experience um most of the three bedroom units will have maybe one maybe one or two children um the uh the two bedrooms you know maybe they have one I mean this is all this is not factual this is just based on my experience but the one-bedrooms typically don't um and I um so I don't know you could you could have n um or you could have some but I but I would say that of the 95 families that are being served here um you'll have a few but it but it won't be significant is my guess and what does your after if families are placed there what does your organization do to help bring these like transition help these families get if they're out of Verona resins which I heard you say a third on the weight list are Verona residents but if they're the two-thirds that don't live in Verona how does that transition work in your other properties how do you help them like get Al yeah a lot of uh a lot of our properties um have a community they all have Community manager the community manager will let them know where the local services are I mean this this is a nice location because of its access to the community center across the way it's it's proximity to the downtown area and the school um so I mean the community managers that's really where what where they shine and we we actually have a um we've just posted the opening for the community manager here um so it should be so this is a person we're going to be very familiar with yeah between the town the board and the community manager oh absolutely yeah I would expect that the community manager will be will will come down in fact once we have that personal board I'll set up a meeting with the uh with Mr Sullivan and and we'll we'll have a a meeting to to just let everybody know as as we did when when when conord took over from Pearl I mean we had a we had a similar meeting just to let everybody know who we were and who you could call if you had any questions all right my final question is just what is where the elements of the packet that these P perspective so it's proof of like what is it is a tax return what's in there yeah typically it's a it's an application where they fill out and they essentially you know it's it's almost like a job application and then they they State their income um and then there's a third party verification component to the income so uh they may provide W2s or payche or checking account statement balances things like that okay assets and income are treated separately but but income is really important and uh and then that's that's independently verified by our by our certification team except for the units that I said were referrals from agencies thank you other questions thank you very much thanks back to you thank you that was a little bit of discussion on an ongoing housing project we also do have our affordable housing professionals who will speak briefly about the upcoming fourth round affordable housing obligations and'll be here to answer question Mr pleasure back thank you good evening thanks for having us uh it's been a long time um I want to uh Echo what everybody said before I think Jennifer Kieran is one of the best in the business worked for a few dozen towns and pleasure to work with her uh always always accessible always helpful always makes me feel good about myself uh so um I'm Dan halin from DMR Architects we're the for the township and prepared your housing uh third round housing commented fair share plan that was uh adopted last year uh and uh I'm going to let the others introduce themselves uh good evening mayor council glad to be back Jamie PL with C Patrick affordable housing Council um and Dan do most of speaking tonight we had a great meeting I guess we got last month yeah last month and about fourth round obviously everybody knows the new fourth round rules are coming up um I think I can speak for Dan I think we believe it's going to be a better system than what we uh what municipalities had voed upon them with respect to the third round and what we now know is the gap period U so we're happy to be back and we look forward to getting through this process and being ahead of the game and not having to catch up for the thanks J uh so uh I uh prepar to PowerPoint to just kind of keep me in line while I'm going through this so um do I have a clicker or anything or you just tell that works yeah sure yeah no problem so um just a recap um uh DMR Architects uh is a uh architecture and uh planning firm and design General design firm uh the planning portion is headed by Francis Riner one of the partners of the firm and uh then there's myself senior project planner and we have a about 40 other uh people in The Firm including five uh license planners uh in addition to providing affordable housing services for the township uh we provide a number of planning services around the state uh Northern New Jersey for master planning zoning uh Redevelopment is uh a big part of our work um and we serve several planning uh uh planning and zoning boards now we also do a few uh uh special projects uh relating to energy and which I know is a big deal in town uh and uh open space design um prior to joining DMR by the way arcaden hints which is a firm that uh had about I think five at its peak by special Masters that I work below beneath which is uh so I spend 95% of my time on affordable housing uh which is why I move through a different firm um so uh you guys have heard this a bunch of times over but I don't know people in the audience have um so I'm just gonna really quickly go through the history of affordable housing Statewide and in Verona um so uh the affordable housing in New Jersey goes back to the 1970s uh uh into the 1980s when two separate Supreme Court rulings uh uh decided that every municipality in the state has to provide an a realistic POS potential for affordable housing mostly through zoning and use of uh funds to subsidize creation of housing the Fair Housing Act of 1985 created the Council on affordable housing also known as TOA uh which is uh which was tasked with creating the rules for creating affordable housing and determining how much affordable housing each municipality had to create uh had a good run from 1987 to 1999 where they successfully created and administered affordable housing rules and uh some towns participated some did not uh when 2000 came along and they were supposed to adopt their third round rules uh uh to update uh the numbers for every town and update how each town would address them uh they failed to adopt rules three times two times it was because they were CH successfully challenging in the courts and one time it was because uh they voted uh on a tie to to adopt the plans and then voted on a tie to meet again to discuss the plans and effectively never met again uh in 2015 uh a successful uh case was brought to the Supreme Court saying COA is not effective at administering these rules or adopting these rules can the courts intervene the court said yes and that led us to the process that uh brought us last year where the township uh entered into a settlement agreement with fair share housing center and affordable housing advocacy group in the state um uh that determined how many affordable housing units the township had to create how it was going to create them um so last year we adopted our third round plan to effectuate that settlement agreement and back in March the governor signed a bill uh known as s50 A4 uh that um officially eliminated the Council on affordable housing and created a new process for uh how affordable housing will be administered from uh this point onward to Infinity um the the uh uh Bill removed COA oh I'll get to actually what it actually did but let's talk about the third round plan real fast uh so the third round plan that you adopted last year uh it it uh addressed um a 10un uh present need which is basically the town has to set aside some money to rehabilitate uh substandard homes that are occupied by uh low-income people uh and it had to address uh 24 uh uh new construction 24 unit new construction obligation from the 1987 to 1999 period and 250 unit new construction obligation for the 1999 to 2025 period that TOA failed to adopt and administer rules for uh your plan also laid out the projects and the policies that were going to meet those obligations um before I get into the A4 s50 and how what we're dealing with does anybody have any questions about anything I just said okay all right so like I said Co has been replaced uh rather than every town dealing with rules in uh Co creates they deal with all the rules and the Fair Housing Act is the piece of legislation that created Co in the first place um rather than Co telling every town what uh how many units they're supposed to create the Department of Community Affairs has been told to calculate that number by October 20 of this year uh it will also be responsible for reviewing uh how towns collect and spend money from their affordable housing trust fund and what affordable units are actually being created in put online uh the legislature uh the leg legislation also creates something called the affordable housing dispute resolution program also known as the program which sounds ominous uh which uh will be responsible for reviewing plans as well as mediating any successful challenges from developers or interested parties you'll be bound to a uh uh a pretty clear schedule on when certain things have to be adopted so by January 31st which will be about 3 months after you know what your affordable housing number will be give or take some vacation days to adopt a resolution that says we accept the dca's obligation or if for some reason you have reason to believe that the dca's uh numbers are are faulty uh you can uh put forth a alternative number based on the methodology that the uh that the bill um endorses um by June 30th you have to adopt your fourth round housing plan based on uh that number that you've uh bound yourself to U and you have to have some uh draft ordinances and resolutions unlike last time where we had to have everything adopted in one package uh good chunk of time later by March 15th you have to actually adopt the ordinances that effectuate your plan um there's still possible challenges the uh the bill creates deadlines for when people can challenge your your uh plan uh if uh they can challenge the affordable number affordable housing number that you choose if they if there's a reason that uh people think that it's not based on any rules that mainly I think applies if you don't go with the dca's number uh by 31st of 2025 uh somebody can challenge uh your housing plan if there's a piece of it that is not realistic for some reason you you've designated that property that's not developable or something like that uh and if you fail to meet any of your deadlines then you could be challenged immediately there are certain Grace periods but it's mainly if there's a natural disaster or a terrorist attack not you know because of you know changes in politics or Administration or people forgot to do something it has to be something uh uh drastic um there is a look back requirement that doesn't really apply to Verona where if you had a project in your third round plan that hasn't been productive uh that came online before July 1st 2020 which doesn't apply to you you would have to uh replace it um so as far as meeting the obligation you can do something called a vacant land adjustment I don't think you did that in your third round uh but basically you look at how much uh land is actually available for development or has a potential to be redeveloped which mainly referring to when I say that obsolescent uh or dying uh commercial properties industrial properties uh and say based on a reasonable density we can only accommodate this many of our units if you do get a vacant land adjustment you still need to have a plan that address uh addresses at least 25% of your affordable housing obligation uh unlike the last round where fair share basically told you either you do all of it or none of it um used to be that you get bonuses for having uh rental uh rental units and when I say bonus I mean a unit could be did more than once in your plan but now there's no such thing as rental bonuses anymore instead you get uh bonuses for units that Advance other State uh goals including um being close to Transit which includes bus stops uh redeveloping uh old uh outdated non-residential properties um uh using funds to create more housing for special needs or converting market rate housing to affordable housing um there is a a a very small amount of senior bonuses you can claim and then there's a bunch of other bonuses such as using uh money or participating with a nonprofit to create 100% affordable housing similar to the Conifer project um some significant changes to be aware of the it used to be that you can only use uh senior units to address 25% of your obligation but now that's gone up to 30 of course they've also EXT severely limited how many bonus credits you can claim from senior projects so uh the appeal of actually hitting that 30% is is not quite there um is uh use payments in L of creating affordable housing which is what you did with Spectrum where they paid to the trust fund for a certain amount not able to do that anymore you can keep on doing whatever you're doing with Spectrum but you but it's pretty much off the table for any future projects um so I'm personally trying to calculate uh some of our clients affordable housing obligations is a a timec consuming process but while uh we're doing that and While others out there are probably doing the same thing uh we're telling our towns to assume that your third round number is going to be at least 40 to 50% and that's simply based on the fact that the third round uh 40 to 50% of your third round number and that's because your third round number was based on a 26y year period and now it's just going to be based on a 10-year period so 40% of the uh time of course uh the uh the the housing situation in New Jersey has possibly gotten worse in the last decade so uh it that could be a uh way lower than than what it's supposed to be for this round so we'll find out uh for your third round plan you were able you were required to adopt a uh a overlay Zone in your downtown called The tcmu Zone which if built out entirely would create between 11 and 14 units it's my understanding that um because you couldn't use that toward your third round number you may be able to use that toward your fourth round number so you probably already have a possible 11 to 14 units uh of zoning at least to um to a use toward your number um we're recommending because the bonuses uh the most immediately available bonuses are for projects that are within half mile of transit or that are redeveloping existing res uh uh commercial properties that you focus your efforts on uh uh Bloomfield Avenue where I understand you're working with h2m to do some revisioning uh pumpt in Avenue and uh any other obsolescent outdated uh sites that are that are ready to change or people have experience an interest in changing the use there um it should be noted that uh to Affordable uh which is where you buy a market rate housing rent a market rate housing US unit and either resell it or rerent it to an affordable uh housing rate um that and housing for special needs folks those are those or you the most bonuses per unit that's one bonus credit per unit instead of half a bonus per unit for everything else or I guess uh a third of a bonus per unit for senior housing um of course you'd have to review how successful successful you've been with collecting development fees uh and you'd have to know what your um how many how much money you're going to have to set aside for rehabilitation to really know how much you can commit to those S types of projects before that you can uh decide to how many projects you want to fund for uh group homes or markets to Affordable but that should be on your radar and while we uh endorse age restricted housing such as independent or assisted living for uh uh as part of your um your housing program uh because it's a need in the state it doesn't award you quite as many bonuses so it should not be uh I I would if you're trying to limit how many actual affordable units you want to create uh you you don't want to lean too heavily into uh age restricted housing because it doesn't give so many bonuses so our advice for your next steps for planning for the next uh what are we at now uh three no five months before you know what your affordable housing number is going to be is um you can uh do a vacant land analysis we know how to do that uh if you would like for us to do that you should uh you know work with h2m on your Bloomfield Avenue process and make sure that affordable housing is a factor there in fact I would suggest that um uh you ask them to do a zoning analysis of um of the density that's already allowed in there and uh uh see how many affordable housing units could be created in the current situation and look at you know just so you know what your build out would be if it was totally built out for affordable housing or inclusionary housing rather just so you understand how much you have to increase your density to uh increase your numbers in the future um and work with your building department and your uh tax assessor and your uh your finance department to um make sure that you're collecting your development fees make sure you know how much of money is in coming in and out of your affordable housing trust fund uh so you can uh uh budget ahead I guess um so I just said a lot of things so I'm I'm now going to stop saying things and like anything like to add no we need to go starting for days any question we did actually have a vacant land analysis done um a couple of years ago I don't know something may be able to refresh there was some of yeah you have to update it every time every time you do your housing plan um yeah last here 2016 I think so yeah it has to be updated a wow sure uh you're saying if we do if we take an aescent commercial property uh and Rehab it uh you're saying that our need could be 25% of what the overall number would be um no so what what I what I mean is um you when you there's so you're allowed to claim a certain number of bonuses it's basically equal to 25% over the obligation that they give you so let's say that your obligation 100 units right so you can get 25 bonus credits and you can get you can get half a bonus credit for every unit that you create on that off as in site so unfortunately used to be it used to be one for one now they've they've made it harder because because obviously the state has a housing shortage and they want you to create more housing all over the place uh so um does that that that answer your question it's not so much limit yeah when say create that means that doesn't have to be a Township creates it could be a developer right right it's it's yeah so zone for or subsidize or fund or or but create is the like in the prior round when we had let's say if you created a unit in an area needed Redevelopment you got one bonus credit for that one unit so you counted as two so you're saying this would be like 1.25 or 1.5 1.5 yeah I thought you said it was a 25% no no it's it's it's half a credit per year yeah yeah yeah okay yeah and then uh uh in the prior obviously we know if there's an there's development and we're found that we have a deficiency then then any developer can commit and supersede our zoning ordinance uh is there any consideration in this next round for environmental reasons uh because obviously there's times where our tree ordinance was tossed aside our steep slope ordinance was tossed aside uh I mean the state the governor they they're saying they're environmentally friendly but then they go ahead and do this and these developments go in there and build on 90% of the property when they're only allowed a 60% c yeah that that's why the empis in the for the bonuses is Redevelopment and and Transit oriented development because it's trying to to uh encourage you to redevelop areas like your downtowns basically previously areas it's you know doesn't really have a lot of uh un uninterrupted land to to do anything anyway but um uh it it's sort of you know they're they're trying to lay down the the the the they're trying to give you the the hint that they want you to to just do smart growth uh near housing near Services don't tear down any trees don't disrupt Wetlands just build on your existing infrastructure that's the developers well that's why you get to Zone you get to pick where you're in a zone right you know you don't you don't that's that's part of the the the reason that you want to comply with this instead of just uh instead of letting the developers decide what they want to do because you get to you get to be the environmentally responsible ones and say hey we're not going to Zone these these uh fragile lands for fork yes breath thank you so I want to pick up there so the whole issue of interveners goes away if we comply and hit these timelines yes okay yes and don't fight the number right and if we do launch a fight against whatever that number is then there is you know possibly someone could come in at that point right so so you're uh with with in terms of picking your number in terms of ECA versus another number there are have been situations in the past where um the official number has not considered things like you know uh you're supposed to account for demolitions or the state's supposed to account for demolitions when they calculate uh if Town's affordable housing obligations they may they may not have considered for example how many houses had to be demolished because of a hurricane sand or another major storm so there are situations where their numbers don't factor for the realities of what's taking place over the time period that they're counting for calculations so it's really just a matter of uh if you're coming up with an alternative number it has to be um uh faithful to the methodology but have a basis uh reasoning for why you think that the numers from the state is flawed okay and then you're it's harder to Challen somebody can still bring you to court but it's harder to challenge you okay and the the need that you're calculating that you're estimating there these are Regional numbers right and then each Town's going to get a share can you talk a little bit about that sure so um uh each uh uh there so there's regions right so you're in the region two so you're in the region with I think it's uh man I'm gonna mess this up aren't I you know I'm not gonna pretend I remember but I know it's Union and at least a couple of other more rural counties right so um the the total housing number is based on uh change in households over the the I think it's actually 25 no 10-e period uh divided by two and a half percent because the assumption is 40% of all households are low and moderate income uh and then it's allocated to each Town based on a number of factors including how much wealthier that town is than other towns in the region how much uh available Land There is um which is based on a process similar to the vant land adjustment um how much uh how valuable the non-residential property is in the town and um there maybe a couple of other factors and then they're adjusted by some things like number how many affordable housing or how many housing units occupied by Lo people have been demolished or converted to something else um and these are all supposed to be proxy for certain things right so your the uh the the community income is supposed to be based on how much do they think that um uh the town can financially uh uh the non-residential the value of non-residential uh property is supposed to be a proxy for how many jobs might be in the area for people to to to have jobs near where their this affordable housing is going um and you're basically a portioned of reg a part of the regional number based on an average of all these things okay um and um I guess my next question is uh I just lost it went out of my head oh yes there it is um so we've our master plan you know calls that we need to do a lot of zoning adjustments already on Bloomfield Avenue so we're we're at Point a we already wanted to move to point B yeah um do we get credit then like if we just change our zoning as we normally would and that can then result in more inclusionary development which we have the set aside already baked into our ordinances is that then creating units yes yeah so so when you do the zoning uh when you when you uh write your plan you can claim uh credit for for the zoning even if it hasn't been built yet you're basically saying we've created an opportunity for these affordable housing units right the one thing that becomes complicated is um uh if you you can claim bonuses ever if at the end of the fourth round which is 2035 uh some of and some of that zoning hasn't in units then when you come into the fifth round you subtract the Bon bonuses from how many units weren't created it's a not the easiest because if they get bonuses for thing for Pro for units that have actually been created in a round but it's sort of it's a look back so just as I said there's a look back for making sure the third round was actually effectuated and the in the fifth round it's going to be the same thing so there's an a a an incentive to make sure that whatever you're doing you the it's it's realistic that it's going to otherwise 10 12 years I mean maybe maybe you guys will be retired by then you don't have to worry about the politics here but somebody's gonna have to answer for that right yes um yeah so uh there's an incentive to be real about so it's not necessarily that we have to create aggressive overlay zones if we're just fixing our zoning of creating the opportunity to put residential where right now it doesn't exist now we've all of a sudden increased our potential we we've added some numbers there yeah it's uh yes it's just it just that it has to be you know a place that's realistic to be developed in the next 10 years because like I said you get penalized and if you and if your plan is found if somebody thinks right in on July 2nd 2025 after you've adopted your plan if somebody looks at that and says there's no way this that's going to be uh veloped in by 2035 then you're going to get challenged right okay so are you going to present to us not just what a number is but recommendations on how to get there um when does right so we know our number in October so I think once we know the number um I'm hoping that by then uh you know I'm going to we'll all sit down I'm going to sit down with I guess whoever needs process in h2m see where you guys were on the Bloomfield Avenue um process because like I said I think that's going to be probably your core of where you're going to try to hit as many of these units as possible um and I think between now and then we're also going to talk about what other sites are option so like I said um you know if you if you authorize me to do the vacant land analysis while I'm doing that I'm going to be considering what lands are realistically developed and I'm going to um share that with uh you know uh with uh the jod AR and uh whoever else is involved in the process um and uh see you know how comfortable are we with resoning these properties and um right and then we get to the plan question thanks J what's prod all right we are moving on to council M Stephanie mayor thank you Mr Mayor uh revisit uh comment from earlier about the family had the tragic accident last week uh I did mention the police uh my condolences to the family their loss but also uh our First Responders all of them uh Rescue Squad our fire Department uh these these people both groups volunteer and go out and deal with these losses in the communities in these tragic events so uh I think about them at that time also and and pray for them uh and then also my condolences to Congressman pay's family uh I had the privilege of going down to New York on Wednesday unfortunately I had a work event on Thursday so I didn't go to the funeral but uh it was a very very solemn event and my hats off to our County Executive for the uh the the the ceremony that that was uh prior to uh bringing the casket into the courthouse so uh condolences again to the kind of Congressman pain uh this past week or actually past month I realized my passport was uh expired so I just want to make light of this for people who also have uh run into this the uh County Clerk's Office does uh visits throughout the towns of Essex County uh to renew passports and stuff you can go online their website is very informative uh they actually will be here tomorrow but their appointments are all booked they have another appointment in Verona on May 21st and they uh they meet in the library so if you want to get go online and you have to book your appointment and uh and then uh you know you can go and get your passport renewed very detailed as the to do and and how to do it uh sustainable as I'm not going to uh reiterate some of what the deputy mayor went Deputy manager went over but sustainable Verona has been very busy uh they got a a $2,000 Grant uh the last Saturday had a excuse me Earth day they had a an Energy effic Efficiency presentation to library uh one of the members Christine leakas uh is an expert and she did a very very nice job on uh Energy Efficiency on your own home uh I don't think they recorded it I wish they did uh but you can reach out to to sustainable Verona if you want some information on it uh next uh I too this past Friday uh attended the uh VII uh inspiration uh excellence awards dinner uh for the teachers I thank our Educators uh and congratulate all those that received an award uh this was their seventh year in a row I'm very happy to have attended all seven of them along with some of my colleagues here and uh also uh members of the board of education but it's an opportunity for me to meet some of the teachers of our town and talk to them uh and it was a very very wonderful evening uh I want to make a note that on May 18th the county does Electronics recycling uh on Bradford Avenue so all those that have TVs and do your spring cleaning in the next week or two any Electronics uh can be dropped off there uh and we leave the hours are like 9 to three but look online for specifics and uh lastly I just want to uh wish all the mothers or in Verona and all over a Happy Mother's Day youy mayor thank you I will be a little bit repetitive here of my fell council members but I'd also like to express my condolences to the family that suffer the trategy in our community also express my appreciation to our First Responders for managing that incident and greatly appreciate the community response to need at this time um also would like to my condolences for the loss of Congress CH pain uh we all had an opportunity to meet with Congressman interact with him um only recently been redistricting where picked up Verona and was learning about our community and our need s uh his family's long history of service so our condolences to them um also uh was able to attend the DV awards banquet with sever of my fellow fellow council members I just want to congratulate all the Educators uh who were honored that evening and it was very inspiring to hear all the stories about what they're doing to make a difference in their lives students and with that i c m thank you um I too want to uh extend my cond es to the Gasson family uh today I saw little pictures of Micah James and obviously losing a child I I uh I really uh can't put into words I think most of us can what that family is going through um and for his grandfather and longstanding president Boris this is really an unspeakable loss for our community and I do want to thank all of our First Responders um who I'm sure Came Upon A really a horrific scene I did speak with Chief Kieran um and to ensure that our staff and volunteers were um being able to access apprpriate mental health support and I do encourage everyone in the community as this event is very triggering uh to seek uh mental health support um we uh lost Congressman pay um and I was honored to have the time and ability to go to the two days of remembrances for him um I was able to attend the funeral um which was attended uh by not just not only Municipal officials and County officials and state officials but by um by their own reports the largest delegation of congressional representatives to travel out of state for a funeral they had two planes of members of Congress who came because the congressman was so uh well-liked and respected and Washington he sat in the first seat in the first row so everyone in Congress would greet him and talk to him as they entered and exited um he was remembered most emotionally by Senator Corey Booker who was mayor um while the uh Congressman Payne was council president in Newark and so they talked to each other four or five times a day um and he was also eulogized by many MERS of of Congress including the current Speaker Jeff and former speaker Nancy Pelosi he was remembered as being uh forever Optimist which is something that I really relate to because that's how I look at the world uh he was remembered of being laser focused on his constituents here in Essex County and of course he was a very snatchy dresser so he always had a bow tie a matching pocket square and his socks which everyone talked um his children his triplets who are young adults were had such Poise it was they all participated in the ceremony to honor their father that was another moment and um there was a a sely touching scenes so um it's a huge loss for Verona and for our state and he's going to be missed um the governor has called for a election to fill his remaining term there will be a primary on June 16th and a general election on September 18th this is a good time for residents to sign up for vote by now these will be hard elections to remember um and so if you fill out your vote by mail application which we have plenty here in town hall and at the library and click you know all future elections you'll get a vote by mail ballot for both the primary and general uh if you update the Sha tree committee uh did have a wonderful Arbor Day event and they were also recently named uh Tree City which we were years past but the um we got that certification once again I serve I've been serving on this committee for many years I so proud of them I just want to say that it was a wonderful Arbor Day event and thank you bbsl for participating I also am uh been for the last year chair of the neighborhood traffic and Safety Committee which is also making great strides I want to thank our uh Deputy Township manager um for helping us to um organize our complete streets kickoff and Lindon Avenue this will be a pilot project for Verona to really learn how to do traffic caling measures um and we picked Lyon because it is slated for um Rehabilitation and repaving uh for next year so this is a great opportunity to learn um and I really was very energized with the kickoff I was thrilled to be able to attend and the Multicultural um inclusion and cessibility advisory committee also met another group that is really um hitting great strides they are having events for older Americans Month in May which is this may um and the event is at the library and it's creative Wellness for seniors it's sponsored by um our Municipal um Alliance committee so it's a great Synergy three committees in one um the classes are on May 85 22nd and 29th at 11:00 a.m. and if you need Transportation you can call Senior Services all the information is on the brona public library website and um their Annual Pride Celebration is going to be on Saturday June 8 at 11:00 a. um mon Clair's pride is at 12 so it you can go from one Pride to another um and the ice cream truck will come again and it's going to be a wonderful event and I just want to Echo that the county is having a women's Health event this Wednesday uh from 1: to 5: at the Cherry Blossom welcome center and that's my report thank you thank you Council thank you um I too just want to acknowledge that we are a community that is in grieving um for the loss Congressman pain as well as the tragic losses um with the Gaston family there's a lot of emotional hurt here in the community um and I just think it's so important for us to us on mental health and healing um during these challenges and challenging times since our last meeting I do have some reports with regard to um my service as liaison to the recreation advisory committee meeting uh excuse me to the recreation advisory committee uh we did hold a meeting after our last Township council meeting and there we discussed a number of items including the Verona community pool as well as surveys on the spring programming um and the summer playground programming where they will be they have since that time announced the field trips that will be included in that um and so the summer programming is off and running um and of course pool memberships um have been increasing um and they are still open for applications to the pool um however there is an administrative fee now that we are in the month of May I also attended a vmac meeting um and you may have seen that there is new approved branding for vmac so um very grateful to be a part of that organization and grateful for those who serve on the committee um also we since our last Township council meeting we did have our first Verona and Cedar Grove joint flood advisory committee meeting um it was attended by myself as well as a resident and Mr O Sullivan for the township of Verona um and it was a very worthwhile discussion um very productive and I believe our next meeting is in June yes so um we will be having our next meeting in the month of June um and hopefully we will continue to make progress there um I do also want to acknowledge my attendance at the BP event and I want to specifically shout out the Forest Avenue Community which we had a large showing at the event um so that was actually very sweet to see the Forest Avenue community come out to support Mr Sally Arno who was honored at the event um and is a beloved teacher um to both my girls um so they they have a huge they're huge fans of Mr Sano um so I just want to compliment him and the entire organization um for their support of the uh of Education here finally um I do just want to compliment the administration on the various grants that are moving forward in particular for Everett field um and it's just it's so important to get access to that grant funding it is certainly something that I ran on in 2021 and to see it materializing and to see these projects moving forward um with the impact to the taxpayers mitigated by these grants it's a tremendous it's a tremendous thing for our community I just really want to compliment the administration on that so thank you and pass on the thank you to Joe who's not here tonight but um it's just it it's so great to have received the award um during Earth week and and to you know just be making strides on these important investments in our community so thank you very much that concludes my report thank you cathine this time I'll open a public comment on any item mam clerk would you please read the public participation say anyone from the public wishing to speak on any matter please raise your hand by pressing the raise hand button on your monitor if you're attending via Zoom if you're dialing in by phone press star n if you're attending in person please raise your hand once you recognize clearly state your name and T of residents for the record you're not required to provide your street address however if you do please note that these meetings will be posted on the Township's YouTube channel and addresses will not be redacted for any purpose you have four minutes to address the council there can be no cross dialogue during this public portion and after everyone wishing speak has been heard Council May address your comments and re questions anybody in the room like anybody home wait a second your name please when you when you got up there yeah any comment anything tell us your name uh Scott primmer uh Vincent place Verona I was here on uh January 22nd of uh this year I don't know if you guys remember yes okay I spoke to Mr Roman Mr diarco uh since June of uh 23 um I had major work on a neighbor's property um quite a bit of uh Phil um I've been going back and forth with um um I guess uh Mr diarco um I spoke to Mr Roman and I still haven't had the last meeting on June 22nd when I was here in front of you guys you guys are going to look into it that now now we're in May so I haven't got a call since then so can I ask uh somebody on the council to reach out to me and kind of clear this up I've got I've gotten uh uh o reports I've gotten semi reports um I'm waiting for opah reports um I spok into the Hudson Essex theic uh Soil Conservation District and they're contradicting me things that should have happened that didn't happen on the site now we all I did mention the proximity of this site to a site that was purchased by you recently okay and I do believe that it affects the things that were done affects my property now I lived in my house for since 1998 I never had any type of water to the amount I had in the last two months so it's quite a bit I've been through Floyd Irene Sandy tropical storms nor Easter like I said I've lived there for for since 1998 and it got it's gotten worse okay there's a wall that it was was put up from East um excuse me north to south and the water comes off first Mountain from east to west so that wall is basically made my property like a Pulver okay um I know that uh I've had um um somebody that used to work in town uh reach out to uh somebody in the construction department they came out and said oh it it's not going to affect you well the water's standing there the water comes up really high and and the water is worse now than it ever was was so I just need somebody from the township to look uh give me a call uh Mr deoro had my email Mr Sullivan if you want to reach out to me so I know you're an engineer something has to be done and it's it's just it did from the proximity my water went through his property the water comes down from Amy Court comes down and goes down through through the said property and went all the way down to pton Avenue okay so and that property was just closed on a week before this this work was done excuse me so it just seems like it's coincidence that this doesn't seem right and I need somebody to look into it before it goes to another Factor where we have you know uh different people looking into it thank other public comments M thank you name have to do anything I'm good okay good evening uh mayor and Council pan prisco Rona Board of Education president I'm up here um just to to go over some of the notes that the gentleman from Conifer was up here before speaking about about the population of students that are going to be coming out of the buildings that are going to be developed um as a board president as a resident um I'm very concerned with the number of students unfortunately I do not agree with what the gentleman I don't remember his first name but I don't agree with what he said that there shouldn't be that many students that are coming out of that um complex we are in going to be in a very tough situation for the Board of Education where we're going to put all these students just a three bedroom unit there's 26 of them just three it's my understanding that if it's three bedroom unit there has to be two to four children there could be two to four children so if you take your numbers and if you just take 2 * 26 there's 52 children right there 2 and a half 65 meaning around you know some are going to have two some are going to have three can have up to 100 four students just in a three-bedroom if you had four four children that's a lot then we have 52 two bedrooms another two students 104 one student 52 so I'm urging the council to work with the Board of Ed work with us we're going to be in trouble it's big trouble our budget we can't increase so whether we meet together join forces but we really need to look as to where we're going to put all these children that are going to come from just up at Verona Flats so I urge you to please work with us meet with us discuss whatever you want we're open we're free um thank you Mrs McGrath for bringing that up because it is our major concern we do not want to have to redistrict we do not want to change schools where we're going to have to make one building a k through one or one through two um that's not what we want to do to our neighborhood schools um but that's what we're going to be forced to do so I really just urge the mayor and councel to really look at um what it's going to cost the district especially for special ed as well so thank you for your time I appreciate every one of you and all that you do so thank you thank you Mr welcome public comments see close public comment solivan would you mind respond um I did have an opportunity to speak with uh the township engineer the zoning official uh public works department and with the town I know there was a good deal of dialogue back and forth with Mr fer and number of different employees uh there were um questions as to what kind of um Norm water impact the downhill property would have on on the subject property um there was a request from the downhill property to submit final asilt drawings uh the property owner has been put on record Put on notice that uh those documents are still necessary the construction code official Zing official have that notice on property record file and uh it would uh restrict a number of uh a number of activities that that might be requested in the future for that or the light would be restricted as a result of the ongoing non compliance than Mr would you exchange information Mr per more update this week thank you um on Mrs Frisco thank you for your advocacy for the Board of Ed um I agree with you that this is a concern um I know that there are ex funding exemptions in the budget process for large increases in student enrolment but then of course that falls on the tax um I think one of those things that I think a joint meeting certainly between the I the Council and the board would be wise uh they have been done in the past but they seem to not have an agenda so I think at this point we have two major items of share services and then this item as well it might be wise to bring one of those joint meetings back um which is logistically could be a little bit of a challenge but we we have facilities to do that and um we could do that and and technology um so I can't make any commitments until we know what these numbers look like I agree with you and for the record the board of V did a uh demographic study and unfortunately that study like everything else is based on assumptions of who will move and your numbers are correct in that way of the maximum possible potential so this one of those things that we have to ey on and it is one of the consequences of the policy weing forc to yeah um I think what I would add is um I think we should have some more offline conversations with Conifer because again he was a little hesitant to answer my question and maybe um you know offline there could be a more robust conversation about their past experience I mean I did what I heard that I mean listen I we are all very concerned about how many school children from out of town may move in but I heard a couple of interesting things one is a third of the people on the interest list are from Veron so if a third of the units are filled with Verona residents that is good in terms of it's just students moving around um and he did seem to indicate not that worst case scenario of seeing four children move into those three-bedrooms units so I think that would be helpful I think before a joint meeting I I would like to I think the agenda is very important and I think we would love to see I mean this has been a known project that was coming down the pipe for some time so I would love to see some information from the Board of Ed on well how are what are some like initial thoughts on how they're going to you know allocate children where what are the challenges where the opportunities is there something maybe they need from the township um that could be helpful um and so I think that's you know an opportunity and I think I've always felt like we should have an implementation committee that is comprised of the township and me and the Board of Ed and to make sure that we really welcome these residents in and we create a smooth process to get them you know enrolled in the school and so that and so that we can make sure like they know all of the Roma services and religious life and something comprehensive I think we're getting now we realize now after tonight that we're very close they're we're going to have some new residents to town and I want to make this into a positive experience but we need to work on like how is this going to go since we know that seems like whether you said by September they're going to be occupied so I think there's opportunities um and I don't to a joint meeting but I would like to understand I don't really I did happen to listen on Tuesday night I don't really even understand the board event's budget very well so even if we can get those documents so that all of us can understand their financial challenges better that would be great Mr Roman just expand on the comments a little bit the three bedroom units will be curious to hear a little bit more of their you know why he's making the statement or what you know what the the basis is for saying those aren't going to generate a lot of children because you know and are they saying that families with older adults might be moving into them possibly or you know we've always gone into this assuming that those units were going to bring families yeah um so it's it's if he's saying something different it's kind of it's fair to ask well okay why not so and it would be simple enough to to look at an online project and and try and see was there an actual increase in students put into a school system or not I mean they operate similar projects there's got to be some sort of historical evidence that we can look at but I do agree with you that the you know the the large quantity of residents from Verona is is a is a you know positive indicator assuming that they're the ones that end up occupying the units if they all qualify and it being a first come first serve application process um that doesn't guarantee it but that would mitigate it if that was the case but remember they're also leaving right they're also leaving existing housing somebody's moveing there so that may not be right it's something I think that we have to have in dialogue I appreciate Mrs frco coming to this uh the Council on tonight and uh I think the challenge of the Board of Ed faes is people moving in in September right we figured out classroom size you figured out things and this is going to lead to some pretty significant logistical challenges and for however we can help and the account Administration can help with these Logistics you know we're here I think we can commit whatever resources we have in order to get this get this moving but I think this is going to need a a working group and a um some pretty consistent updates on her and hopefully that's something that we can have Mr O solivan as far as early numbers even if we just get like really numbers as far as a demographic snapshot of who was sled just to get an idea you know it might give us a Dem you know demographic idea a reasonable estimate of what they're not allowed to tell no we we had we did ask that they there's restrictions on what they can specifically provide prior to that's yeah okay we can we can continue the discussion offline I think um I I did just have an experience with uh 49 unit portal housing project coming online in North cwell uh it was combination of one two and three bedroom unit so we can have some discussions about what impact that was to the north po of education at that time now pleas the conversation thank you with topic I oh certainly with regards to Mr primmer's property I did have discussions with the director of Public Works um about that property and Mr San thank you for your memos and I know that the township has not lost sight of this issue it's just a complicated process to straighten it out so I appreciate the continuing interest and uh I agree if you to disc communicate regarding the status for Council comments okay thank you we'll be moving on to hearing adops for an amendment of ordinance Madam clerk the uh first item on the agenda is ordinance number 20 24-16 on second reading which please read the title of this ordinance about ordinance providing for the preliminary planning expenses for the Improvement of Field located in Bluefield Avenue block 707 10 Inon in the county of New Jersey apprting $50,000 therefore an authorizing issu of $47,500 bonds are not to the township financed part of the cost thereof thank you madam par somebody please move moves motion is made by the deputy May second is made by Council McGrath now is the time for a public hearing on ordinance number 202 24-16 same public comment statement of seeing no public comment I will close public comment on this item is there any foun St yes I want to thank the uh Deputy manager uh obviously when this's first introduction we weren't real clear on what the monies were being spent for uh within 12 hours of the last meeting so I guess he woke up and got like to work uh thank you for the uh description of what these funds are being used for I appreciate your time and response thank you Deputy Mayor any other comments councilman I again I just think it's so important to be working toward revitalizing this property we did recently get um an email from a gentleman just really discussing you know the importance of Everett field to his childhood recreational experience and I do just think it's worth while always be investing in our Recreation facilities um because they are such an integral part of why people move to this town and how they experience our community um and ever field being on blenfield Avenue it's a tremendous asset to our community so thank you so much M please call counc Holland yes counc McGrath yes Council Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Timo yes May 20246 passes 5 to Z would be published according to law thank the next ordinance on the agenda is ordinance number 2024 and 17 on second reading M CL you please read the title of this ordinance to amend chapter a565 schedule fees of the Township Code by creating section nine zoning fees thank you madam clerk somebody please move the ordinance so moved motion made by councilman Holland for a second second second is made by Council McGrath now it's time for public comment on ordinance number 202 24-17 the same public comment sing I see none and have close public comment any Council comments I will just say that I'm really happy that we are um finally getting to the point where we're looking at our zoning fees bid by bid it's important to collect these small and reasonable fees where we can because we have a lot of staff that being spent in particular in zoning so I'm really um these are all very reasonable and considering the size of the projects that a lot of people are doing this is small drop in the bucket um and I think it's really this is going to help long term so that we can continue to mitigate tax increases we have to increase our fees at the same time that we look toward um uh keeping the tax rate low they go hand in hand so I'm very excited to support thisin thank you any further comments so I am begrudgingly going to support this ordinance I I don't get excited about these sorry to take the contrary Point View here um you know one of my concerns is basically we charge a lot in property taxes and sometimes it kind of feels like adding insult to injury when we charge to feed for things on top of that um you I want to see how much revenue we've actually collected out of this this is you know adding sort of an entirely new fee for a service that was just you know previously paid for out of tax dollars um you know certainly if it you know if it needs to if there's any interest in increasing it that's going to be a pretty high bar I'm just concerned about the overall cost of living that includes you know pulling building permits pulling zoning permits um you know it's every time that we ask residents for extra dollar it's a burden um and you know again we've always said that the high taxes in New Jersey deliver a high level of service but then you add fees on top of things so I don't know I'm just uh I'll let this one pass but normally I'm not going to get very excited about Landing you see J I tend to agree on that point I do think the fees in circumstance are reasonable um but even then $50 so project is project that we every dying counts in the current Society so I similarly will be voting yes but not of others M please councilwoman Holland councilwoman McGrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor tamboro yes mayor ORD 20247 passes 5 and will be published according to L thank you madam Clark the next item on the agenda is ordinance number 20248 on second reading Madam Clark please ring the title ordinance ordinance to amend chapter 85651 fees of the code of C by amending plary retail consumption and plary Retail distribution license fees thank CL please move so moved motion is made by councilman second second made by Council Holland this time it is now time for the public hearing of ordinance number 224-18 same public I'm going to close public comment any Council comment from Council um yeah thank you this is another example where we did not keep up with raising these fees um in years past these fees were raised every year so that we could reach a maximum of 2500 we skipped two cycles and again it seems like these are small dollars but these are businesses in town that are um incredibly profitable again this is a very small reasonable fee and we need to increase our fees wherever we can so that we can keep up with um keeping taxes low so these small things are important um and so um I'm really glad that again we're finally reexamining these and I hope to look at more fee reviews uh in the future thank you thank you a similar comment to the last ordinance um it is appropriate to increase fees Over time however I do look at an increase in $300 for this fee is maybe $300 that a business May beuse a sponsor of a baseball team provide something to a Tricky Tray while Community things so in every business decisions have to be made and businesses like everybody else feel bottom line food service especially um and which just been hard hit so same same deal but I thank our businesses for good patience and sence would you go thank you call the please holl yes yes Council Robin yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Timo yes 248 passes 5 and it will be than you m clerk propos ordinances the first item is ordinance each one on first reading B cler please read the title this one providing for the Improvement of the water utility system in tax of Verona County New Jersey appropriating $260,000 therefore authoring issu of $247,500 part of the cost move the mo by the deputy mayor R any Council coms sorry good question on this uh it mentions the smoke testing is that the one we talk about like all the lines throughout town or the majority schol cover the smoke test got you can you explain a little bit more why we consider that to be a capital expense uh it it allows us to uh maintain and upgrade the sanitary sewer collection system infrastructure which has a very direct impact on a wastewater treatment plan these things are barely you know you got to kind of stretch to call this a depreciable asset I think but I mean you know the piping repairs certainly but it it does meet this state definition for bondable things but I I do agree that whenever we bond for something we're borrowing money the pay right so this project has higher costs due to that borrowing cost but obviously trying to find the same amount of money in the operating budget it's a challenge so we kind of right you know we have really no other choice mad clks all pleas councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman mcra yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor M yes mayor Cham yes mayor H be number 24-9 it will be published according to law a public hearing will be held on May 20 thank you madam clerk the next item on the agenda is ordinance each two please read the title of this into the record first reading Bond ordinance providing for the Improvement of the big pool for the pool utility and inv New Jersey appro $350,000 therefore of $333,000 bonds are no Finance there move made by councilman Holland the second is by council mcant do have one comment I believe that we had originally spoken about this being the next year project 2025 project uh so I just want to make sure that that is still the intention the intention with this ordinance would it uh this funding would allow us to go into design and bidding so you can have the construction start either Labor Day or at the very least in the spring of next year so it's completed for roal day open of 2025 just uh want public to be aware that this is a next year expense there's a lot of capital on the agenda tonight so we'll be executing the entire project until next year correct but the problem is I guess we're buying on it's anticipation moves now anyway but just seems like we're paying a premium to borrow money now and we're not paying for the project until next year well ideally if we could land this project and bid it as quickly as as we'd like the construction could start as early as September so it could potentially be constructed this September I just don't like the idea of a sitting on right because it's just well they don't have to issue the notes until we're getting closer to you is this is this uh fully funded by our pool Capital Improvement yes it is okay our other it's actually written in there well this I'm sorry this is this is funded through it'll be Deb service to this right call please councilwoman holl yes councilwoman MRA yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes mayor ordinance H2 will be number 20 24-20 it will be published according to Law Public hearing will be held on May 20th Clark the next item on the agenda agenda is ordinance P3 on first reading would you please read the bond ordinance providing for the Improvement in the water and sewer utility system in by the T BR in the county of asex New Jersey appropriating $846,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $846,000 bonds not to the township to finance part of the cost thereof I Mo this ordinance is there a second second is by councilman Romany Council so for H3 I just wanted to confirm so section three B is for the Improvement or replacement of clarage Drive pumps so that is the project to um mitigate the water pressure issues in cage units and to serve those residents that is that project yes okay I just wanted to confirm because then there's also the discussion about the acquisition and installation of micro streams and Improvement or the disinfection system yes thank you okay continues on to the next side so is that all part of the same project or is that a separate project these are all under this Bond issuance but they will be all their own individual projects with applications to the I bank and okay along the same line of discussion the permanent financing for these projects through the ibank will not come until the completion of construction so depending on when each of these projects comes online some of them might not be complete some of the Wastewater projects won't be complete until like two to three years from now and each of these projects so each of them would be submitted to the ibank um which actually answers one of my other questions but and are they also available for the principal forgiveness that we saw with the FFA remediation uh the principal forgiveness that was provided for that specific to emerging contaminantes okay so if and when principal forgiveness is available state will typically throw it into the bucket of available funds that are there I don't necessarily know if it qualifies for any particular funding at this one but they do provide the 50% zero interest 50% market rate okay yeah I mean I mean I know that they have other advantageous aspects of the ibank financing and I do really appreciate the administration's leveraging of the I bank and and thank you for clarifying that that is in fact the clearage F station so thank you that's couple of things um item a first off uh just in terms of a code reference it looks like that's actually 2021 d27 um was the original uh Pump Station uh but I'm just kind of curious that project has basically doubled in price we originally allocated 1.2 million for it now we need another 1.16 was there a change in scope or is it um underestimated we know why that's it's it's a combination of few elements there there have been dramatic increases in construction costs in that time um there has also been some additional uh some of the additional smaller projects that are highlighted in Boswell's wastewater treatment assessment for that are being added into this project and lumped in for the benefit of the I Bank uh program it allows us to tackle all these in that one particular bid should be going out laters okay all so we're still working off of Engineers estimates here rather than we don't we don't have contractor pricing on this we have not not okay so they've estimated basically another 1.16 basically from cost increases over time plus desire but some other Small Tricks right and this the the bank defines what some of those percentage percentages can on including contingencies but those are all ibank and all right and then I'm also glad to see the replacement of the mic screens and UV disinfection system those have been falling apart for at least eight years and all all these projects were included in the rate study assumed in that R schedule and the Deb schedules that were counting for this upcoming de would you be able to send me any uh detail on item a uhing the additional items and the cost increase yes Mr just one question so I'm happy to see the CL dve fix on herec a while cated on July 3rd of this last year could you just agregate that number and tell me how much of that project is specifically the clarity Drive in Part B seems like a lot is bumped into the seven point I can get you that number um I I don't want to hold it for me want kind of tell I can give you I believe it's it was somewhere around 1.5 1.8 or 1.9 thank you um one about 5.3 million for micr screens plus UV disinfection system okay so so you can figure a little under two million maybe for the pp including 10% contingencies on all this thank you on the ground so just to put a find point on it so this um 8.4 Bond should it be approved at the next meeting should we introduce and have it be approved it's not going out to the capital markets because it's going through the I bank and that's how the financing the happens clarifier pumping station project is already in the ibank uh we are hoping to be receiving authorization to advertise with that one to shortly right the other ones are still much earlier than Bas at different stag is the um clarage compensation is further along the design and permitting process but we are still working other on not but we don't it's not finan like the other ordinances that go to the capital markets where we sell the bonds this all going to the ibank correct okay thank you and these were expenses that we projected when the rate studies so this is already included water and correct right so just for the Public's education this was uh considered and included when rates for so this isn't going to see an increase in rates beyond the sign increase in rates that Council hearing none I'm CL Council the yes Council mcra yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor M yes mayor Tor yes may ordinance H3 will be numbered 202-21 be published according to Law Public hearing will be held on H thank mam clerk next ordinance on first reading is labeled as H4 Adam cler could you please read the title of this ordinance Bond ordinance providing for various Capital Improvements in by the township Verona and County of Essex New Jersey appropriated 3, 110,000 therefore including a $75,000 Recreation Grant expected to be received and authorizing the issuance of 29787931 the project scope this year there are a lot of asks in the capital process um and I think we had some pretty substantive conversations with our department directors as far as uh we needed to do this year what the priorities were been fun so one great example of that is the salt there's a lot coming Public Works Public Works identified their priority has the salt Dome the salt D being funded but they ask for much more than this we pushed that same thing with um some improvements and capital for things like U fire prevention and so on um that we were able to push some of the projects back uh and focus on what was acutely and I think this is something that we need to continue doing one comment before we move this 3 plus million doll Capital ordinance is what they I want to see now that we thoughtfully planned and have a on ordinance here is I really don't want to see individual ordinances coming up this right we need to limit that um and uh continue this process and if we do we need to have a conversation about why those are coming up and be asking that question uh and uh you do expect that these as many items possible be held until future years in accordance with the plan that it's just my comment SL SL accountability all wrapped into one any other comments thank you man' one question I don't know if anybody can anybody in the room may be able to answer this uh I know in the past we did uh property reviles every 10 years I'm wondering why it's now five because this is you know it used to be a half million dollars I think when I started it when I remember from 10 it was $4 million I mean $400,000 then it was five now it's $650,000 um I would be a fan of skipping a and moving that to e and digitizing all of our records right away but is there a reason why do it the opportunity to do that we received an order from the County Board of Taxation that we need to have a reevaluation tode reevaluation completed by October 1st of next year so we really need to have funding in place through this ordinance so we can put it out the bid and form the yeah was there a reason why they called for it under 10 years do you want good wonderful our expert it's fine um I was kind of hoping that we weren't gonna have one right away but um it's our ratio the sales the sales the market so our ratio is low so they ordered for it to go into effect in 2026 so the work will be done all of possibly the end of 2024 all of 2025 to go on the records for 2026 so yes um and the number is larger the estimate it's because everything is just so much more expensive so but um yeah so that's why our ratio is just low and it keeps dropping because the sales are so high so this is uh what you Mr to the most popular people in town thank you for your answer and wearing your different hat coun um M Ros Elin and even though we are we may move forward with um bonding all things that doesn't stop us from applying for Grants I'm thinking in particular on some of the fire equipment are we looking for grant opportunities to offset those cost we do uh we do cycle through millennium all department heads are directed to continuously look through um to see if there's opportunities that are available we've used Millennium to apply for uh probably close to a dozen or so sizable grants already this year so we are that okay great thank you just one F item I know I brought this up during the budget process but I hate seeing computers on a tle um and I do never want to see another computer item on his C before this should be something that is our operating budget as an onor replacement cycle instead of replacing all the computers at once uh but we need to start making some smart decisions and also making the choices of if we need every year what are we getting right so I I I don't like the idea of spending on other things and then using bonds as a credit card when something new so um a couple of items I think that is a good use of it the happiest thing for me to see is in addition some Services equ um is the records digitization ands uh for sure I think getting our records digitized is going to be huge for public access and transparency there something set an employee time an employee time sorry R just you know point to make on on whether we capitalize or not capitalize computers is a very good one we a long time ago the township used to do this where they would replace every computer in the town hall at the same time as a large Capital expense we managed to kind of unwind that um the problem is that if we allow it then it's going to be four or five years before those computers were all fully depreciated so if they're going to plan on replacing them out of the operating budget you know none of us may be here at that point in time uh for all we know so I guess that's the question is do we want to actually allow this or do we want to say you know for $25,000 a year in the operating budget buy them because we did you know police cars for example we started buying them out of out of Road job you know we kind of slowed down on Capital lease cars I just you know I'm wondering whether we want to think in a different mindset based on interest rates yeah I me I I agree but at the same time our computer infrastructure in the town is in Rapid up I think we're running on like Windows 7 or something at this point like I don't know if our machines can handle it um we need some so I think there's no need but I appreciate the point and that the same point is okay when to replace so my thought is is that we start with replacing of like laptop devices which are newer there a lot of the desktops so that gets built into the operating for next year some of the other technology whatever we don't have and certainly I don't want to spend all the $100,000 we I'll have to so maybe that we spend less and it's what is an immediate need for you know what computers are going to catch on fire if we keep operating right right I mean this is a problem is when you when you do this as a matter of practice it's hard to undo it because yeah you're right probably every computer in the town is probably obsolete now but if we say okay both replace them all then they're good for four or five years and you don't have an opportunity to make that change how do you fix it I look forward to mr's detailed report on how Compu being place and on schedule cat on fire which ones catch on fire don't um solid C drives you know certainly any further else comments on this item hearing none Madam clerk Council yes Council mcrath yes councilman Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes mayor or 20 or H4 will be number 20 24-22 will be published according to Law Public hearing will held on May 20 M clerk the next item of the agenda is H5 on first meing Madam clerk which read the title of this ordinance and a capital ordinance by appropriating $10,000 from the pool Capital Improvement fund for pool furniture and attach in the county of New Jersey thank you madam cler okay I'm very surprised Council Roman I have to say favor of new pool so you okay the motion made Council Roman the second by cilman Holland discussion hopefully we don't have any discussion try to sh down on the capital I have be favor none councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman mcra yes Council ran yes may yes mayor Tambor yes mayor H5 passes M number 2024 23 passes 5 and published according to Law Public hearing will be held on May 20th thank next item of the agenda is an ordinance on first reading label to H6 B clerk pleas read the title of this ordinance record Capital ordinance ordinance by appropriating 235,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for various Capital Improvements in C Verona County ofic New Jersey please second by the deputy mayor and second by Council mcant any Council comments councilman yes um so first of all I think it's great to have parking meter kiosks included here um as well as you know the design of the Vera Community Center roof um but we are anticipating so we are anticipating the design cost for that but would the project Tes take place this year so there would be a separate Bond ordinance for that the design and the actual construction would be subject to ongoing discussions with our solar feasibility study so depending upon the outcome of that there may be alternate funding sources which might deter uh determine how much needs to be bonded locally to considering that it is the design we are anticipating that more would be coming back to this governing body correct whether it's this year or next year but this is the it's this is authorizing the design okay and then the VCC improvements like can I get more clarity on that as well as the sidewalks because I don't recall specifically the sidewalk repairs the BCC is the accessibility is that what it is there are accessibility improvements there are some other just miscellaneous upkeep improvements that that uh buildings and grounds need to undertake at the is accessibility primarily the accessibility and is that the same for the sidewalk repairs the sidewalk repairs would be for miscellaneous repairs throughout town where sidewalks have lifted you a full sensus of that just from walking my daughter yeah any other comments uh yes um the sidewalk repairs are generally caused due to shade trees yes in the past though we were clear that shre replacement was part of that because we actually have to pay for the trees Cherry py right so there there are instances where it is relates directly from shade trees there are other instances where sidewalks are damaged and they're just falling place so this is separate from the tree related sidewalk okay okay um one question I have is where did we allate Capital to improve the audio and um camera situation in this room uh that is another project we have an open negotiation Comcast is looking to renew their Branch so that's still we're waiting to see how that where we again okay the how much the local allocation shiing the Kel's working correct okay thank you that is uh from the public B Peter L our telecommunications consultant uh yes Deputy Mayor I'm gonna pick one of the two remaining items on this is had you go through the whole thing uh I'm not going to ask about clerk license software but uh what garage roof are we design that's thank you else GL see the parking meter kiosks and I I'm sure be um and I hope that with this we can start moving some meters to places that we arue on right now uh which is one them I park today U I still just you know put a couple quarters on the pole there I did not the uh not without a label that tells me what's own all right Madam CL Calla please C yes coun M yes coun Ro yes yes yes H6 will be number 20 24-24 be uh publish law held on May before um we go into seven what any Council M like ma uh to discuss the settlement before we vote on these items do everybody satisfied with mrest communication today speaking now okay no close session necessary uh Madam clerk the next item on the agenda is ordinance label ag7 on first reading which pleas read the PED this ordinance Bond ordinance providing a supplemental appropriation of $355,000 based two of the construction of Hilltop Park in by the ton in the county of es New Jersey authorizing the issuance of $355,000 bonds or notes of the township to finance the cost thereof thank you would somebody like to move this so moved thank you Deputy Mayor is there a second second second thank you councilman um Mr Aya would you care to fill in the public on this and K B please sure so when the township built the hilltop after I guess toward the end or as it was going on before anyone's time that's on stus um there was a dispute with the um individuals that were doing the construction which led to litigation um so this bond is actually part of that cost the Builder um thought for different reasons they were entitled to more money the township didn't think they were entitled to money hence litigation um this is a settlement so this Bond actually goes to the construction that was part of the cost and then you'll see in uh resolutions um there's a resolution to enter into a settlement agreement um which um um so that's a pretty accurate that's one so the settlement um so this bond is the difference between the settlement and the amount that was retained from the original Bond that's correct so what happens for the public to know is when you do construction you actually F back it's called retainage um a certain amount um until a product is completely done so we actually held that back that's money that was due to the Builder when the project was done because the ongoing litigation we held it back so that's just money that's been sitting there waiting um to be transferred over okay so the total the settlement amount that we're settling in the agreement is it's a a certain amount then minus what was rechange that's correct okay so Comm questions there mad to yes Council McGrath yes Council en Roman yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes mayor H7 will be number 2024-25 it will be published according to law and a public hearing will be held on May now is the time for the consent agenda um do you like J1 P yes please we're going to pull J1 which is set of minutes uh somebody car agenda K1 through K3 so move MO by the deputy mayor second all second okay before you call the V you saw the session and all that so session let me open for public session you're doing it the right way thank I appreciate the backup all right now is the time for public comment on the consent agenda the same public comment statement applies here no public comment I'd like to now close public comment on this I have a couple items that I would like the administration to uh address the primary one is K2 if Mr Lya the administration could provide some background on this there's been you know certainly some interest in this however sure um so K12 is is a authorizing execution for a contract to purchase real estate specifically 46 Lakeside Avenue um that it's a I'll describe it in my in layman's terms that I describe it it's a church the church parking lot so it's the parking lot on Lakeside it's the Big Lot maybe uh three or four um houses down from the actual Church itself um and the church has agreed to sell that to the town my understanding is the township manager in the township um are going to add that to be used for public parking to not only support the downtown but also help um with parking in the um Tonto Park um so that's going to be a large lot that will also be looked at for potential solar so you park underneath um potentially um a lot will also be metered and an analysis has been done by management showing that uh it would actually be a cash dep positive based upon the estimates of how many people park there you know weekends things of that nature because the prodject is Ping and we'd also want obviously develop uh different prodct so you know Mir Lakeside Avenue and things of that nature make other zones possibly residential only no parking otherwise it'll be an empty lot and also just you know continue to park expect right now that lot is not used by any and the intention would be also to have a large collection of emergency um sorry electric vehicle Chargers there and we've been moving a lot of overnight permits to that location as well to free up un just for lot one which is the lot behind beastro um and we beening conversations with the county about installing some uh Traffic Safety signals in the area to remote a movement to uh the park from that side uh hopefully similar to the signal that is uh South between morning side and Hillside Road um this was a Clos session item because it was an active negotiation just wanted to put that up for the public and that's why we're addressing it now but those are some of the many plans that we have that'll be improved for that purpose um this is I'm happy that this uh came out because I've been talking to some of the business owners on Avenue have been affected by a parking change uh following the uh the transfer of the C Los Fargo property the atten had some parking spots there that the current owner is not continuing to provide to the township um and there have been some formal agreements with the former property owner about businesses in the area using those for their employees and now those agreements have terminated um so I think this certainly be of a help to that the one question that I would like to certainly bring up or two items Mr Sol is first I think we need to Envision a a daytime parking permit for our businesses that will now have to use Municipal lot one for this lot ideally this lot when you know it's constructed but in the meantime we have an urgent need for UHA that area and secondly uh whatever we can do to increase enforcements of two parking along Bo Avenue in front of basically between the old bank and and um uh Avenue that's been area uh certainly we have a park Enforcement Officers but the more that we can do especially during the work we can do that um but I would like to hear a proposal on daily permits at a reasonable price for business owners um so get that if there's anything potentially that we do the meantime working with your office Police Department to have a stock mechanism while the legislative process is happening I would really be interested in hearing about that because this is a a big de uh especially with some of the that area wasn't as uh um tra dense before but now the addition of the uh the bakery the fairy tale Bakery the princess one and um the yoga and dance studio there is now dramatically increased in how many people so it be helpful to have that as well but talk more it should be a good way to address that I did also indicate that people I spoke to I spoke to kind of unofficially appointed representative businesses but I didn't suggest they join the Chamber of Commerce and Advocate through the Chamber of Commerce as well and maybe will get some new chamber memberss Council um thank you um a couple points uh Mr solivan can you talk about um K9 that and how this relates to the property acquisition in New Jersey application development resolution authorizing the execution of the contract K12 is a sister resolution that uh goes along with K9 which is a an application authorizing a Grant application which uh is intended for property acquisition to benefit downtown areas such as as this specific property which would benefit the downtown area that's a grant program that is uh being funded by the New Jersey Eda it's a pilot Grant this here uh but I do think that this property checks off almost all the boxes for what the program is intended fund so well we will be submitting an application with this um with resolution with this contract as well one of the requirements for that Grant application is a path of acquisition which is this the sister resolution K well that and I think it's worth noting that um you know some of the renovations that we want to make to that lot in particular putting in the highspeed Chargers are going to cost you know money and so the in order if we get this grant that helps Offset you know the renovation of the lot it needs to be improved um and then you know those additions that we want to make um I do want to make a point of order I am very surprised that this acquisition was included in consent agenda it's been our process in the past that we would talk about something as significant as property acquisition as either part of new business or part of the manager's report I would like to reopen public comment because we didn't explain any of this before or um you know the public had a chance to uh the public hasn't had a chance to comment on this and typically Pro um property acquisition does generate a lot of in uh interest and I know we have a lot of people online so if possible mayor I would like to reopen public comment but before that I do just want to add one small comment I do appreciate the administration relooking at the cougar aquatic s swim team uh contract and uh was um again we've done a lot with our pool utility and I think there was an appropriate increase there so just say thank you for that than you I can ask uh for a little bit of an explanation on K5 and that new contract because we had a resident I that reached out to at least myself about the fees that were being charged to the nonprofits vers versus this one did we did we contact and give exp that Resident was given an explanation and there were also the explanation included the fact that the C contract was increased proportionately the same percentage amount thank you um I'm happy to open for public comment again just for the the public saf we would have to pass bond to improve this property unless there's another opportunity for public comment for the bond owns process but I'm always happy public comment and at this time I open for public comment on any of the consent items again common statements say on I will close public comment M clerk all right just clarify weting yes this is k1 through K13 understand C Holland yeah yes Council McGrath yes councilman Roman yes mayor maoy yes mayor Toro yes may K1 through K13 will be numbered 75 through and including yes sir thank you madam clerk I'm going to move item J1 is the April 8th 2024 minutes there second second the second is by uh Brad this time I'll open for public on one anybody would like to comment about the minutes heing on I close public comments I'd like to not that I will be uh not voting on this as I was thank you councilwoman Holland yes councilwoman McGrath yes Deputy Mayor maoy yes mayor Tor yes mayor t one minutes passes are approved at board zero V refusal thank you madam we do not licenses permits we have an adum this evening any items for SPL Council this time public comment again on any item just fine anyone same public comment on I'll close public comments um we'll be going into executive session I think so right yeah okay magic motion motion close the motion to adjourn is made by is there a second second in favor I anybody oppos welcome to stay here we'll see you in we