##VIDEO ID:ivmaA-hkRJ8## good good evening everybody good evening everybody here and at home it is January 23rd 7 PM this is the combined mayor and Council work and regular session Linda will you please call the meeting to order and read the read the open public meetings act announcement in compliance with the open public meetings act the notice requirements have been satisfied the meeting dates for the year are confirmed at the annual meeting are posted on the public bulletin board in the municipal building and on the burough website published in the record within the first 10 Days of the New Year and copies are sent to the Ridgewood news and Star Ledger notice of this meeting by the January 13 2025 Sunshine notice was sent to the record The Ridgewood news and Star Ledger and has been posted on the public bulletin board in the municipal building and burrow website R councilman Yaro here councilman OU here councilwoman Homan here councilwoman Loa solo here councilman delisio councilman oconnell here mayor wolinski here everybody please rise P the flag flates all righty all right first we're going to approve minutes January 6 our Senate and a reorg meeting do I have a motion to approve January 6 so mooved second please second councilman Yaro yes councilman UL yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman loas solo yes councilman oconnell yes all righty now the spun begin we get the honor of swearing in many members of our fire department um our fire department Department officers so ready to come on up and anybody else who wants to come you can that I will support the constition of the United States and the constition of the state of New Jersy that I will bear true faith and Allegiance Fai to the same to the and to the government established in the United States and the government establish the United States and inth and impartially impartially and justly perform justly perform all the duties of all the duties of according to the best of my ability ability so help be God congratulations a whole bunch thank you everybody am Amy do you have theost officee sign before you leave you can sign I'll scan yeah Mark um not here yet all right Bo Scouts you're up I'm on up you YouTube oh who's no you guys back there first and then we'll do you I'm sorry I didn't know we there had more than uh one word the ones who requested this special meeting for your presentation sorry uh Joshua I'm Joshua I'm uh Allen res president um previously I was here talking about my Eagle Scout project but which a great project thank you but due to some complications I have to change my project and now it's changed to a presentation at the community center it's for fire safety awareness um preferably it would be happening on two days April 5th and 6th and uh April 5th it's open to the General community and then for the second day I'd be hoping it's for mainly the special needs community so um what type of components of fire safety will you be explaining so types of the types of uh components I'll be talking about would be um uh fire prevention in the own home um how to contain a fire in your own home and some the fire equipment that you can have in your home like fire extinguishers um smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors um and I would also be talking about like an escape plan for ons very nice okay well actually I think sounds like a very nice uh project anybody have any questions or um my suggestion to you would be to make sure those dates are available um uh yeah I I've been I've emailed on the burough website to Amanda Richards about it y haven't heard back yet though okay yep follow up because the community center is getting filled very quickly and we had our ribbon cutting today so yeah the floodgates are opening tomorrow all perfect thank you I think it's okay do we have another voice yeah that like oh this okay oh you're separate hi my name is Jacob a um I'm presenting my Eagle Scout project as well my project idea is to uh create a wall behind the newly installed um fire pit at at Crestwood Lake by the Red Barn currently it stands alone but I would like to add the wall a couple feet behind the fire pit as an informational and dedicational wall to the fir pit it would describe why the fire pit was built and who built it the purpose of why we burn blacks to retire them um it would also have labeled um six different logos for the six branches of the military also dedicating it to them and on the side closer to the um Pond right behind the uh 9911 Memorial would be a bench uh that bench would be there for people who are um older or veterans that are there witnessing one of the flag retirement ceremonies and those who would just like to sit down and take in the site of dep B um how big is the wall going to be how tall currently I'm not sure I'm going to be in contact soon with an organization to get the stone bricks and they're going to tell me if if like this is a size amount um my hope I'm hoping it would be around 5et no um it's and Bricks did you say yes okay so I'm assuming you need Foundation yes put in that's very ni and the plaques that are going to go on the wall what what I they what's your vision for those uh my vision for it to look like is the um main plaque Smackdown in the middle of the wall and kind of like uh two rows on the side of the plaque one here one here and it's going to have the each logo of the branches of the military I love that part um and under each logo it's going to have established in 1920 or whenever the specific Branch was um created thanks very nice okay our fire chief any questions all right sounds like a really good idea all right super well good luck with the council all right thank you all righty mayor if I can add they're in a bit of a time frunch they do need the council's approved tonight for this so you need ask like a straw Paul vote so they can uh push it to the Scout council to approve so I'd like to make a a motion to approve the avel uh Boy Scouts um projects going forward do I have a motion don't move second please second all in favor I I for the record you're good to go all right do you like to come up do you have a presentation oh you don't oh okay so we'll wait you still want to wait okay that's fine no problem all right so we'll go over agenda review we have some introduction of some ordinances um 251 is um our Capital uh Bond ordinance so this one is a going to Encompass our concession stand and also some components of our dispatching system we have ordinance 252 introduction and 253 these are both vehicles and traffic one is to modify our ordinance so we can can actually monitor and ticket people who are parking in our new community center and the second one is a no parking for West Allendale um Avenue Maple Maple thank you um okay then we have our consent agenda and actually our consent agenda is um quite short so we have um some budget items on here we also have our bill list did you have a chance to look over that um all right and then we actually have our um community development um Representatives which are me and Allison and lman um all right so we're also gonna have a closed session tonight um our planner at tonik is going to come and he is going to be talking about um the fair share housing the fair share housing is something that we have been uh created a team with have been working with probably since October to really get ahead of the game so we received our numbers from the DCA in October and they've been working um very hard to analyze the calculations and he's going to be explaining that in a Clos session to the council and if everybody approves we will be we'll come back to to regular session and um have that resolution to look over all right and that's pretty much it pardon yep y all right um does anybody have um I'd like to open up the meeting to the public if anybody has any questions on any thing that is on the agenda can you please come up and stick your name agenda items only I'll open up to the agenda items only anybody okay not seeing bring it back so I would like to um introduce ordinance 25-01 for first reading Linda will you please read ordinance 25-01 Bond Bond ordinance to authorize the making of various public improvements in by and for the burrow of Allandale in the county of Bergen state of New Jersey to appropriate the sum of $995,000 to pay the cost thereof to make a down payment or fully Fund in appropriation 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 issuance of such bonds do I have a motion to approve ordinance 25-01 so moved second please call councilman Yaro yes councilman OU yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes councilman oconnell yes ordinance 25-01 has been introduced upon first reading and will be published in the Wednesday January 29 edition of the record and will be taken up for further consideration and final passage at the meeting of the mayor and Council on Thursday February 13 2025 at 7 pm or soon thereafter you very much I'd like to introduce ordinance 25-2 please read the title of it ordinance 25-2 in ordinance to amend supplement and revise Article 2 Section 22-9 of the burrow code of chapter 252 of the burough of Allendale entitled vehicles and traffic do I have a motion to approve ordinance 25-2 so move second please councilman Yaro yes councilman OU yes councilwoman hman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes councilman o conell yes ordinance 25-2 has been introduced upon first reading and will be published in the Wednesday January 29 edition of the record and will be taken up for further consideration and final Passage at the meeting of the mayor and Council on Thursday February 13 2025 at 700 p.m. or soon thereafter now I'd like to uh introduce ordinance 25-3 Linda please read ordinance 25-3 in ordinance to amend supplement and revise the code of the burough of Allandale vehicles and traffic chapter 22-9 a do I have a motion to approve 25- 03 so moved second please councilman Yaro yes councilman otou yes councilman home uh councilwoman hman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes councilman oconnell yes ordinance 25-3 has been introduced upon first reading and will be published in the Wednesday January 29 edition of the record and will be taken up for further consideration in passage final passage at the meeting of the mayor and Council on Thursday February 13 2025 at 7 p.m for soon thereafter do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda go move second please second councilman Yaro I will abstain on 2569 yes on the balance please councilman OU yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman Loa solo yes councilman oal yes all right thank you everybody so we are going to go into our Council report and then hopefully that'll work out with the green team Council Yaro can I have your report please certainly mayor um as you know we have kicked off our concession stand project um as we stand now the olds uh structure has been fully demolished um and we had our first um meeting with our internal team and the contractor for the project um we're working hard to ensure that deadlines are met and that we're providing a quality structure for Crestwood members and patrons alike so uh more to come on that this is the very beginning of the project but we do know that the summer does come quick and made sure very politely that the contractor is aware of that um further to that um we're beginning to plan for crossw 2025 organizing our policies and procedures as well as Lake operations and also of course the fun part summer entertainment which I know many of you here enjoy our summer concert series so we're hoping to have many new additions this year for that uh field three maintenance has started but it's currently paused due to the sub freezing temperatures we'll be ready for opening day 2025 and as such we'll continue to do more field maintenance uh throughout the year and years to come as we start our new field maintenance program and then finally I did return my first uh land use board meeting in almost four years uh last Wednesday so I'm happy to be back on the land use board as well as the land use committee thank you mayor thank you very much councilman UL better uh last week the Public Safety Committee had the pleasure of attending the ambulance cors annual installation dinner uh as always it was a wonderful time during which many members were recognized for their contributions both to the department and to the community at large uh also as always I far too much uh the Public Safety Committee had our first meeting of the year last week with the police department Command Staff three of our sergeants were able to attend uh Andy was there and the chiefs of the fire department and the ambulance Corps some of the topics that we discussed were uh police department have gone interviewing potential hires which will be Advanced to the public Public Safety for the next round of interviews in the next couple of weeks uh signs around town that for one reason or other have been out of service or sent out for repairs uh will be going back in place as the weather cooperates Public Safety Committee is also evaluating options to address the parking related issues downtown uh including new signage directing visitors to the municipal lot to alleviate some of the parking uh other than that our new police pickup truck has hit the road and in my opinion it looks pretty awesome very stiffy uh the Public Safety Committee this past week had the pleasure to open negotiations with the PBA for their upcoming contract um the police department is currently working on renewing their accreditation status which occurs every three years policy and procedures for the Department reviewed to ensure compliance with established practices laws and regulations and finally uh big congratulations to officer John Rino AKA trip will be getting married on Saturday conratulations councilwoman hman hi yes uh so both the mayor and myself met with uh violia last week on many different issues um one of the things that I think is important for the public um to continue to be aware of is that they are continuing to move forward in putting permanent posos treatment down at the new Street location so that's good news we currently have temporary treatment on uh West Crescent and down at New Street but all of those wells will eventually be treated in a permanent fashion down on new stre um additionally uh as many people are aware there's been a lot of digging on the what is for the leaden copper rule but looking at lead or galvanized lines for individuals in Allandale resident es that are unknown or if they happen to be known speak alanized because that is something that every resident has the opportunity to have checked and to actually um have that both sides of the line changed so that's something that will continue in Allendale and uh then as far as sewer we have continued to meet on many issues and the developer in Saddle River did make a motion against us in trying to utilize our sewer line for uh waste water that would be coming at of development that they are proposing in Saddle River uh our team has met under the guidance of Ray whis a a reply has been sent and that will be in front of a judge on Tuesday so we'll see how that continues certainly again for Allandale our team is working very diligently to make sure that we protect the interests of allelle while being as good of a neighbor as possible and we also are moving forward on what repairs need to be done on the sewer system that's currently in N lots of good work in water lots of activity committee thank you very much oh and I just lastly I did want to say thank you to the Boy Scouts and I'm super excited and impressed that we have um young adults doing Eagle Scout projects and seeing you here working with the green team it's really scouting is such an excellent opportunity to develop skills and be helpful in a community so I can't thank you all enough for your continued involvement so enjoy it and thanks excellent thank you very much C woman L Sol thank you mayor so the finance HR admin and it committee all one committee um we met this week and um to discuss our budget and so it was our very first meeting and we're up and running with that under the leadership of our amazing CFO um Allison so um stay tuned for more information on that um we had our first land use committee meeting this morning um um we had a very full agenda as it was our first meeting of the year and I just want to thank councilman uh deloo who I think is stuck on a train trying to get here um for serving on the committee last year and I want to welcome councilman Tyler Yaro to the committee this year we are the other fund committee so I have two Committees of fund now exactly exactly um so as we as we discuss residential and non-residential property issues um at this committee meeting certain topics arise that we just want to make sure our residents and business owners are aware of and um so while we're stuck in this Arctic weather currently um we would just like to remind our residents that you should not be shoveling your driveway and walkway snow into the street um and in addition you're also responsible for making sure that the sidewalk that abuts your property is clear of snow and ice and if you have any questions around this or anything please reach out to me or to Michael Mata who's our property maintenance officer in our construction Department um as we look forward to the warmer weather in a few months we want to remind our eating establishments in town that would like to have outdoor dining that you are required to present an outdoor dining plan to the bureau that shows the placement of your tables and chairs no other items can be placed on the sidewalks outside of your restaurants without the approval of the burrow so if you plan on adding string lights or your own Planters or signes or what have you you must include that on your plan or seek permission separately before placing any items where they are currently not permitted and also we like to welcome new businesses to our wonderful burrow so this is also a reminder that all businesses now need to register yearly with our CL clerk's office and new businesses are welcome to come before our land use board so that we can welcome you into our town our Maron Council love a good ribbon cutting ceremony we just came from one at our uh our wonderful new community center so let us know when you're ready for us we will come and Amy will bring her saber um and giant scissors yeah we also encourage our businesses to review our Allendale code or reach out to our construction Department if you plan on making any changes to your establishment as always feel free to reach out to me or members of the Landes team with any questions uh oh and also um just very quickly um we are going to at an upcoming one of the February meetings we are going to have our um uh Library um coordinator um come and speak to us about um the updates from the library and what's going on remember when Patty dersa did that yeah so Nancy's going to come and talk to us but I wanted to just give a very quick is that the um I'd like it to be the next one so she wants to just kind of talk to you about all the improvements that the library is currently doing um and um see if I can find her email and um yeah to come to that one and U looking forward plans that they have going for they've done a lot of great stuff um in the library they've smoed stuff around so just a few highlights um between now and when she comes and reports for adults there's still time to register for the Valentine cookie contest entries oh Matt that's right up entries will be judged on February 11th at 7 pm everyone is invited to taste the cookie and to see who wins a prize uh for kids they are holding a Korean New Year program on January 29th come celebrate the year of the snake and make a paper craft dep picking a traditional Korean rice cake soup um come the oh Nancy encourages people to come visit our new Community Showcase near the front of the library our first exhibit features the watercolor artwork of local artists and Library volunteer Sarah Riley exhibit exhibits will be rotated monthly and feature artwork or collections of residents and as always a complete list of their programs is available on their website and that is it excellent thank you can we buy I don't know I don't know it's a good question go check it out winners I guess yeah councilman okell thank you mayor I'll be I'll be quick um I'll continue keeping on top of the eagle scout projects in town and I just want to say uh heartfelt thank you to the mayor and Council Allen Del burrow and neighbors and friends for the flowers and the pills and prayers in our time of need thank you everybody's okay okay so now we have our staff reports our clerk Linda Serina I have nothing to report mayor righty I just want to add Linda and Amanda did a great job at the rabies clinic on Saturday thank you so my mother appreciated your kindness and it was fun I enjoyed it very nice Chief please Mike Dylan than you mad mayor just quickly thank you to Mayor and Council for their continued support and investment into the police department we as a team have put the department on a great path to continued success Lieutenant Griffith Sergeant Helmer and I had a pleasure attending today's ribbon cutting at the community center congratulations to you on the opening of his valuable asset to their residence of Allen super thank you and thank you for all your help that you have done and will be doing in the future um our dpd DPW supervisor Andy agugliaro thank you Mary um well we survived our first snowstorm this year um for the record our main roads were blocked before our communities were I love when I proud to hear that um just to add what council M solo said earlier um just our residents please be mindful about blowing or shoveling snow into the streets during snowstorms our DPW Personnel um work tirelessly and long hours um to clear streets uh for everybody's safety so please just be aware of that um if you have a fire hydrant near your your street or your house um adopt it become a hydr hero um clear the snow from it um we never know when the hydr is going to be needed by our volunteer firefighters um and it would be a huge asset and help if you could do that um we had two retirements this year already um though it's early in year uh James meritz and Richie mcdal uh they were both integral parts of our DPW process um Jimmy was our equipment operator and took care of and maintained our Compost Facility year round um Richie was our Lake Commander um and took care of getting Crestwood Lake opened every single year and they'll both be missed um two more things the DPW is still picking up Christmas trees through February 3rd uh right now we're on the West Side starting Monday will'll be on the east side and lastly I'm proud to say that the new rolloff has finally arrived um and again want to say thank you to the mayor and councel uh our B administrator and our finance committee for allowing this to happen so thank you very much you're very welcome and I will say with the roads I was in white cof Sunday afternoon and from White cof through Mawa we have the best roads thanks and do we have an official tally of how much snow we got five inches on the notes five inches than snow bet in class see where my validation got burough attorney Ray wh your report please thank you mayor uh actually a very busy couple of weeks on a lot of matters in addition to uh some of the uh the matters such as ordinances on tonight's agenda uh TJ from my office has been working with the the chief on a seeming L op request that the department is getting U we try as best to comport with the law but it it really does in inundate the department and slows down uh the work that they're really there to do we've been working with campshire on some issues involving the community center in Bale and the easements between the uh the burrow and and Bale uh with theia uh bunch of things still going on uh U we're working on easn agreements with them um we need to focus again I did send U an email to the Bur engineer earlier today uh on the diversion process again uh we sort of set our an informal end the January deadline uh and we're only about a week away theend the January so I think we need to start working on that a little bit um as coun to mentioned we first had a negotiations with the PBA I think it was a cordial first go round we'll see what happens when we roll up our sleeves at that's pleasure that's it first so far so good it's GNA go great uh Council homman mentioned we do have a an ongoing litigation with a developer in sa River uh our submission was uh sent in earlier this week their reply is due tomorrow uh we will be in court as of now on Tuesday afternoon uh and and a lot of you know complex issues involved there uh including some aspects uh there to what you reference are Lord r housing obligation being foremost uh I guess uh under the upcoming good news uh and I will the mayor on this is that uh tomorrow we're anticipating a check uh in settlement of the PK litigation uh long awaited but it'll be nice tobly receive that that's it see if I will be very happy all righty uh give my report now um we've had lots of uh great starts to the New Year pretty much met with every single committee so I'm really looking forward um to working with everybody uh going forward I'm also looking forward to meeting with each of you individually and we're going to create our um goals and strategy again and then they'll be presented to the public for their input so um look forward to that I've already met with um Alison Alano our CFO and buau administrator and we plan on meeting with every single Bureau employee and talk to them about their goals and and anything that they need and want uh support them in their work and and how they can uh better serve our residents I'm really um happy that everybody is um embracing teams I think it's going to be great for all of our committees working more efficiently as well as keeping uh great records and we're continuing to drive Innovation um we have uh got pilot as our enterprise system and we're looking to put all of our land use on there um people get permits so we just have um you know just much better record keeping we had our community center ribbon cutting today so thanks again for everybody involved I'm not going to go through everybody's name again uh but we do go live tomorrow just so people understand the community center is open to Allendale residents it's not open to any other town it's just for us it's all of our residents and our volunteer organizations we are bucketing some times right now just to help with scheduling and just getting the feel for it so we have buckets of times that are for open gyms for younger kids older kids we have some a bucket of time for the um pickle ball and also for the community center space that's not the only time that the uh Center is going to be open it's it's going to be very very active the other times and spaces in between are for the residents if they want to come for a book clove or play bridge or something like that so um we do have a state-of-the-art system where we're having uh we give out codes so we're working through that um and Anda Richard in our department has done um in our buau has done a great job trying to you know implementing that so we do ask for patience and Grace as we go through this it's been a incredibly Dynamic awesome but you know complicated process we've never done this before you know you there's so many things you have to think of it's signage and insurance and all that so we're ready to go live tomorrow um I'm actually meeting with um another volunteer for our pickle ball so that's going to be up and running so so um it's so far it's been great we've had some Pilots going some uh Rex been starting a little bit just to you know work out some of the Kings and uh it's been received very well um from the community and actually we had our first event our boy scout event uh for Ben Pier when he received his um Eagle Award and that was lovely um okay next we have our Fair Shore Housing we're going into close session today our planner Ed snas uh is here and we're going to talk about our fourth round our experts have been working tirelessly around the clock with us and I'm sure every other town because there is this very tight deadline that's why i' like so sleepy there um have a deadline of January 31st it's a very very aggressive deadline and um we're doing everything that we can to be to be very fair fair looking through all the numbers of calculations um complicated process but we get there um so retirement Richie McDow we're g to just keep on saying his name um congratulations to Richie mcdal he's been for DPW department for gosh 30 years um is the guru of the lake so he will be he will definitely be missed and thank you and your team Andy for the great job and the snowstorm I love seeing that the streets in Allandale were nice and clean then they went to wof and they're all covered in snow I love hearing stories very proud very proud very proud um congratulations to our fire department all the officers were're looking forward to working with them you know this year and having a a great year with them so many things we've been working on the um PBA negotiations we had chamber meeting I had my first League meeting um they started back up which is a great resource for me um it's a nonpartisan group of about I say like 30 or 40 mayor show up and we always have a great speaker so it really helps um and we try to leverage that in our town um so that's that's great and uh the concession stand Tyler's keeping everything in check he's our new project manager yes we look forward to keeping keeping that going it will be built it will I build it by itself thanks good and then we're gonna take the saber back out for the for the concession stand all right that's uh it for my report now we have a presentation from Mark savastano of the green team for his to let us know um all of his work in recycling thank you mayor council um for the opportunity to report the continued success of the green team's efforts to raise awareness of su sustainable practices in Allandale we are entering our fifth year promoting sustainability and offering opportunities to recycle non-mandated materials and the results couldn't be more gratifying it's important that our residents understand what we're doing and why it matters we're demonstrating that our curbside pickup represents a source of recoverable and valuable raw materials a perfect example is our collections for or EPS styrofoam um the first reaction when we tell people that we're doing this is that they say they didn't know it could be recycled and then they say its light is a which is true but the truth is this is a plastic that never decomposes in landfills and it occupies enormous amounts of space uh the densified bricks that we produce um uh severely reduce the amount of material um our last collection in a 20ft box truck was 800 cubic feet of material uh we reduced that down to five cubic feet and into a brick weighing 226 pounds so that uh severely reduces the amount of material that's U taking up space in landfills um the another example is the plastic bags that we collect as uh we created the track bence that's outside the library that we donated last year the team facilitates collection of an ever increasing variety of items through our initiatives and it's now grown to 12 programs including four annual events we're excited to announce that what was once an occasional collection of eps has now been replaced by an established agreement for rotating monthly collection in partnership with Ramsey and Upper Saddle River and we also have developed a mutually beneficial partnership with Roos rosler's alale Nursery involving four of our collection efforts and those efforts are an annual Earth Day event which we've scheduled for April 26 this year uh the annual pumpkin and gourd collection where that material is all composted an annual holiday lights collection that we started this year and an annual U styrofoam collection which is what I just mentioned we have the ongoing plastic bag collection um household kitchen food scraps that are composted in the backyard compost bins that we sell and the rain barrels as well uh electronics recycling clothing recycling redistribution and reuse X-ray and MRI film recycling uh we team up with the APD during our event in April to collect prescription medicines and also with Valley Hospital uh hazardous material with the bcua and uh paper shredding with the bcua we're successful because of our dedicated team of volunteers we of course want to thank our Ayah Zone council member suzan L solo uh councilman ameritus Jim strouch who continues to show up regularly um and collects the plastic bags from the collection box that we have in the lobby and also we generously provides the vehicle for APS collections that we drive up to Ridgefield Park uh Carlton Frost uh who offered his garage for our EPS collection left April Walter Whitmer who is a dedicated volunteer he's at every event cold hot he's there never complaining and he's also providing storage for packing foam and holiday lights that we collected this year uh Steve rof who's behind me thank you Steve uh and Pat Finn who also is in the audience today and myself of course I continue to enjoy the great satisfaction of contributing to the community we expanded our Partnerships this year in addition to the productive relationship we maintain with Lee Memorial Library in 2024 we established a reliable connection with Northern Highlands and uh we continue to receive enthusiastic support from Kimberly Hayes and Tara Weiss who's in the audience of the career academic Pathways department they both fail facilitated connection with student volunteers and Tara I received a call from your husband today he very generously pledged a $500 donation toward our efforts on the green team which is awesome um some of the students who participated in our pumpkin and EPS collections are here this evening I saw a Hudson Block in the back got a wave to us they were both at the EPS collection um there were yeah there were uh a total of six volunteers there yeah from the high school and there were other volunteers we had a scout here seus Murphy who helped us helped us at our funing collection um and there was also another Scout will scric and uh Cy VM who's a student who have been helping out regularly with art collections um uh in fact KY is uh hoping to establish a larger burrow wide cleanup and association with our spring cleaner in April um we're fortunate to have partnered with rosler's Nursery this year Bruce generously provided a location for a pumpkin and gourd and Mum collection and accepted the material for his compost Peak he also provided Holiday Lights EPS packing foam and electronics acting as a drop off point during our holiday Collections and I lastly have to recognize the particip participation of our residents each time we thank them for participating in our collections nothing feels better than them Thanking us in return for providing the opportunity to recycle one resident attended the holiday Home Collection C showed up with a vehicle so filled with EPS that it took volunteers several minutes to unload it and he confessed that he had been saving the material for two years until he found a way to recycle it wow which is that's dedication yes as a result of our efforts um I previously reported that we had collected 8.4 tons of material in the April uh spring cleanup and 1. one's excuse me 1.1 tons of material in the pumpkin and gourd collection since then we initiated the three holiday collections to recover Electronics decorative lights and EPS packing foam and we collected another, 1500 pounds of recyclables over the holidays uh that brings the uh total measured weight in 2024 due to Green Team activities to nearly 20,000 pounds and while that's impressive it doesn't account for the weight food waste diverted using the our backyard compost bins and the subscription program uh subscribed to by residents for curbside pickup of food waste by neighborhood compost it also excludes the voluntary uh material brought to uh Staples by residents who have learned of their free recycling program um the Green Team gmail.com email now receives regular inquiries asking for advice on how to recycle the smallest of household items like single-use alkaline batteries which are collected at Staples to the largest items like giant flat screen TVs and old CRT TVs which I've delivered to the bcua in munaki as I hoped residents no longer give a puzzled look when the green team is mentioned instead they're advising their neighbors to ask the Green Team team when it comes to recycling advice they me recognize the opportunity to make a personal contribution towards our more sustainable Allandale and that collectively we're sharing the benefits of thoughtful environmental choices and whether you view Our Success Through the lens of reducing trash expenditures in the municipal budget or through the lens of reducing the weight of trash which is sent to landfills we demonstrate that they're not opposing goals that fiscal responsibility and environmental responsibility coexist and provide undeniable benefits to the barel uh the Green Team volunteers are committed to the ideas we outlined in our mission statement and we want to thank you for memorializing those goals and your recent Proclamation for the Green Team uh by working in collaboration with this body to provide information and opportunities to our residents and seeking Partnerships with our local business businesses we continue to Pro promote voluntary participation to achieve progress in reducing the flow of material to landfills and we look forward to building Partnerships with additional alale businesses as they become aware of our activities lastly as uh chairman of the sustainable jerseys Bergen Hub food waste committee I would like to focus our efforts in 2025 on the opportunity to reduce compostable material and our municipal waste stre and that through voluntary participation um in initiative similar to what's being done in Ridgewood and Leonia their programs which has have been running for several years have demonstrated that compostable material composes greater than 50% of the weight of household trash and these programs separate all food waste which includes items that cannot be composted in your backyard such as meat fish bones soiled pizza boxes uh Dairy and uh other uh vegetable products that you know trash very expensive to Hall away yes it is so that's why we're glad to be contributing to the reduction of those costs in conclusion we want to encourage every Allandale resident to be mindful of the many opportunities to recycle non-mandated materials to share the information with the neighbor and when in doubt ask the Green Team Super yeah I I just want to show you one more post [Laughter] thank you thank you thanks everybody Mark just on behalf of the I just want to also thank the Green Team um and our residents for um their focus on recycling sustainability and Mark you especially for your leadership you are passionate about this and you uh and that that rubs off on all of us and so we really thank you for all that you've done thank you pleasure question yes are you still I've been driving around with my Christmas l in the back of my oh should have brought them in I know I'm so bumed but so that's going I actually I I know but I travel upstairs is it still there that's oh well then you don't want wait till next year wait till next year no you can drop it off many residents bring their materials to the front of my garage so you feel free to do that I just removed the bin from the library yesterday because I didn't want to bur I feel ashamed but but don't throw them away next year don't throw them away no I will not throw them away this is awesome down at the league Tyler and I had the opportunity to talk to a company that will provide us with a container where you can put all the recycling stuff and then they'll take it away and pay us for it so I have all the information at home I've been meeting to get it to for the electronics or it doesn't cost us I think might be perect thing I don't believe there's any cost to the burrow or anything I actually heard from um Kim was it kimal yes yes with regard to that and um she mentioned that something had been done to collect electronics at least I'll get that information and I spoke to her about the possibility of getting a uh some type of small dumpster for people to put their their foam in because they're bringing it to the recycling center and then we can recover it from there so they don't throw it away would you be able to at some point bring the brick uh I have it in the car actually okay that's but uh I want to give a a talk at the uh new community center okay that'd be great hosted for all the residents to come and because if you haven't seen what the densifier does to the styrofoam it's really amazing it's it's plastic but people don't realize it's just plastic it turns into a very hard piece of plastic and that's comes molding for your house and becomes picture frames and other Plastic Products so this is sold once bus so it's kept out of the landfills which is the most important thing yeah and he has some passion about it thank you very much Mark for bringing the Green Team back to life and sustainability is one of our overall goals for the bureau too so you check that box out beautifully for us thank you very much sorry Mark one more thing I did promise you last year that for your Earth Day event that we would look at the possibility yes having it a Crestwood so if you have a proposal as to what you'd like to do for that this year okay that way we're at the point now where we could talk about it and consider it internally and see if that will work okay so if you have any ideas for that just please let me know sooner than later we'll be in touch because we chose our date and that's I'm so now is the time to plan and see if we can make it happen fantastic thank you to all right is there any new or unfinish business anybody up on the council all right I'd like to open the meeting up to the public Walmart time on any um item if anybody would like to come to speak please come and state your name and address he is Walter woodmer 38 Hamilton I volunteered to help this green team first time this year and I'd like to announce to you and to everybody in this town the unbelievable amount of work that this man puts into that organization the material that has been collected is beyond description I was absolutely shocked at what he has accomplished I wish there was something we could do I don't know what to honor this guy for his effort and his work outstanding absolutely outstanding thank you Walter thanks Walter anybody else in the public wish to speak you've been waiting very patiently hello my name and address please my name is Ahmed Salah I live in 403 whitne Lane in elville I first would like to thank mayor Amy I've sent an a letter about the Crescent lighting a cultural event for crescent lighting before the month of Ramadan which is like the fasting and the prayers for all Muslims so I'm looking forward to see if there's a possib that we can do it this year and if there is anything I can do to help make this happen sure um thank you for bringing that up so I did look up the Crescent Moon that you sent but it was actually it was more for indoor so I don't know if there's maybe something that you can send or another I can I can like maybe I can get one like I can share a link for one that that will yeah that would be helpful when what would where would be the like the like like preferred location I was actually going to ask you that so would it be like in front of the library like probably I would think where we do our other umora there exactly where that is when those come down that's where I was thinking as well that does that work that works well I send a an option with a size that suits like the location create okay and and is there anything else do we need like is this approved or like do we need the council approval or we could do a stle everybody you know is in favor so um I don't know if you've seen the emails but the the Crescent Moon is um I think it was like 3 feet the one that you sent um or four feet tall it wasn't very tall but it was something yeah St the size of the head that we put outside and then it would be put outside and then it's it's we need to light it lit up like a with the spotlight and it's celebrating um Ramadan so it's for um a week I think in February and there's song and and some Festival yeah like the month of Ramadan is from the from the 1 of March till end of March if we can do it like a day before the month starts and stays for the month that's possible so it's like for 30 days maybe we can light it up on the 28 which is a Friday and it will like until the end of Ramadan which is basically first of April and then it's the yeah so we'll put it on the agenda uh for as a resolution so what we do for these type of events we'll we'll put them on um as a resolution I think we should did we do that yeah just to kind of make it official official and then you kind of remember every year too so we'll put on for the next for the next February yeah that'll be in good timing for March very good yeah and that'll give us time to figure out what thanks so much man you're welcome thank you thank you all right anybody else from the public wish to speak thanks sure bye guys bye just please say your name and a my name is Muhammad perz and I'm from your neighboring town paramas okay um I just came to know that you guys are considering um the Cent lighting ceremony right and for last decade more than almost decade we've been celebrating here in paramas and it has been a very good uh um sharing of culture for us and my children enjoy it a lot uh and uh his some of his friends from islandale come visit us and I'm hoping this year you come visit us we are able to visit you guys we're going to be better than promises you know that right look for it um and while I was here I was I'm happy that I'm here today uh that I heard about your uh green initiative an active councel meeting I was very impressed and ra rather you can say inspired Town somebody there is literally somebody giving their uh uh garage like there there somebody actually volunteering here and that's very inspirational for us in other towns too yeah look forward we have a special Town beautiful town we look forward to come visit you guys in your celebration for Li for thank you anybody else wish to speak not seeing anyone um we have resolution 25-70 authorized to go into close session so this is um uh a Clos session where we have to discuss prospective affordable housing litigation and our Municipal obligation so this is just with the governing body and our planner so at this time we're going to come back and just vote on it so um there's no other business that's going to be done today you're more than welcome to stay if you'd like to but um we're just going to come back and enj Jo the meeting so um with that you have to leave s you have to wait in the hallway or we could go somewhere we could actually go in the other room but it's probably better if we stay here because Ed's got a present sure yep Do It um I'll do the motion um so motion to approve 25- um 70 second second councilman Yaro yes councilman OU yes councilwoman homman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes councilman ell yes okay you take that picture and thank you everybody thanks for coming thanks everyone okay all right I have um a motion to adopt resolution 25- 71 so moved second please second councilman yino yes councilman o yes councilwoman hman yes councilwoman Lis solo yes councilman o yes all right motion to adjourn so move no moved all in favor I so