see are we good are we good okay yeah all right good evening everybody good evening um uh thank you to everyone who's joining us in person online tonight uh adequate notice of this meeting as required by the open public meetings Act was provided through the posting mailing and filing of the annual notice of regularly scheduled meetings at the Town Council on December 12th 2023 the notice was on that date posted on the bul Board of the municipal building provided to the Westfield leader in the Star Ledger and filed with the clerk of the town of Westfield and before we do a roll call um I do want to tell everybody specifically those that are watching at home we have been experiencing ongoing technical is difficulties with the fa with Facebook live streaming capabilities it's on their end not on ours and so we are going to continue to use YouTube live as we've done for the P fast few meetings in many misses use YouTube live as their primary source of streaming so um we will continue to do that in this on YouTube in a live stream format for those who can't be here in person so the meeting is on our town of Westfield YouTube site but as always the replay will be available afterwards on Facebook at YouTube and tv36 so with that Mrs loim I have a roll call Mayor brindle here council members hood here dardia dagala here keer here Saunders here armento here contract Mackie please rise with invocation which will be given by councilman armento and remain standing for the salute as we begin this meeting let us take a moment to appreciate the privilege and responsibility we have been given to serve our community let us seek the highest ideals of honesty integrity and compassion in our interactions and decisions May our differences Inspire dialogue rather than Division and may our shared goals unite Us in purpose let us move forward with Open Hearts and Minds committed to the well-being of all I PL Al to the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation indivisible and justice for all Jim anything from you tonight presentation yeah oh we're gonna hear a lot from you tonight it's a big night tonight so thank you all for joining um and before we get into that I just have a few updates and we'll give you a little insight into the agenda tonight um uh so a few items of Interest I know I've been talking about affordable housing a lot but I just want to give everybody a quick update if you haven't been following it um as you may have read last week the governor signed an affordable housing bill which was fast-tracked by the legislature in spite of objections raised by the New Jersey League of M municipalities where I serve as an executive officer and where we are asking for more time to address areas of greatest concern specifically there remains a significant uncertainty over the methodology for the next round of affordable housing numbers will be calculated including the vacant land adjustment I have previously discussed as well as concerns over the immunity that compliant municipalities will be granted from potential Builders remedy lawsuits and I've gotten a lot of questions how's this going to impact Westfield it's premature um because we don't know what our obligations will be or how they will be calculated which is why it seemed unreasonable to supported at this juncture in the absence of knowing those critical specifics and what's different about this bill than previous bills it's the first first time they've tried to incorporate the OB they have Incorporated the obligations in the statute normally it's something that out of the out of the bill that you negotiate later that's why it was alarming for us and what was different about it this year so I just want to remind everybody because I'm I do not want to ever to be misinterpreted that we are not supporters of affordable housing we are proud to be a fully compliant town and exceptional standing with the fair share housing center and our record and commitment to affordable housing speaks for itself as demonstrated by the plan we recent recently approved for 22 units of housing for atrisk Veterans so our Focus now shifts to the plan to planning for the responsible implementation of the next round of affordable housing obligations we are supposed to know what they are by January of 2025 and at that point we will rely on the expertise of our incredible Town planner Don samit and our exceptional affordable housing legal council to guide this entire Council and administration through the options for meeting those obligations My Hope and as an expectation is in light of our relationship and standing with the fair share housing center that we will continue to have a collaborative relationship with them which will result in a fair and reasonable outcome for Westfield so we won't really have more to say on that until we get more information but I just wanted everybody to know God bless you where it stands um so on the legislation legislative meeting tonight we have some very important items this evening I'm actually going to ask Council and hapg good to give an update on some of the items out of the finance policy committee specifically as the Lea on to the dwc on the downtown strategic plan and then some insights into the budget so Council and have good thank you mayor um we will tonight be voting on a resolution to award a contract for a downtown strategic plan to a company called Street sense an impressive Main Street endorsed downtown strategic consulting firm they were selected um after a competitive public RFP process and have been approved by the down Town Westfield Corporation board the costs for the study are being shared between the town and the dwc as part of a plan partnership that was budgeted for 2023 um so it's not in the 2024 budget that we'll be talking about tonight um but I do want to clarify what work will be done um in this study and why it's important for the downtown westfi Corporation um and I do want to note that the chair of the downtown westfi Corporation Jeff k B is here tonight and our executive director um Samantha hor was here for the um earlier meeting but um had to leave but if you haven't met her yet you should um but first and foremost as it relates to the Strategic plan it's a separate and unrelated plan to any of the downtown Redevelopment plans that we have although any future plan development including one well still place is certainly in is certainly informs and is considered in the planning exercise that street sense will um undertake assuming it gets approved tonight updating the downtown Westfield um Corporation strategic plan is something that's recommended approximately every five years as a best practice and it includes an assessment of our current downtown Westfield Mission and programming evaluation of the current and future Market influences affecting downtown Westfield and engaging the organization's leadership ship landlords businesses Municipal leaders and other stakeholders and a PRP participatory process to develop a shared vision and a plan to ensure that Westfield State is current and ahead of evolving downtown Main Street retail marketing and business Trends um so as you can see it's a really important process that we're going through and it will um include organization recommendations for our downtown Westfield Corporation as well as staff board training um and it's a so very robust process that hasn't taken place here in Westfield um in over 10 years so it's an initiative that is certainly um long overdue thank you um and the other actually the big event of the evening is the introduction of the 2024 Municipal and capital budgets um both of which I think we're very proud to be making these introductions tonight excellent reflections of the fiscal Acumen responsibility we've demonstrated over the past six years I do want to thank Town Administrator Jim Guild day assistant Town Administrator Heather Ray um and CFO Scott Olen who worked diligently over the last few months with each Town Department to analyze and streamline our costs as much as possible in order to deliver the best possible service and outcome to our residents and in particular I want to thank Finance the finance policy committee a chairwoman councilwoman uh Linda hapgood Vice chair councilman David contract councilman D Mike dagala and David kefir I think they have now a real understanding of how many hours and Saturdays and evenings go into what you're going to see ultimately that gets presented tonight a budget that reflects savings to taxpayers and strategic investments in key areas of importance to our residents to position us not only well for 2024 but for the long term so I'm going to ask uh once again Linda hapgood as the chair of the finance Comm to provide just a brief uh review of tonight's presentation uh before we hand it off to our presenter so all right great thank you again mayor as you'll hear in more detail tonight in the presentation of the operating budget and the capital budget um the town performed extremely well in 2023 in large part to healthy tax collections investment income improve revenues and the settlement with senior housing that we negotiated um for the benefit of taxpayers as well as for the wellbeing of the seniors that reside in our Westfield senior housing complex I'm ploud to I'm proud to report that we generated an incredible $1.2 million in Surplus to end the year 2023 which gave us an all-time high $15.4 million in Surplus balance to start off this budget season um this enviable financial position allows us the flexibility to not only make significant and strategic investments in areas most requested by residents Public Safety crime prevention Parks and Recreation facility enhancements playing field storm water resiliency infrastructure public services and also to support all these things best inclass Personnel um for now and into the future but we also have been enabled to deliver a 0% tax rate increase for this year yay which is worth celebrating it is wor C this is only the second time over the last 20 years that a 0% Municipal tax rate increase has been accomplished um and the first being a few years ago in the same Administration I think it was in 20199 yeah um so I'm very grateful to again have the opportunity to lead the finance committee um it's now my sixth year um and I'm very thankful and pleased to have had that the chance to learn from the master Our Town Administrator Jim Guild um and work with Scott Olen and Heather Ray Fara who um just make the process um you know so enjoyable and so interesting so thank you so much for that um and also to my finance committee um co-members um David contract um councilman dagala and kefir um it's a it's a pleasure and and it's always um you know rewarding to ensure that the Strategic and sustainable fiscal decision making um stays a priority tonight's proposed budget as you'll see on our news screens um is the culmination of the strategic planning and choices this Administration has made over the past six years to invest in people automation equipment and infrastructure and it's really exciting to witness the good news outcomes and share the details with you which you'll see in a minute so and I also want to mention that um just specifically highlight because it's been a lot of interest in the investment in Parks and Recreation facilities that they'll be talking about in more detail that are part of this um budget but uh you know the outcome of the Edison Fields vote has not precluded us from continuing to collaborate with the Westfield public schools in order to make progress on imp improving playing fields for our kids so Jim and I are in regular communication with Dr gonzale and other administrators in the school system on a broad range of issues with Fields being among the priority items so as Jim will share the proposed budget includes working with a professional consultant in partnership with the Board of Ed to formulate curated grass fields maintenance plans for all town and School District fields for the benefit of the community with the long-term potential to have the town ultimately oversee the care and maintenance for all separately the Recreation Commission is moving forward with the design plan for tacos Park will to include not only field components but a range of recreational activities in both the existing developed areas and the Seven Acres of scrub brush off of Lambert Mill Road which has been identified as a potential future Recreation Area so I'm going to ask councilman Keir as the Town Council lays on to the Recreation Commission um who's going to be overseeing his effort to provide some additional details so councilman keeper thank you mayor um as everyone I'm sure knows you know tamaka Park is a vital uh part of our community it uh serves there many purposes for our residents uh and we really want to both improve upon that and potentially expand upon its use and so to that end uh the Recreation Commission is in the process of forming a steering committee to explore a design plan for demakas Park uh that would explore how we can upgrade existing facilities and explore additional offerings including more parking Fields pickle ball courts uh walking trails as well as the possible relocation of the ice skating rink uh from Park the steering committee which was chosen by the parks committee and the fields Committee of the Recreation Commission will consist of myself and the following participants Our Town Administrator Jim Guild assistant Town Administrator Heather Ray fera uh Recreation director Megan schaer Public Works director Craig Gibson Recreation Commission chairwoman Jen Gilman Recreation Commission member Ron Feldman Recreation Comm Recreation Commission member Jeff parella Recreation Commission member Amy Burman lifelong Westfield chair uh Brad chenini Westfield uh sorry Ward four resident Kathleen hanlin and Ward for Resident Phil lamparello our first task as a committee will be the formation of a request for proposals for a comprehensive design plan for the park once that RFP is issued I will keep one apprised uh as of the selection process and outcome and the committee will ultimately make a recommendation to the full Council for an award of the contract uh it's important to understand the role of this consultant uh will not be to decide what to do with the park but rather to facilitate a robust process that will engage with all stakeholders in the community as part of their intake process including sports leagues neighborhood residents lifelong Westfield and other Park users thank you thank you um yeah sure thank you very much for that I'm going to formally request uh to have a seat on that committee as the other Ward for representative uh I don't want to hear from my constituents that uh something was happening proposed in toas without full representation so I would appreciate consideration for that sure I'm not I didn't make up the committee so you want to come on come on you're well you're you're you're invited D you're invited um so thank you for that um so okay so um we will for so you will keep us updated on these things as we continue to move forward so with that um oh I just want to let every know we have a great two great uh honor that we're honoring two great teams tonight the Westfield High School boys swim team and the Westfield High School boys um track team a winter track team that both won state championships again so they are currently over at the board of ed meeting getting honored and they're going to be aring here so we're going to start our budget presentation but we might take a minute break to bring them up and honor them because they have to get back and do homework so I just want to let everybody know that we'll let everybody know when that happens so with that I'm G handed over Jim Heather and ultimately Linda right are you participating yes to take to to take us through this budget presentation okay thank you very much hello everybody um so uh thank you mayor and Council uh we're going to go through this presentation um and uh in order not to hear my voice at all times I want to pass the first few slides off to he get her involved in this process so I'll pass it off first and then between the three of us we're going to chime in I'll go through most of the slides after that but we'll chime in they I'll have opportunity for questions afterwards uh and again thanks for listening to us so thank thank you very much all right so to start off I would like to introduce everybody that's been involved in this process um of course the first one being Jim G he's the Town Administrator who's been in Westfield for over 30 years now crazy to think um and he's been uh our our uh administrator for 24 years next up is Scott Olson Scott wave to everybody he is our CFO and he has been in municipal government for 26 years and he's been with Westfield for over eight years already um my name is Heather uh I've been in Recreation I'm sorry not Recreation municipal government for 13 years starting in Recreation and now this is my second year as the assistant administrator we then have councilwoman Linda habg good as our finance chair councilman David contract councilman Michael dagala councilman David kefir and of course we also have sule Clooney and roget McCarthy who are our bond counsel and our auditing firm as well as the IAC which is the investment advisory Council uh who is comprised of volunteers from Westfield who help throughout the year the entire year um and give advice and uh investment recommendations would you like to pause here yeah okay all right great so I want to go over a couple of the 2023 highlights before we get into the 2024 and Beyond um our first one of course um like C woman Hab good had spoken about was the historic Surplus so this is an exciting time um it has been replenished to over 15.4 million which is obviously unprecedented for Westfield and a lot of these contributing factors are the Westfield senior housing settlement permits and fees um increased and as well as excess tax collections uh we have also had a lot of capital accomplishments um we have paved over 15 miles of Road just in 2023 uh that's six miles by the town and 9 miles by the utility companies as well as various drainage improvements Park enhancements new Public Works equipment um and public safety equipment and some of those enhancements um I want to call out were Windsor Park we finished the renovations with Windsor Park and another exciting one was the tamaka park bathrooms the lower bathrooms that were closed for many many years due to vandalism and things like that those were refurbished and brought back online which was very exciting for the park um as well as strong collections so the tax collection stood at over 99.42% which is the highest in uh recent history with the town and we've had substantial progress on uh coming back with the court fees as well as parking revenues um since covid as well as uh higher than expected um building department and investment income which I'm sure Linda have good will speak about and lastly we had uh a lot of Public Safety enhancements and Investments um I know we've spoken a lot about the lprs but they're crucial to the police department right now and we've had uh purchased more of these to make a total of 25 for 2023 um and then we've also had increased Staffing levels with the fire department we had two more additional uh fire uh firefighters hired last year including our first ever female for this uh department and a couple notable Department metrics for 2023 we want to break this down uh by some of the Departments so the first one being the police department the police department has over 57,000 calls for the year and as you can see that's over 158 per day and that's almost seven calls per hour so we have dispatchers we have the police officers um and we have administrative staff so 57,000 calls I don't think everybody realizes just how much that actually is um we like I said before we purchased 10 additional LPR cameras for making being in a total of 25 and then we had service charges um continuing for police vehicles and Equipment uh when we have off duty uh jobs yes going to take a break we're gonna allow I see the track coaches here almost the whole winter track team I think is here as well so if the public doesn't mind um we're going to take a break we have a proclamation so uh coach and track coaches and track team please come up to the uh Podium here we're going interrupt our presentation to get you in and get you out to do homework just what you want to do gu going second that's you in and out here as soon as well um we thought it'd be kind of funny to tell you had to sit through the budget presentation as your reward for winning state championship but we know better so I just asked coach telki is he a little sick of coming here uh we're never sick of having you that's for sure so um congratulations boys again for an incredible season it just you just seem to keep outdoing yourselves and it's you've set a really high bar and we're really really proud of all you've accomplished so we're GNA do a quick Proclamation take some pictures and get you guys out of here I know it's probably homework time and spring break is next week so um so with that oh here we go okay Westfield High School Blue doubles track and field 2324 whereas on February 17th 2024 the Westfield High School Blue Devil's Boys winner track and field team W their third consecutive njsi AA group four Indo indoor championship and whereas on their way to winning the state group Championship the team also won their third straight Union County championship and the state sectional championship and whereas the boys track and field team had many athletes follow up the group Championship with finishes in the top 10 in track and field events at the meet of Champions on March 3rd 2024 and whereas the team then traveled to the new balanced National track and field meet in Boston for the final meet of the season to compete in both individual and relay events and whereas several members of the team set personal best times and the boys dist distance medal Rel placed a close second on the second day of competition and whereas on the final day of the meet March 10th the boys relay team of Caleb Stockman Jimmy gild Ryan Daly and Alex Valencia won the boys 4 by 800 relay and were crowned national champions setting a new school record incredible whereas all of the members of the team seniors Pete Dar Emanuel gello Jimmy G James Hamilton Avery Keith Graham Corin Rowan mcmahill Eman Mason Tage meta Noah patrai Tyler petrowitz Christian sford Alex Valencia and juniors Ryan Daly Luke G Brenton hatch Noah Rubenstein Caleb stuckman Charlie van vanich Cole Varner sophomores Christian bonap and freshman Christian Ruiz are deserving of recognition for their individual contributions to the success of the team now therefore be it proclaimed that I mayor Shelley brindle on behalf of the Town Council and the citizens of the town of Westfield to hereby congratulate the 2324 Westfield High School Blue Devils Boys winner track and field team on their historic season capped by capturing the group four state championship title and a national title and the 4X 800 relay and applaud them for their exceptional dedication to the sport and to sportsmanship congratulations thank you so much for for taking the time out to to recognize these boys and their accomplishments um I'd like to also recognize uh the other members of our coaching staff Eric Anderson John Preston Sam hayon and uh two uh two other coaches who couldn't attend tonight Ricardo Johnson uh and Mariana banck who's still uh at the school board meeting recognizing two individual state champion girls uh over there so uh but we have we have a uh we're very fortunate to have uh a dedicated knowledgeable patient um staff who value Athletics as education um the these guys are a tremendous group of kids um they're supported by terrific families uh we get tremendous support from from the Board of Education from our athletic director uh Sandy M from our athletic trainers Chris Flores and Nicole castalano who work hard to keep these guys healthy um it's just uh it's a it's a privilege to be a part of this thank you very much e [Applause] congratulations s team we're in search of the boy swim team are they here all right they're coming Swim Team all right oh I saw boys put all right come on up boys come on up you're the celebrities of the night yeah congratul congrat congratulations congratulations congratulations exactly thank you for coming congratulations you're welcome congratulations nice job congratul thanks for coming congrats congrats good to see you congrats than you guys for coming good night knows you guys thank you so much for coming congrats congrats hi congrats how are you nice to see thank you for coming congratulations wow it's um I don't know most schools would about you have one championship team in any given year is incredible but the fact that we're honoring two state championship teams in one night is really quite an quite ANC for the town of Westfield and speaks unbelievably about our our community and our support for sports and certainly the athletes that we have and our coaching staff so um I have the great honor of reading a proclamation for you guys tonight and so uh then we'll take a picture and get you guys on your way for homework so so whereas uh you're supposed to say yes absolutely we got to get out of here yeah I know those seniors right they they're on spring break already right so whereas on February 25th the Westfield High School boys swim team won their second consecutive njsi AA public a title the team's 28th state championship in the program's history and whereas on the way to winning the state championship the team posted a perfect record for the second year in a row and won the Union County championship and nor 2 public a sectional titles and whereas the 2324 Westfield Blue Devils boys swim team finished their season rate number one in the state by nj.com and whereas under the leadership of Coach Jeff Knight the swimmers represented their team their school and their Hometown with the highest standards of athleticism integrity and sportsmanship and whereas all of the members of the team seniors Dylan Dylan all Hudson BG Adam Godard Charlie Jackal Danny McAn Archie MIT mituri Ben thank you you knew exactly where I was going right that right sorry Ben Caleb Wiggins Junior's Tim dooski did I do that right Michael fiser Daniel Pierce Cole shy Logan Swenson aleander Viller Owen wble Hudson wus Wes young sophomores Dylan lis Flynn Martin did I get that right okay I got it Liam McAn Clark Cedar and Logan Welsh and freshman Elias Chang Alexander Fu Gavin jiml Luke Jenner Joseph Kylie Ben Lane Max lasow Andrew VOR vorv and Benz vorv that's right and Benz are deserving of recognition for their individual efforts and accomplishments as well as for their contributions to the success success of the team and whereas the mayor and Town Council of the town of Westfield wish to commend the coaches and members of the Westfield Blue Devils boy swim team for their sportsmanship and many successes during the 2324 season now therefore be it proclaimed that I mayor Shelley brindle on behalf of the Town Council and the citizens of the town of Westfield to hereby congratulate the 2324 Westfield High School Blue Devils boys swim team on their successful season C by capturing the njsia group for public a state championship and applaud them for their exceptional dedication to the sport and to sportsmanship congratulations I just want to thank the town of Westfield and particularly all the all all the uh the people of Westfield having to put up with us uh having a parade uh now two years in a row uh through town and causing a traffic jam but it it just speaks to uh you know the support that we get from this town and these boys uh take great pride in representing Westfield and uh and to go back to back number one now we're already moving on we got to start thinking about getting three in a row getting another uh parade through town so thank you for very much for everything and I can't say enough good things about these boys they are the epitome of of of a team they care about each other they swim for each other and they swim uh to represent Westfield so thank you [Applause] e [Applause] e did my all right back to our regularly scheduled program wow that was the highlight of the evening I'm sorry did you see their Rings man I think I did the I didn't see that on the track kids crazy that's amazing all right so sorry about that but that was fun and um so now this is a big let down but yeah totally exactly that's true all right so Heather back to back to you yeah yeah where were we talking about police right thank after that brief intermission that we we all need um okay so to move on to the fire department uh the fire rep fire department wow got to get back into this uh they responded to over 2700 calls last year and the fire vention Bureau um did over 2,000 inspections uh DPW uh obviously you can see a lot of Statistics there I'm not going to read all of those um but they did have high Conservation Center permit sales again with over 2300 permit sales but this is also a little plug to REM to remind everybody to purchase your uh Conservation Center permits this year uh we have the bulk waste program which sold over 900 um um bulk waste um permits thank you um and then some recycling statistics some of the ones that we like to see are the plastic bags where you can see that they have nine tons of plastic bags that came into the Conservation Center that is a lot of plastic bags um then we also have toys and books uh that's over 30 tons uh they take batteries they take quirks uh 800 pounds of quirks um and then of course the cardboard is always astonishing over 127 tons of cardboard um the building department as we all know uh it's a very busy town we have over 2600 permits that were issued um and that was approximately 10 per day and the then the inspections so we have plumbing inspection electrical inspections uh fire inspections we have over 10,000 inspections a year the rec department is um had a soldout pool again last year with 9,700 members and over 2,000 people on the wait list um and they're about to sell out again for the 2024 season uh and then they had over 96 100 guest passes last year so uh if you combine the two you have over almost 20,000 people that are attending the pool um unique people coming to the pool uh and then they have over 6,300 participants in all their Recreation programming including their swim lessons daddy daughter dance um their camps and all their various programming and workshops and then lastly we have the library uh a very important thing that happened last year was um that the library migrated their um the integrated Library System the ILS which now residents and non-residents have access to over three million books ebooks and things like that that you can borrow um which is up from 170,000 so once they went into this uh new ILS you obviously have um more to offer uh and then we they also saw over 87,000 visitors last year which is which is a lot um which is up 38% over 2022 and then even renting their ebooks and uh that was increased um borrowing up 177% so I'm going to pass it off to chman uh thank you heather uh and again um just want to also mention we have some department heads here in the audience we have Alan McGinley from the library our police and fire chief Public Works director um our CFO of course um so just thank you for being here and again some of those stats are just you know just shows you some of the production that goes on in these departments um this slide here just again a reminder um of of the pieces of your tax bill uh This Town Council uh has control over 16.64% of your tax bill uh the library has a small portion of that of course um the Union County has the tax levy and the open space tax 19.5 and 73 and of course the school board has the majority of a tax bill 6147 so when we're talking about our budget for 2024 we're talking about 16.64% of your tax bill that's to the Town Council has control over um so again just a reminder what we do here and again I want to thank the few new members of the council who joined the committee it's uh a very heavy lift with a lot of hours January February particularly uh but they jump right in uh and so we look at these really four uh sections um long-term capital investment we're looking tonight at introducing the capital budget for 2024 uh we there's a six-year plan that submitted to the state we focus on really a three-year plan which is more realistic for getting things done and planning things with with exact costs um two we meet with the department heads uh usually November December to begin processing uh and planning for the budget uh we close out the previous year in January with the Auditors with Scott Olson uh and then we basically finance committee starts meeting heavy uh end of January with the Auditors and figure out how we ended the year prior uh what our uh goals and objectives are we have our public meeting we had here in January 25th getting public input as well and we have then the Departments come in and meet with the finance committee uh every single Department comes in uh proposes their budget discusses ideas gets gets feedback from the committee very uh good process and then again we heard tonight tonight's introduction and approval with the council if they introduce an approve the budget tonight that's the approval to set the public hearing uh and and then at the public hearing which is now scheduled for April 30th that's the time where the budget would be uh have a public hearing and then of course adopted that night and then the budget is finalized for the year we are a calendar year budget town and of course the budget doesn't get adopted at the early it can get adopted as April which is why we have temporary budgets in the meantime calendar budget towns budget towns don't do their budget till March or April every year um so I'll talk about the side a little bit I know councilman hav talk about it as well and Heather mentioned it already uh we had a historic Surplus uh generation uh from 23 to 24 um couple things that this does for US 24 produces as mentioned before a 0% tax increase for municipal purposes so the 16.64% of your budget there's no increase in that portion of of your tax bill for 2024 uh the budget increase itself 2.87% this year last year was 5.4 46% year before that it was also over 5% uh so we're actually trying to reduce costs where we can uh and then lastly um with the Surplus we're using we'll get that in a second we're still living a very healthy balance of just under n million in the Surplus which is not going to be touched and is in place for beginning of 202 uh 2025 um so then some numbers you see on the right hand side we're just comparing the two years we're starting off this year in 24 15 million in the bank uh last year we started off with 9.1 so obviously very healthy position we're using much more this year 6.6 versus last year 3.9 and you'll he hear more about that that's a conscious decision by the Town Council and committee to reduce the tax rate among other things uh leaves a balance of 8.7 last year our balance going to 2024 was 5.1 so we're a much better position we generated 2. 10.2 last year in Surplus we don't know we're going to generate this year but we usually minimally generate two and a half to three and a half million dollars a year in surplus of can feed into that and we can generate more we mentioned before tax rate increase this year is zero last year the tax rate increase for Town purposes 1.98% and then lastly the budget was 2.87 and 5.46 so these are some pretty important factors and of course all these things lead to well what are we spending the money on uh and we have the next thing we're going to follow through is our five five PS our five priorities uh Town Council set this year uh and we'll go into some more of that but you want to say any words about that or mention as you can tell from this slide every year is a little bit of a puzzle you end up with different factors that um you have to figure out how to put together in order to achieve the priorities and that's really what you know the intention is from the you know really throughout the year to make sure that we're investing in those areas that we mention you know in the on the right hand side of the slide and um now and now you can see why we have fun doing this because it's not the same every year yeah is a bit of a puzzle so let's again these are the five priorities uh the five PS we're calling them 2024 so we Del up into each one of them um against first Public Safety this is investments in crime deterrence emergency response pedestrian traffic safety and community outreach uh some items to note here uh that are in the budget this year or will be in the capital budget some of the priorities again we have a engine pump we have to replace um which will'll be doing by separate Capital ordinance and a few months from now uh we already purchased property next to Firehouse number two to accommodate a new fire headquarters in the future uh we're going to be repurchasing more solar speed signs lprs license plate readers flashing beacons and various other police technology to assist the police department in not only doing their jobs but detering crime and of course deterring uh traffic issues in town and of course replacing radar units uh the radar units go in the vehicles for police uh we have to replace them systematic uh process which we do uh Fire Department fire chiefs here increasing fire prevention awareness in the town having more uh uh business visits to the schools educating students and kids uh as we move forward and then lastly uh one thing we're excited about you'll see a picture of it later on uh from a public safety perspective we want to we're going to replace all the town street signs this year um for those of you who know of course um most of our street signs are green um and a lot of them are old uh there's also a bunch of street signs out there that are different colors some are black and white are steel some are metal um it's it's a kind of a hodg Podge so from a public safety perspective from a vis visibility perspective um we want to replace the street signs we'll show you a picture of that shortly but important to note that this is all going to be done in house we've invested in our public works department we have a lot of new sign shop now uh we have the ability to do this in house so uh Craig Gibson our Public Works director and the rose division really be heavily involved in this so we'll be able to do it at our own pace and the last piece of this puzzle is uh we're going to add a little little fun to it uh when the signs come off the street we're going to take pictures of everyone and auction the signs off for the public to buy um people sometimes steal these signs anyway um put them in their man caves or sheet EDS or whatever we want to actually take advantage of that and make some money back and be able to donate that to uh one of our programs that we might have we have a public Arts commission is always looking for money we have a green team these are things we can take money in if we get if we do get revenue from it and put it to good use so we're excited about that process you he be hearing a lot more about that um under Parks and Recreation be a big year for parks and recation is always a big year but this year uh lots of things happening we're continually invest in field uh improvements uh facility upgrades and public space beautification couple things on the list this year that are in our either capital budget and your operating budget Memorial Park playground is in the capital budget this year um you those of you Memorial Park is one of our more heavily used Parks uh the playground equipment there is very old U for those of you around as long as I have that was actually that playground was an eagle scout um installation by Gregory Ryan on behalf of his handicap sister it's really our first playground that was put in with a any kind of um special surface for ADA compliance uh this will be a complete revamp and replacement of the whole entire playground with some other um ADA Compliant Renovations around there so we're excited about that we also have some grants we've applied for to offset cost for that uh we we will also resurface test Park tennis courts uh lining them for new tennis uh courts as well as pickle ball uh this is also the home courts of the Westville High School tennis team so that's important to have those uh in very good functioning order uh we are currently also working with um a consultant who's also the same consultant the board of education's working for working with uh and that consultant is working with public works right now in Recreation on all of our current Fields grass fields particularly looking at uh soil composition and we're going to come back with a curated field plan for all of our fields on different times of year what has to be done ation seating and so forth uh so we're going to follow that plan and see if that will actually help us U be able to have the fields even maintain better and a mayor mentioned earlier our comments tonight this will hopefully lead in the future to a shared service of the Board of Education uh where the town of Westfield can actually assist and take over some of the maintenance of school Fields um they are very heavy uh facility um organization they have a lot of buildings and so forth we're much more outside we do a lot more work outside so it kind of makes sense and the public really doesn't even um know necessarily who is maintaining what it is want to maintain the fields maintained properly so we're looking forward to that partnership as we move forward and lastly um we'll hear more about said fa Field parking lot expansion a restroom this is a project we've been working on there's a consultant now working on details with d compliance and we'll come back to us we'll have a separate ordinance for that this year uh to um get that project started this year um Paving drainage um so this is continued investment in Paving drainage we'll get into more slides about this um I want to note the picture on the top right not a very exciting picture but it's a very important picture uh you may recall in previous year's budget we invested ARP money into new sewer infrastructure equipment we actually purchase a sewer camera which our Rose division looks and uses so what we've been doing the past year we've been actually having a sewer camera going to storm water lines and videotape and take pictures of these lines um good news is most of the areas we've gone in and looked at are very clean great infrastructure no issues this happens to be a picture of a of a pipe that where the joint uh basically slipped and the actual opening for water flow is actually half of what it should be we identified this uh issue we had residence of Bell Drive in town uh had some issues uh where you have a flash flood area where the water piles up in the in the cuaac we did the sewer camera here we identified this issue we're now this is now going to be a project in 2024 we're going to go and fix this and so that the water has more and more place to flow so the water can get in the system quicker and not have that issue happen on Bill drives that's one of many areas we're continuing to identify and address our storm water system uh as you move forward I think is important so not a very exciting picture but a very important picture um Paving uh we'll get into Paving a little bit later but Paving um another 6.7 miles a road we expect to do this year um the utilities are expecting to do 12 miles a road this year activ they do the work on the roads infrastructure utilities under the ground so it's 18.7 miles a road that are expected to be paved this year there's also a separate one mile of road that the county is expecting to pay this year anyone who's driven Down East Broad Street from uid to North Avenue it's a County Road they are Paving that this year for us thankfully uh and it's it's definitely a need of it um all road paving includes ada8 upgrades um for handicap ramps uh storm water upgrades inlets adding places and so forth so those are important things in addition to that we're also we have four sanitary sewer pumping stations in Westfield there's areas in town where there's the Topography of the area doesn't lend itself to have natural flow for sewer water so we actually have pumping stations that pumps that water to the sewer system we've replaced two in the past few years our last two are due for replacement we're going to take care of them both this year uh and again we're also looking into this thing came out of our finance committee meetings beginning the process we'll talk about it a little bit more later hiring consultant to begin the review process with the D for the Robinson's Branch the the uh drainage Flume over by uh NOA terrrace area um and that really need some uh some attention so we're going to start that process this year um big cost in the budget this year is Personnel uh but that's really how we get things done in in municipalities people people get things done we're in the people business so we continue to invest in key person uh and of course not just for now and what we're doing today but also investing for the future uh so a couple things to note in this year's budget um and you know investing in Personnel helps productivity and long-term success succession planning Etc addition to that we've added some money to the police overtime this year they're doing a lot more work on crime prevention speeding uh we have a new initiative that we'll be hearing about soon about um speed enforcement in town um also the 2023 we actually did a lot of hiring or realizing full year positions that I thought was import to note them here um I won't go through all of them but we brought back our full-time Town engineer we had a consultant engineer who did a good job for us but we realized after those two years for a town of our size and the level of volume we get we had to have a full-time engineer so that came on board in 23 uh late last year we're realizing the full cost of that person the full year this year uh another thing was Heather mentioned it before two new firefighters last year adding to our roster our first female firefighter in history and we're adding two more this year bringing our our tours or platoon in the fire department back to N9 person platoon which is very important for public service and Safety Services um also building department assist zoning officer technical assistant those are all things in in those departments to uh be able to serve the over 10,000 permits or inspections we're doing a year and permit reging despite the developments going on in town people are investing their homes in this town we have new basements new bathrooms Renovations tear Downs kitchens backyards pools it never stops so it's a great thing for the town people are investing but we need people to insect those things issue those permits and make sure they're compliant and uh again one last thing about uh Investments this year Public Works is a big place for investing um through the process we went through the finance committee and the council uh we have a new Public Works director who's here we have a new assistant Public Works director uh we're reorganizing that department we're right now doing interviews for replacement supervisors we're also working on looking at a working Foreman title to really build the future of that department and put the people in the places to even get more productivity focus on many factors is not the leite to which is Fields as we move forward so we're excited about Personnel I want to thank the council for supporting that because it's not a not a small thing to uh support personnel and last of the five PS Public Services uh a lot of these are technology related but it never stops um you see they on the Bott bottom right the our picture of the Westfield Connect app we are coming up on our five-year anniversary of the Westfield Connect app um it's kind of hard to believe that happened so fast but we'll be giving a report uh this summer about um our fiveyear history how it's worked for us and we hope to make some changes to it as well we've had a lot of experience now people wanting to submit requests for various items and we want to actually make that more easier for people um but I want to remind everybody Westell Connect app is a great tool um to use to submit requests under various categories so we're going to try to be big push on that this year to try to lot of let let a lot of new residents know that exist uh building department technology improvements continue there and we're really going to bring the last two departments online in a way the public can have access to that's a fire department for permits and applications in the fire prevention Bureau that Chief doks and also in the parking Department um we want to get to online permits and online waiting list management there which we haven't done in quite a while so we're excited about those Public Services um good I'm just G to add to that because along with the public services um you'll see it's a lot of investments in technology and the technology allows the great people that work for the town to really be extremely efficient so um remember um you know to use these um techn ology tools uh to get responses from the Departments that you you want to interface with they're we're not we're trying not to answer the phone anymore we really want you to just use the technology because we can respond a lot more quickly that way thank you Wenda um next thing is capital Improvement fund um it's just important to note a capital Improvement fund is different than the capital budget Capital Improvement fund is a line item in the actual operating budget and the main reason for that line is to actually put money in there that goes towards a down payment on future capital projects the Town Council over many many decades has also put money in there each year dedicated for specific purposes uh and they're fully funded for that year so some of the items this year that are in the capital Improvement Fund in addition to a deposit for future capital projects include the following hiring professional Consultants we mention we heard it from tonight already from councilman kefir about the Tomos Park design plan where we have a consultant that will help us design that and be hired this year to start that process same with the stream cleaning Pro uh project on Robinson's Branch someone will come in we have to actually do a lot of D compliance with that so that'll start this year and the fueling station of Public Works um fueling station not only fuels Public Works um Vehicles police fire rescue squat Board of Education we also have shared services other communities too that use our gas pumps to reimburse us so having that actually fuel pump area designed in a much more uh DP compliant way and have that started this year is a big deal for us to making sure that our people can get out and do the jobs they need to do uh also tamak Park tennis cor surfacing we mentioned before is fully funded in this line item this year uh athletic field maintenance equipment once we get this curated plan and we follow through we want to have a money there to buy any equipment we may need that we might not have so there's a placeholder there for that and parking system improvements and Technology we want to actually roll out um a new app for parking uh use downtown in addition to one we've had for a while and also look at new technology and we mentioned before online permitting and online Weight lless Systems so we're excited about these items that are fully funded this year's budget and these items will be completed or at least started this year um and that's one you know some of the things are included in the budget so some exciting things uh we mentioned before this budget produces a 0% tax increase for 2024 for Town purposes this purposes uh you see the history here since 12 2012 um it does go up and down as Linda said every Year's a puzzle um the puzzle worked pretty well in 2019 and again in 2024 uh but even when it did didn't uh you know produce a 0% we're still uh for many many years under 2% tax levy cap and 2% budget which is or 2% increase which is important um so again over since 2018 1.2% average tax increase and that's only achieved due to the council's hard work with the with the staff um a little more detail about how you get to the number what the tax rate uh tax calculation is we take our total expenditures this budget is a $53.3 million budget um we take out the revenues that we're getting from other sources that don't have to do with the taxes so sources come in from revenue for all sorts of things we then are left with the tax levy what the taxpayers are left to pay 31 million3 this year to support a $53 million budget that's important that's something that we you know some of the new new members of council had questions about in the process and it's a good question even though we have a $53 million budget we're only asking the taxpayers of 31 million because the rest comes in from revenue so every piece of Revenue we can get to make the 22 higher help helps to reduce the tax supported budget we then divide that by the ratables the ratables are the property value of all the properties in town as you can see it's increasing by 88% but we had the tax living increase by 088 the ratables happen to increase by 088 thus producing no increase in the actual tax in tax rate increase for 2024 for municipal purposes so note on the right hand side there if average assessed home in 2024 is 82,9 that's up from last year 12,800 what does that mean that means that property values of everybody in town continue to increase why people are investing their homes uh people are coming here for the amities we have the town provides the school provides the library provides um all these different the county provides so West Hill is still very attractive Place uh and people are coming here and home values are going up every year which is important and that helps to manage the tax rate so um this is a lot of numbers but it's just important to know how do we get to a 0% increase in the levy increase in the rable value um okay so not gonna go through the slide in detail this all all the slides will be on the website by the way you can VI view them at your leisure this is a quick little snapshot of three years worth of Municipal budgeting the expenses and the revenues um and of course you see the bottom right there this year's a zero increase you see the components saling wages operating expenditures Debt Service reserve for uncollected taxes because we are the taxing entity and we are the collector of all taxes we must put a placeholder in in case no one pays our taxes and so even if no one pays our taxes we still owe the Board of Education their money we still owe the library their money and we still owe the county their money so only the town has that line on their budget it's not a small line up 2 point or $3.2 million deferred charges statutory required expenses Capital Improvements those are the operating expenditures revenues revenues and taxes of those two things so one thing last thing to mention on this slide one of the things that we always struggle with every here is the statutory required expenses and you see La in 2022 that number was up 899,000 or 5.16% in 23 was up 6.75% this year we had a much better year only up 2.26% but that's what we say at our January meeting every year what are our challenges going to that year those are bills we get those are the pension bills health insurance bills um uh utility bills things we don't have a lot of control over uh or a little control over and we have those bills and they have raway value auor Bill these are big numbers that come in and we have to pay those so we had a very good year this year in 24 so we took that to our advantage and sunk money in other areas and offset it with uh revenues which is great some of those highlights in the key expense and reduction areas uh police and fire department salary and wages we talked about before we're investing in our Public Safety departments uh new hires replacement hires um and and uh and other Staffing there to make sure that Public Safety is a top priority so it happens to be the top increase this year um in this budget the raway value sewage Authority there is the second highest increase this year in the budget engineering planning and uh building department salary and wages again we've invested more in manpow and wom power there joint Insurance Fund you'll see on the right hand side of this slide we have a reduction uh noteworthy expense reductions interesting thing in insurance this year we had a reduction in our health insurance of over $200,000 we had an increase in our liability workers comp Etc over over $200,000 um so couple quick notes about that um the insurance for workers comp and liability is a bit of a correction in the marketplace a big part of that is becoming cyber Insurance okay so municipalities you heard stories everywhere municipalities getting hacked Bitcoin ransomware those type of things um we take we take a lot of effort and time to make sure westfi is protected and our joint Insurance Fund helps us with that so between that and property assessments of properties we own to insure them properly are part part of what's the correction in this year's budget while there's a big increase in that on the other side of the coin health insurance this is our thirdd year as a self-insured entity where we are managing our cost on a monthly basis rather than getting a flat bill whether we use it or not that's important we have um knock on wood very healthy population um overall and uh because of that we moved to Self insurance and it's actually paying off so far three years in um so that's a very positive thing for the town hopefully that'll continue um also utilities is a noteworthy expense ruction we we put a conservative concerted effort in to manage our utilities this building alone has now been 2 years years I think we put in storm windows in two of our most drafty rooms and we've actually made a change there on heating cost for this building so a decrease in total utility cost 69,000 that's not a small thing so again these are some of the things that that we that really have affected our budget but um I think they're well managed overall and some of these are our choices to actually invest and we're using Surplus to offset some of these items and this next slide it just shows you where everything is allocated so um again the two big numbers here salary and wages and statute to required expenses 38 % for salary and wages 37% for statute required important to note we're a municipality but we're really running business we have a business of over 210 employees um and to have a business we run with all the different items that we own to have salary wages be under 40% is pretty remarkable for what we do and what we serve the public so um it's a pretty important thing operating expenses 11.75 not a big number for all the things that go in that budget Public Works police fireing three big departments uh and uh again you see Deb service well managed compared to the SRA budget um so that that's a quick overview on the operating stuff we're going to jump into Capital which is only a few slides will be done but um again any questions or any uh comments on the on the operating no no no no that's okay all right I'll I'll start I'll I'll jump in and cover some of the capital budget stuff and just as a reminder that we're approving the capital budget tonight separate from the operating budget that um we started doing that a couple of years ago because part of U the process of getting the capital budget approved is that it enables us to start working on the infrastructure improvements and things like that that we want to get a jump on that's the only way that you can pave the number of roads that um the public works department and others are able to pave so um just to make sure that you know everyone understands anything over $55,000 and has useful life of more than F of at least five years um goes into our um capital budget um as you look at this slide um there's a lot of small um font here so you might want to look at this later online um but this is the 4.4 4484 million that we're approving tonight for very specific capital budget items um that we have a a six-year um capital budget plan so we're constantly planning for not only what we're spending in this year but we're looking out into the future to see what things need to be replaced and how we're going to budget for those things along the way so this is a pretty significant capital budget because we are taking those dollars that um we received back in Surplus this last year and putting them back to work for you um so you'll see um the specific things that we're looking to do infrastructure and facility Improvement a number of these things were um mentioned before but um I'll I'll just call out Historic Site enhancements continued improvements to this building Road improvements are always um really important to us the public safety measures I think have been we've gone through pretty significantly again really focusing on um tools that we can give our police and um fire departments so that they can better um enforce the speeding laws and other laws and also um do everything in their power to um prevent crime which are doing an excellent job at um parks and wreck there's um you know some big and little things that are happening this year from you know adding bottle fillers to you know the overall strategic plan in tamaka park so a lot of exciting things happening there in equipment and Vehicles that's just helping to upgrade the equipment that all of our departments utilize to provide a high level service and um traffic and pedestrian safety improvements as we've um you know as quickly as possible we want to improve those things so so that that was again this all be online look at it that's was included in the ordinance that's being introduced tonight the next slide here is um other items we talked about before but there'll be future Capital ordinances this year once we have more details so the hoolan uh sidf restroom parking lot project uh we're working now waiting for consultant to get back to us there'll be a separate ordinance on that at some point this year to get that process started replacement fire engine pumper um as per our our replacement schedule in the fire department uh and Memorial Pool the one on the far right so Memorial Pool is a separate public utility it does not is not a tax supported utility so when we do work there we do a capital ordance and and then The Debt Service is borne by that entity but it's important to note memoral pool highight successful public utility they need to replace their filtration system at the pool so we're going to actually budget for that this year do a capital ordinance and then they will plan to have that happen in the offseason between 24 and 25 a lot of pre-planning go into things like that uh and the last uh slide here um just some more detail road paving um we want to just remind everybody of of what's really transpired uh since uh 2019 we first started a partnership with the public utilities and then turn that into an ordinance that requires um uh road paving when utilities impact our roadway so you look here obviously um 2019 was a big year um uh the orange represents um orange bar part of the bar repres utility work going on which is which is Paving curb to curb end to end impacted areas at the utilities expense and the black bars are what the town has done in its own expense um and basically despite the year in 2020 uh we've been getting uh the past couple years on average 14 to 15 miles of Road paved every year between the two entities uh and of course in 2024 we do expect 18.7 miles a road to be paid 12 or so of the utility work and ours is 6.7 uh so it's not insignificant and we are on Pace you see the top of the slide there 75 miles a road paved since 2019 through 23 they're 18.7 added to the list in 2024 uh and of course run Pace by 202 to have um all of our roads um reach a what they call a payment condition index score of over 60 so then when we go back either we can pave roads or treat them differently at a lower cost therefore saving Capital money to invest in other items whether it be Recreation or other infrastructure items so it's a pretty significant program and um again this is when our consultant engineer was working for us he worked for many other towns he said he really had never been in a town before where this amount of Paving is done in one calendar year never mind over the the course of of many years so rather significant um so that's uh the overview um thank you for listening uh and thank you for the Town Council to [Applause] uh oh yeah yeah okay so again this presentation will be online uh by no later than tomorrow probably um and uh of course tonight's action by the Town Council approves the budget again ready for a public hearing so between now and April 30th uh we have our budget at westerland J.C uh email address which has been up for forever um can you can email as questions and um any other last comments I don't think so um we'll see if you have any questions during public comment we're happy to answer them um and the budget doesn't get adopted for another month so that means that even though we're presenting a lot of detail tonight if there are other things that you all would like to communicate to us um you know as it relates to the operating budget we're here um as it relates to the capital budget this is just the start on the things that we're going going to do this year um and just uh hope that everyone sees the commitment that we've made to uh really delivering on the commitments on on on the priorities um the year thank you very [Applause] much thank you well done everybody that's great so moving on to the agenda for this evening um may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the Town Council conference and regular meetings of March 12 2024 move by councilman contract second second second by councilman kefir any discussion all favor yes yes opposed this m motion is carried now it's time for open discussion by citizens anyone may come up to the mic on speak to councel on any subject on which we have jurisdiction please state your name and address the record and limit your comment to 5 minutes please the Walnut Street of thank you thank you Jim um I think you all I'll cut this really short uh you all got my letter a couple weeks ago I apologize I wasn't able to be here about the current status of the historic preservation plan element study the quality of the work the deficiencies in the work and the problems with the sequence and the way the three deliverables are being done I'm pretty sure all of you got that and I think Jim and some other people did also get that letter the entire historic preservation commission got that letter I've been doing historic preservation since I was 17 I've been doing it for 40 years fulltime I've done over 5,000 projects I've done hundreds of historic preservation elements I did not propose on this one for my town because it was a conflict of interest for me to do our own towns but I can act as a citizen botd dog and that's what I've done and I've talked to Shell and I've talked to Sal uh Michael and I had a good conversation about it last night uh that uh we're not getting $60,000 worth of quality in the product produced at this point even including the revisions that we've got so I'm here to do one thing is pleaded to you that Monday night is the planning is the planning board's meeting to formally adopt the historic preservation element as written as revised extend that deadline please extend that deadline if there's any possible way it needs work the consultant already knows what some of the work is they've been notified Dave samit and I and some others have notified them and uh the historic preservation commission had a very robust conversation about that uh councilman deal magala was there last night and we had a long discussion about and I think we had pretty much consensus right across the board that there were some issues in there that you know I can't expect our historic they're they're not experts in historic preservation they're local people who have an interest in historic preservation I'm a professional at it I know what this is and what the consultant that we hired did and I'm not trying to bash the consultant I'm bashing the quality of the product is they use the credential that they had done this before in Jersey City I asked you to call Jersey City as I said in my letter to you two weeks ago they are in many many months of contract extension because the product is so deficient and Jersey City is by far the most historic preservation sophisticated municipality in the state they have three full-time staff members who do nothing but historic preservation and uh they had hired the same consultant to do the exact same scope of work and they are months and months and months in overrun because they're not satisfied with the product uh that's what I'm saying again you all saw that in my letter the letter I think I sto writing at four o'clock in the morning because I was at like eight pages and I had 20 more to go and I didn't want to overwhelm everybody with more of the more of what that letter was about um so please if we can ex do anything uh uh to extend the planning board's deadline to adopt that and I'll say one other thing real quickly there are three components to the historic preservation plan project one is the preservation plan which is adopted and attached to the municipal master plan right we have one and it's being updated by this consultant then there is a survey of the downtown historic district an architectural survey where where you go building by building and you determine which ones are significant which ones are non historically significant which one have architectural character and then the third component of their contract their $60,000 contract is a national register nomination to put that downtown on the register our contract our RFP and I'm not blaming anybody in the town the town didn't know better it it's got the cart in front of the horse the way you do it in any municipality and the way I've ever seen it done either my doing it or anyone else in the professional world done is you do the survey first you get the town to buy off on that you do the national register nomination which determines What's significant what's not and what the boundaries are the boundaries are critical in what is going to be in and out of that historic district then you adopt the preservation element if they adopt preservation element now they're using completely inadequate information because those their two studies aren't done yet and I think they're due in the next couple weeks right and we haven't even seen a draft of either one so it's a mess it's a mess and I don't and and I certainly don't want to suggest that anybody in the town H has has has mishandled this and I I should say and I meant to say before I started talking thank you for being the responsible stewards the volunteers and the people who care for what I believe is the best town in New Jersey maybe there's one that has Princeton University in the middle of it that's maybe got some things about it they're pretty good too but I think ours is the best one without a un Princeton University in the middle for sure so thank you for doing that and I think this is the responsible thing to do just we've got time we don't Mr you're out of time but thank you very muchly noted yeah thank you anybody else okay oh oops good evening mayor Town Council Greg Casco 434 ever place at the last Town council meeting regarding what I addressed with Mr Saunders and contradicting statements that he had made first during his campaign and then second here at a town council meeting he responded at the end of public comment without me getting a chance to respond and I'll do so now Mr Saunders your refusal to address resident concerns regarding conflict of interest issues is a very real concern instead of putting this to bed you stated quote what's next are we going to force Westfield residents and businesses business owners to recuse themselves as a councilman you well know only voting members of the public body are subject to recusal you can easily put this to bed by simply stating you will recuse yourself if the recommendation is made by legal councel just as former councilman Jim boce did and others before him it's simple will you recuse yourself if legal councel informs you of a conflict of interests yes or no for the record I have not asked you to step down or resign this is simply an Ethics issue that could cost taxpayers money the developers no doubt have seen the video you circulated stating your personal interest as have a great many in this town during your campaign and those that watch these Town Council meetings Mr kefir at the last council meeting it was the first time I've spoken regarding this issue since the new Council was elected Mr kefir you try to silence me in residents like me when we have concerns about clear legal ethics issues that could cost taxpayers money by admonishing us calling these concerns gratuitous attacks yet you're on the very email chains where people talk about attacking this mayor and you've nothing to say about that I have those emails here here during the election I heard all these words of bipartisanship I hear you're working well now with this Town Council each person on This Town Council but when is the behind the scenes display of partisanship going to stop how come you're not asking councilman armento when he's going to stop with the personal attacks there was an email that was circulated and it went to no less than 30 people the likes of Steven Goodman Susan Goodman Carla Bachi Carrie Murphy Carrie McVey William Sherwood Denise Sherwood Westfield Advocates Robert Wendell Joe salm William Fitzpatrick FK Soro poola bionis Maro Courtney sha Todd Saunders Michael domagala Anthony leapor David kefir and the list goes on we were called Minions by Mr armento in these emails that I have here I can assure you everybody on This Town Council I am nobody's minion I walk to the Beat of My Own Drum I come to these meetings and I speak my mind it's my right I've lived in town for 53 years and if I think that something is of a concern such as ethics it's not a gratuitous attack it's a legitimate concern that I and others have all I asked at the last meeting was would you simply recuse yourself if asked or advised by Westfield's legal council should a conflict arise in a vote on One Westfield place after you had stated during your campaign that you're scared about what's going to happen to your father's business which you stand to inherit it's a valid concern once Westfield place is developed and then last month you stated One Westfield place has nothing to do with your inheritance I never brought up your finances as you suggested never he brought up his own finances at a previous meeting and during his campaign he brought up his concerns about his family's Holdings I bring to you emails in email chain that there is a effort by members of This Town Council to collaborate to use a word that you've used before against this mayor in Town Council but yet you allow this to continue and you don't address it when Mr armento calls us minions thank you for your time mayor council members this has got to stop you're all here to work for the the better of this town not only in public but also behind closed doors thank you thank you anybody else this is just more Monday see uh Carla Bonacci 603 Lawrence Avenue this is just more mundane but um I made a recommendation at the earlier conference meeting that you guys would put in the budget to Mill and pave the uh drop off pickup area in front of the maze it is our front door for mass transit uh and it is in a decrepit terrible Condition it's a safety hazard and it's really not uh representative of what we think the town of Westfield is and then to Peter prima's point he reminded me that I made three important comments to Don samit on the historic preservation report which he acknowledged but I've not seen anything it would be lovely to see a Redline copy of these reports that are developed so that we understand what changes are being in uh Incorporated I think I've mentioned that to Tom jardim before as well so it'd be nice if you could do that for the public good evening um I just want to take a minute of Drew Kellerman 534 Boulevard uh I just want to take a minute to thank um the members of the 2023 Administration for the amazing amazing performance and you guys are the reason that we have 0% tax increase so I'd like to just take a moment and recognize that that is outstanding you're giving us the second year of your in your Administration with a 0% tax increase I just want to take a minute recognize that and thank you for all your hard work it has not gone unnoticed thank [Applause] you anybody else okay hearing none I uh close this portion of the meeting um and uh Mr Prima um uh uh I assume all your comments and you said you there you are um hello you were at I the HPC meeting last night it sounds like so um so you know the recommendation for any type of delay would come from Jenny jelski um who's chair of the historic preservation I haven't heard anything that they have any interest in delaying I know they had already delayed at one time and at their request so um but Don Sam it as you know this Council isn't really directly involved in the details of that it gets approved by the planning board as you well know so um I'll we can Circle back with Jenny and with Don in advance of the planning board meeting and just confirm that they're ready to move forward and and and go from there but I'm sure if You' provided all these comments and you said you spoke to councilman dagal last night that your comments are well have have been considered and hopefully could you know know takeen into account thank you so um and um and Miss Bachi just did I know you brought up the maze Paving and the previous one and as we had mentioned um maves will be doing some repair work in front of their building which we should see before they open so um and uh and Mr Casco and you know I don't know if Mr Saunders wants to um comment but I can I know last week uh Tom tarim got up and you know I don't really want to get into the whether someone should recuse or not cues however to me it's cross that bridge when we get to it and if if uh and that's pretty much what uh I know Mr JY mentioned last week if that ever came up that that would be something that he would do in Council but um right now I'm not one that really likes to deal in hypotheticals so um that's that's kind of how it handle it I don't know if you have anything to say other than that um and and thank you Miss Colman for the comments on the budget it is a budget I think we can all be very very proud of so appreciate that um with that uh we'll move on to bills and claims Council and hap good thank you mayor um I'd like to move bills and claims in the amount of $584,900 may I have a second second So Good by councilor maie any discussion all in favor yes yes opposed this motion is carried next on the agenda is reports to standing committees begin with the finance policy committee councilman ha good thank you again there I have nine resolutions four of which I'd like to move as a package the first resolution authorizing the CFO to refund Recreation Department fees the second a resolution authorizing the CFO to refund Police Department fees third a resolution to extend the contract for the Westfield Memorial Pool concessionaire for resolution to award contract for the downtown strategic plan may I have a second second s by Council dagala any discussion all in favor oos this motion is carried next I would like to oops that's you sorry next I'd like to move a resolution to adopted temporary capital budget I have a second counciling contract any discussion please call the role council members H yesal yes keer yes Saunders yeso yes contract yes ma yes mayle yes this motion is carried and I'd also like to move a resolution to introduce and approve the 2024 municip budget yeah I have a second second by Council Mento um any discussion um I just want to say again huge thank you to the finance committee and the staff um I don't know in my six years as uh mayor I have to say this is probably the best and most exciting budget we've ever been able to induce the fact that we've been able to 0% tax rate almost $9 million surplus and an unprecedented capital budget we are all really fortunate that now we get to kind of I think we all serve because we want to make things happen and it's we like this that you just relish because we have the opportunity to really make things happen and deliver on the priorities that you all have communicated so just want to say my thanks and it's going to be a very exciting year so and mayor I'd just like to reiterate your acknowledgement of all the hard work that gets done every single day by Our Town Administrator and our CFO and our Deputy Town Administrator um it's always a pleasure working with you um and I think I can speak on behalf of the whole committee that um it's a terrific budget and the um there's not there's a lot of great things happening in Westfield including the fact that people want to come work here now um for the fact that it's a great you know and beautiful town but also because it's run so well um so thank you very much for that it's you I hear it all the time from Mayors all over the state people want to work here because of the culture of the work environment it's here not only I think tone set by Jim gild but I think by the community and the appreciation that's been shown so um don't ever take that for granted because we're only as good as the people that we can attract so um so very thrilled with that so let's please call the role council members have yesal yes Keir yes Saunders yeso yes contract yes ma yes may yes this motion is carried next I'd like to move a resolution to introduce and approve the 2024 special Improvement District budget yeah I have a second my Council Mackie uh any discussion I think it's worth noting this is what the sixth or seventh year now that there this this assessment has stayed flat and I think that's you know they which means they continue to do more with less and again hats off to dwc chair Jeff Ken bomb but um good very nice job thr to report it so please call the role council members have yes yes keeper yes Saunders yeso yes contract yes Mackie mayle yes this motion is carried and I'd like to move a resolution to approve the temporary emergency authorizations I have a second second second by councilman Saunders any discussion I I just want to note that that sounds very ominous and all that it is is just helping us to stem from last year into this new budget um because we need to um approve some monies to make that happen before we fully adopt the 2024 budget very good please call the role council members have yes donala yes keeper yes sers yes yes contract yes may yes this motion is carried and last I'd like to move a resolution to authorize the CFO to make a budget transfer you have a second my councel discussion please call the role council members H yes yes yes yeso yes Contra yes may yes this motion is carried next are ordinances um I'd like to move General ordinance number 20247 on first reading an ordinance for calendar year 2024 to establish a cap Bank may I have a second second second by Council and contract any discussion please call Ro CC M yes yes yes yes yes contract yes yes this motion is carried and finally I'd like to move special ordinance number 2024 -2 on first reading a bond ordinance to authorize the making of various public improvements and the acquisition of new additional or replacement equipment and Machinery new information technology equipment new communication and signal systems equipment and new Automotive Vehicles including original apparatus and equipment in by and for the town of Westfield and the county of union state of New Jersey to appropriate the sum of $ 44,48 th000 to pay the cost thereof to make a down payment or fully fund Appropriations from the capital Improvement fund to authorize the issuance of bonds to finance such appropriation and to provide for the issuance of bond anticipation notes in anticipation of the the issuance of such bonds wow that's the capital that's the approval for the capital budget in case you were wondering it has to be worded that way apparently may I have a second second by Council Macky any discussion please call the role council member yes yes yes yeso yes Contra yes may yes this motion is carried councilman contract please move code review and town property committee resolution I'd like to move a resolution to approve children's Amusement device license you have a second second second by Council Macky any discussion this motion is carried uh did I say all in favor did I miss we should just say yes we're all in favor sorry we need to vote on this I think we do right okay all in favor any discussion this motion is carried councilor Macky please move Public Works resolutions thank you mayor I would like to Mo resolution to award contract for various landscape material for the Department of Public Works may I have a second second my Council and contract all in favor yes yes opposed any discussion this motion is carried may I have a motion to adjourn so move by Council Macky all in favor yes yes oppose this motion is carried and this meeting is adjourned good night