a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh welcome West St this is public information officer Joe Fagan at this time I'd like to turn the uh control of the meeting over to our municipal clerk Karen Carnival good evening everyone uh we are awaiting council president Rutherford um councilwoman gber Michael is not able to attend this evening uh I'm going to read the opening statement this is to inform the general public that this meeting is being held in compliance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 the notice for this meeting was emailed to The Star Ledger and the West Orange Chronicle on July 12th 2024 councilwoman celino present councilwoman Scarpa present council president Rutherford in case he should be out there no May um I'm sorry councilwoman Williams I'm I apologize okay so we have one resolution on here 21924 a resolution authorizing an executive session for the purpose of discussing Personnel specifically the position of the Chief Financial Officer of the township West Orange is there a motion to approve so that we can go into executive session I move to approve the resolution to go into executive session I don't think we should could be an executive session without the council president is there a second so so Council I'm going to Second it but I want to make State just okay yeah that's fine but I needed to get to that part so and now I am fine going into uh executive session because we have people waiting on us however I'm not going to take action this evening so I'm fine with going to Executive session but I'm not taking action this evening on any items I just feel this is too important a decision and we should not be should not even be going into the executive de session to talk about this matter without the council president well the problem is they both committed to being here this evening and now we have people interviews waiting for us and that's not fair either thank you and if I can follow up with the comments as well um Not only was this scheduled uh this was something that is a very important position to the township and to our residents um I am not willing to move forward um with action items I understand that and I am in agreement with councilwoman castelino however we have people who are here and our government must continue it is imperative that our government continues so I am not willing to delay any further but we can pause on you know any action items so I I again it's been moved and properly seconded that we go into executive session I'd like to call the vote councilwoman celino yes councilwoman Scarpa no councilwoman Williams yes the motion carries thank you if we can now proceed to Executive session well so we're not gonna if we agree we're not going to take action executive session I would think we should have the public have public comment they're here it's on the agenda and then when we unless they I don't want them to have to wait they shouldn't we wait two hours they should have we should have public comment if people are I think they should have public comment and then because if we're not taking action then it's up to them if if you want to make a motion yeah I'd like to make a motion for to have public comment okay okay uh councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman Scara yes councilwoman Williams yes okay wonderful the motion carries so we will will have public comment um I just have to get one thing from my office waste the public [Music] only expect you to do that yeah you say that on the microphone uh Chief you could say that on the microphone so folks understand that I understand if I want the public to so Council would not take action in ex ex cutive session Council would leave executive session come back reopen the public meeting and at that point they could appoint a CFO from the two being interviewed tonight one of the two I don't think anybody realistically expects that that's going to occur but the administration would be remiss if we did not put that on the agenda giving the ability to do so the other uh 220-24 authorizing an interim CFO is um important and should be acted on tonight because by law we are required to have a cmfo Mr gross leaves in I think it's 14 days from today and we need to have an interim in place this is not a candidate for the full-time position uh this gentleman did interview he's imminently qualified however he wanted to remain a part-time cmfo for the township and uh work for you know three to five other townships and we just didn't see that as a a viable solution for our needs um I'm not prepared to vote on that tonight we don't really have any information about that person we haven't gotten any kind of resume or we don't know we don't know anything really about that person and I haven't time had time to do my due diligence I just got it yesterday I just got the package yesterday with the name of that person in the front I thought you I thought you were giving their resumes three days ago no not not not this not for that position and I feel with my I'm sorry Council finish go ahead I I feel with my colleague as well that I if that person's going to even act as an interim I want to interview that person I did not have knowledge that that person would be considered for that person should I'm only telling you the law you guys I what you do yeah well I want to make sure that we're complicit with the law so if that requires that we have to have another meeting yes we have to have another meeting so we're not suggesting that we don't want to be complicit right um we are concerned and you know and let's just put that on the record we are concerned that two of our colleagues aren't here but at the end of the day you know if we're so I don't know if this helps your thought process at all but uh Mr brono currently works for the town has worked for the town in a you know limited capacity as a private contractor probably for a few years um he's the founder of VB logic which is the company that produced midex which is our Software System for all our finances uh he sold that company but nobody knows that system better than him we need him in place also for you know probably quite a while to bring the new cmfl on board and become acclimated it's not like a cmfl can he here to um Mr Bono I don't believe this here you didn't arrange for him to be here did you no no um so this is really a continuation of what we're using him for now is um didn't seem like that big of a deal but if everybody wants to interview he's the only candidate for inum so and I'd like a resume so we can just you know see who he is and what what kind of background he is so so Chief ordinarily I I wouldn't have an issue with this but it was put on us that the CFO was the council's responsibility as opposed to administrations so therefore I I would want to interview the gentleman in addition to that Chief can you speak to the tenure and the term of the appointment that will be um making um I saw some questions and some inquiries about the term for the for the CFO position and I I understand that that is a statutory position and and requirements are statutory meaning governed by the state your term yep so if you could just please for the Public's gentrification uh to indicate that we're not doing anything outside of the law um just let them know and inform them and advise them that this is a four-year appointment um and that is a statutory requirement for this position so statutory requirement it's a four-year term at the end of four years if they're reappointed for a second four-year term they are a tenured employee as Mr gross was he's a tene employee so I guess the question may have been because U Mr gross's renewed contract was only for a threeyear term when we renewed his contract previously is there a reason why it reduce from a fouryear to a threeyear term appointment for Mr gross yes um I I wasn't really involved with the uh drafting of his contract so I don't know the answer to that but that's an employment contract that addresses the terms and conditions of employment so when that contract expired it would just carry over until a new contract was put into place if Mr gross had stayed longer no different than the labor contracts for police and fire so in 2024 they're both expired right now they've been red yet because we're in budget work and uh you know they still stay in place thank you okay so um I think president is on the but wouldn't he need to be at the he had to use the link on the agenda to get in here and then the other to get so can we just go ahead and um to the conference room and then he doesn't have to come in here we can just go to the conference room well oh we said com I don't want to hold the public up I mean no one asked the question has anyone from the would anyone from the public like to speak at this particular time we're going to offer public comment now due to the fact we're not going to take action when we come back so instead of you folks sitting here patiently hour too thank you we gotta get council president ruford in right we gonna have Public public comment won can he watch public comment where he's at no his laptop's not uh cooperating right okay okay I can't wait till you get into the microphone so that the public can hear you as well 1000 Executive Drive just a quick question there won't be any vote on any CFO tonight cor that's what we just agreed to okay that that's all I want to make sure thank you Mr C thank you Joe Joe kovak 20 Grand VI Avenue I want to say thank you to councilwoman castelino and councilwoman Williams for allowing uh me to speak um I wasn't clear from some of your discussions before we got to this point and uh much of my comments are about uh delaying any vote uh until a more appropriate time I urge the council to give full and deliberate consideration in fulfilling their statutory responsibility to advis and consent for the town's Chief Financial Officer it is a very important position with serious consequences for the township and taxpayers just one example during Mr gross's CFO tenure the towns issued an authorized debt has nearly tripled from $57 million in 2012 to nearly $150 million in 2022 we and I believe I include council members here don't even know how much more that debt has increased because I cannot induce Mr gross to place the yearend 2023 debt amount on the town website this despite asking at last week's council meeting Debt Service essentially paying principal and interest on the town's credit card this year is $1.6 million nearly 12% of the proposed budget that's staggering and frightening because we're not buying anything for nearly 12% of our budget tonight's special meeting reminds me of an adage I have long tried to practice poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine which the internet attributes to someone named Bob Carter who I was unable to find out anything more in my 10 years on Town Council I frequently push back on literally last minute votes on important issues that the administration dropped in the council's lab these instances came far too often and almost always with the warning that it was urgent to review approve the administration's request to avoid some impending deadline and Calamity I don't believe any of the vote approvals came close to fully informed considerations sometimes with negative consequences resolution 221 says Mr gross gave notice of retirement in April 2024 it doesn't say what day of that month which would have given the administration at most four months to fill the position by his planned departure August 1st the resolation res excuse me the resolution also does not reference the fact that Mr gross had months before expressed his intent to leave and the administration had plenty more time to develop a plan and timeline that it could have triggered without delay once Mr gross's decision was made the they also had time to negotiate the date of departure the fact that resolution 2020 asked Council permission to spend as much as $50,000 at $200 an hour on an interim CFO also appears to highlight how irresponsibly the administration's proposed action could hurt taxpayers a properly planned transition for such a role as the CFO would avoid this step all together before Mr gross was hired in 2011 early in my 10 years on the council his candid y was known for several weeks to council members I had a chance to review his resume conduct research and even spend a pleasant lunch with him discussing a wide range of subjects related to his potential employment I voted to hire him initiating a long series of professional not personal disagreements with him over his performance and advice to the council in the ensuing years the point is that council did not have essentially a day or a few days to give its informed consent it had week to do its job now the council is asked to consider from two candidates as well as confirm an interim candidate for these momentous decisions the public the people you work for have had no information or time to also consider and weigh in so I ask the council to put these materials about the CFO candidates and debt level on the town website for residents to review I also ask that you vote down these resolutions or table them and take your time to consider the right candidate for our town perhaps at another special called meeting and I urge the administration to plan better and expand their processes and time Horizons farther into the future so that these last minute requests end and the council has time to make fully informed decisions on behalf of our community you should also wait until you have all five council members uh for such important decisions thank you thank you Mr kovak are we going to respond to public comment is it there's is there anyone else that wants to make a public comment all right public comment is closed thank you vam clerk going out yes so um I I I'll just make a response to your comments Mr kovak so as a 10-year uh servant of the public you are very clear on the process and the procedure and so what is very disturbing to me is that there is the illusion um that the process has been rushed um that the process has not been something um that has been planned or well planned and I will agree with you um that perhaps more time would have been uh appreciated um but it is our responsibility as elected officials and the people's vote have given us the opportunity to make these decisions on behalf of the people this is a position um that is internal it's a legislative uh decision to make this position so there's a few things that I want to remind you as far as the legislative body and how it functions just in case you forgotten we require a quorum to do business that means three of the five of us have to be present it is urgent important and imperative that we have a CFO that is a statutory requirement based on the state of New Jersey of course we would have liked to understand months in advance when this time was going to come but also a statutory requirement or a requirement by the state of New Jersey is that people don't have to notice their retirement until 30 days in advance and so while it could have been a situation where the administration and we asked as a governing body as soon as Mr gross announced his retirement for an RFQ to go out for uh people who would be interested in the position however the administration who is the executive branch of this government um did not put out that RFQ until a date where I'm going to ask Mr gross to identify what that release date was to the public um rfqs have to go out for a certain amount of of days for a certain period um and I'm sure once Mr gross identified when he was going to leave all of those processes went into place which is why we now have two candidates to interview um we don't do the vetting process that is the administration's responsibility and so while some of us had an opportunity if we were asked by the Administration and I'm I'm giving you all of this information so that there can be full disclosure and full transparency because for some reason there's a constant statement about mistrust at each of our Council meetings how there's a mistrust with this Administration how we're not informed of what the administration is doing and I just want to take that narrative and change it to to what is actually occurring um so again you know when an RFQ or an RFP whichever it was for this position went out it has to go out for a certain amount of days people have a certain amount of time to respond to that the administration did the preliminary interviews to vet that process uh Mr Mr uh Chief Abbot can also tell us how many applications were received if that's something that you would like to know um but but again the process is the process is a statutory process it's a statutory process to even put out an RFP or an RFQ so for for again to imply that this has been rushed um that this is something that the public should be engaged in it's just not how employment works even at this level this is what we were elected to do and I encourage my colleagues to not jeopardize the Financial Security of the township of West Orange move forward with what we have been elected to do and make those necessary decisions I'm totally clueless as to why one of my colleagues feels that we should wait each of us are empowered to make these decisions the fact fact that my colleagues are unavailable this is our duly elected responsibility to make sure we keep our government functioning um so I hope that each of us are willing to continue to move forward even if we choose not to act hopefully there'll be an opportunity for my colleagues who are not present this evening to get the information to hear the interview um so that they can make a decision um to move forward but again I am absolutely not willing to jeopardize the Financial Security of our Township because elected officials opted not to be here for whatever reason whether it be health or whatever you have three of your duly elected officials which is the quum requirement here to move our government forward and that's what I intend to do thank you so councilwoman I'm gonna have to disagree with you um counc kovak um and I don't want to point fingers because it's not about that I think the process should have [Music] been I'm going to put this we could have did a better job of getting this done and that's no fault to to uh my co uh the administration sitting by my side they had to deal with when uh information got rolled out to them so I will agree my my colleague with certain timelines of when information got uh sent to them I um in all honesty over the Fourth of July weekend was away with my family and misunderstood an email um and so I was under the impression that the administration was going to do some vetting and then it came to en light with the council I've been through this process before uh went through the process of a superintendent search three times and it was very thorough it was very lengthly um we had a lot of advanced more advanced not uh that was not exactly the case here but the case because we we knew um at some point Mr gross um would be retiring uh we just didn't know when uh with all that being said and done I feel tonight I'm not ready to take action I feel felt very strong that all five council members should be doing the interviews together all the interviews um I'm disappointed that we're all not going to be here tonight so again I'm not going to throw my colleagues under the bus with the confusion on their part I I hear my Council colleagues trying to get on uh but at the end of the day um we have two individuals that are waiting and we have to be respectful and I'm not going to you know labor on right now because they're waiting on us and that's why I wanted to give the public time uh let them know now not to to stick around because I am not ready to take action I am aware of my uh my uh my duty as a council person and and hiring of the CFO and I'm more than willing to come in at any given moment if need be to make sure we meet our deadlines but unfortunately for tonight uh I'm not ready to do that because I need to do some more work councilwoman um thank you Mr kovak I couldn't agree with you more um I am not comfortable at all with the level of Engagement that the council has had again I misinterpreted an email and didn't feel that we were given ample opportunity to as a group all five of us to actually speak with all enough of the um candidates I had asked for more information about five of the candidates and was not given that information and I would have liked to have seen more information about other candidates other than the two that we are going to be speaking with tonight um and I feel this is an important enough decision that all five of our council members should be here together actually interviewing these people I do have the questions that councilwoman gbra Michael had planned to ask and I will be planning to ask the applicants to respond to those in writing to all five of us us because I feel it's important that all of her questions be asked and answered as well and I believe this was really poor planning we knew from April that Mr gross was going to be leaving and I just I don't want to see this continuing to happen but Council I I'm sorry I'm going to jump in and say one thing and In fairness to to the the gentleman present this evening who have been trying to Corral us yes to get us together on the same evening there there's frustration on their level because uh that has been made difficult to them and that's not fair either so so I just want to say that I appreciate your comments but I don't want to give the impression uh Mr smdo and chief Abbot have been going you know they've been trying to communicate with all of us and and it hasn't been easy for on their part and I'm going to say that for them if I may the um Administration sent an email out to all the council members several weeks ago now it's to gauge interest in sitting in so to correct Mr kovak this is not an advice and consent vote this is your choice for CFO that's statutory councilwoman you never even gave me the courtesy of reply as did not Council I know you didn't see the budget for three weeks either and you you criticized me for not having the budget and I had to point out to you it was in your inbox for three weeks so you know what I can't read your emails for you respectfully you got to read your own emails you got to do your work you ran for office you got elected that's not my job I'm not your secretary so if you're going to criticize us get your ducks in the room thank you madam clerk I move for um us to go ahead and go into executive session we did that all right well let time so let's do that so okay so the council is now going into executive session so we will put the meeting on pause for hi this is Jo Fen public information officer of the township Council has returned from executive session it is now 11:10 and I'm going to turn the microphone over to our municipal clerk Karen Carnival okay um I just need a motion to adjourn the meeting I move to adjourn second all in favor I any opposed no good night West good night thank you for the public