Meeting call to order. >> Is it dead then? >> Council member Bezerson. >> She's here. Council member Chapman. >> Council member Clayton. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn here. >> And Mayor Moore is here. >> Please stand for a silent prayer moment
of reflection. >> Now salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> As complied with the open public
meetings act, chapter 231 PL 1975. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner. The annual notice forward to Asbury Park Press, the coaster and the star ledger on January 15th, 2026 and posted on the bulletin board the same date. All notices are on file with the city clerk. Uh, we are moving on to special event
applications from recreation director Licia Floyd. >> Come on down. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, there are four applications before you this evening. One is new and that's the
R&B picnic to be held in Springwood Park on June 13. >> And Licia, who's putting that on? >> It's um two local promoters. >> Nice. Any other questions?
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Alicia. We're now moving on to mayors from the city council. Council member Bez Anderson. >> Oh, yes. Excuse me. Good evening everyone. So, if you haven't noticed, okay, I've been filming our line dancing
that has been taking place over at the Senior Towers. We have been having a wonderful time and there's only three Mondays remaining. So, if you want to come on over and get your toes topping, you need to join us. It's at the senior center and it is from 6:00 until 7:00.
And I'm telling you, you need to bring a towel, water bottle, and also get some rosemary oil because you're going to be sore the next day because you're going to have a great time. So hopefully you'll come out. And we'd like to thank Miss uh Lisa Floyd, our reg recreation
director. She put this together and um we're having a good time. So hope to see you. >> Thank you, Council Member Chapman. >> Yes. So, also through the recreation department, we have swimming lessons for the children of our city of Asbury Park.
Uh they will be at the Boys and Girls Club on Monroe Avenue. On Saturdays, April 11th through May 9th, youth ages 5 to 10, 9:00 to 10:00, and youth ages 11 to 17, 10:00 to 11:00.
We want to make sure that all of our children learn how to swim and are ready to go to the beach and take surf lessons once the season begins. >> Thank you, Council Member Clayton. >> Okay. Also from the city this Friday
night is the movie at the showroom and it's Luna. Luca, I'm sorry. It's Luca. It's Friday, April 10th. >> My dog's name. >> It's 5:00. It's free. You'll get popcorn and a
drink and free parking. >> Free parking >> and free parking >> and a movie. >> Simple parking >> and a movie. So that's at the showroom right here on Cookland Avenue. So please come out. Also, there's going to be a community spring
cleaning event at Kula Farms on May 2nd from 9 to 12. and they're looking for donations. If you have small appliances, electronics, small furniture, car organizers, etc., etc., etc., you can
drop off any Monday or Friday between the hours of 11 and 4 during April only. And then the event itself will take place on May 2nd between 9 and 12. Also,
there is going to be a beautifification of the west side. So, work with interfaith neighbors, community partners, and neighbors to beautify your yard and block. So, if you want to sign up and be a part and also receive these
services, contact um Diane Shelton at Interfaith. Her number is 73277525 extension 257. And that's all I have for today. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Deputy Mayor Quinn. >> I just want to take a minute and thank
um our city manager, our deputy city manager and our director of DPW. We were asked to speak at a homeowners meeting last week. It went for two hours. And um I don't remember that many of our city officials ever going to a meeting before and and spending the entire time not
only introducing yourselves, but talking about what you bring to the city. um from uh well leaf pickup to snow removal to pilots to sewer hookup. So I really appreciated George as well, the head of
our DPW who did not who's relatively new, had a very very rough winter and um you know I'm very appreciative of all three of you taking the time and and doing the two hours at that meeting and taking all the questions.
>> Thank you, Mayor Moore. >> No good. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are you moving on? Marish, city manager? >> Good evening. We have nothing to report. >> Thank you. And Marishman, city attorney. >> Uh yes. Uh some good news to report about the Paramount Theater uh project. I'm going to ask our redevelopment
attorney uh Joe Marazi to give us an update on uh on the latest. >> Well, the latest is good news. Um >> Hallelujah, Joe. Hallelujah. You have before you a resolution to
approve a addendum to the subgrant agreement with Madison Mansbury Retail which will call for the partial repair of Paramount Theater. Uh Madison has been able to engage a substitute
contractor to take over from March uh which dropped out a couple of weeks ago. And actually uh the the new construction company is Poland SST. They have experience on the site because they were
part of the phase one effort to investigate the condition of the building and they have come forward uh very impressively with documents and thorough documents a short period of time. Uh so the the addendum to the
subgrant agreement will provide for the uh work to be done for 11.7 million and a few dollars extra perhaps left over from phase one. Uh and attached to that agreement that addendum uh is the
contract with Powman which has been signed by Poland. the contract with Michael Bridge architect which is signed they will be the discretion manager for the project and the agenda itself is signed uh by Gary Mola on behalf of uh
Madison Adbury Retail. The process for payment is an important thing to understand. The money has been provided to the city and the city will only pay it to Madison Asbury Retail after two things happen. One, there's a
certification by Michael Graves Architects that the specified work that they're buying for a payment on has actually been performed and it's reviewed by Jay Harzol of TNM
and Joan Booze will also make sure that there's evidence that Homeman has already been paid by M before we will make a payment to M. So the funds are going to be tightly controlled. uh and the uh the new project schedule which is
attached to these documents as an exhibit and many exhibits to the documents detail uh calls for to begin mobilization to begin toward the end of this month and the work to be complete
demobilization on uh December 12th which is later than it would have been with March because of the time but that still is before the drop deadline of December 31st as has been said December 31st u
the uh the funds can no longer be paid whatever is not done by that time has to stop so this is uh an effort that took many people uh to undertake uh I want to thank especially Jay
Harzold at TNM for being on top of everything uh we also have as part of project labor agreement with the Mona County uh labor union council that will
be delivered by Friday. It's not done today, but it will be delivered by Friday. The resolution says that the agreement that will be signed by the mayor will be signed and delivered only once that particular agreement is is
delivered and start to that aspect of transactions. Uh and so that's the big picture. If there are any questions I'm happy to answer. is on the agenda as a late starter very late starter.
>> As I was coming down here about to leave my office, some modifications had to be made. So Anthony Coochie was the most accommodating. >> Let me just say before we go on, uh Joe, thank you. Joanne, thank you as much as you were throwing laurels out to Jason
and everybody. This could not have been done without a total team effort of our professionals. Kevin, uh, I mean, the past two weekends, past three weekends, they were putting down their dinner fork, picking up phones,
uh, doing anything to get this done. And because of their perseverance, uh, it got done. And again, thank you guys. Kevin, thank you, Adam, Cassandra, everybody. group effort and uh it's $13
million going into the Paramount. That's the start of a good project. Thank you all. Thank you. We are now moving on to a presentation by the Environmental Shade Tree Commission for the Tree Inventory of the City.
>> Good evening, mayor and council members. Um, thank you for giving me the opportunity to present an update of the partial inventory, tree inventory that took place and also to discuss a little bit more about the community forestry management plan that we have to complete
um, probably in the next few months. Um, so I'm presenting on behalf of the environmental shade tree commission. So the partial tree inventory was conducted by licensed tree experts that the the the city chose with Sterling Consultants. They complete they received
the city received a grant of $20,000 from New Jersey Department of Envir Environmental Protection to conduct a partial tree inventory um and to complete a community forestry management plan. So the inventory was completed in late December. They did report um
complete a report the the licensed tree experts and they found that um of the approximately half of the city trees that were inventoried it was about 153 trees that it encompassed and I think they actually inventoried a little bit more than half. Um so if we can go to
the next slide. So this is um hard to see but this is actually a real data map. So you can actually go into the ArcGIS system and see all these little dots and each dot represents a tree and those are the streets that were
inventoried. You can see also that there's these little green lines that have no dots and those those trees were those streets were actually looked at and inventoried and they either had no trees or they had one or two trees. So they don't have to go back and do that.
There's also a couple light yellow um um lines that are in there. Thanks Anthony that um were sort of mixed in. So they want to make sure that if we come back and inventory the rest of the city that we've catched those and then the bigger yellow areas were not inventoried. So if
you look at that that area you can see that really more than half of the city has actually been inventoried. So that's actually really good news. So we can go on to the next slide. Um so um the good news is there were 63 distinct species
identified in the tree inventory but unfortunately 50% of those trees came from three three different species and they were London plain trees calorie pears and Japanese scholar trees. So diversity and variety are key to the
health and vitality of um an urban forest. I think most people are aware that the American chestnut tree was wiped out by disease in the early 1900s. The American elm trees were practically wiped out in the 1930s. Um, even the the
red oak right now is actually prone to disease. It hasn't really come to New Jersey, but it's all over Pennsylvania. So, we have to be you don't want to have just one type of tree. Like, we have so many London plane trees. Well, if there is a disease to London plane trees, we've just lost 35% of our trees in the
city. So, it's really important to have diversity. >> So, the other good news is I mean I guess I thought that it would come out worse than this. They said 59% of the trees were in fair condition. That means that the condition of the tree was less than ideal for the species and there was
some dead wood, poor ground crown vigor and signs of stress. um and that tree um needed maintenance in order for it to survive or to to actually keep living. So, so they needed attention and 36% of the trees were in good condition. They
they're expected to it's basically the size and the condition that's expected for a tree of that age. Um and there were no critical issues. And then 4% were poor. So some of these a lot of those trees were actually identified for routine removal. That's about 60 60
trees. and then 1% were dead and a lot of the dead trees were actually already removed. >> So then I know this is a really small slide we can if anybody's interested he can show more but you can see the big blue area there that is actually the London plain trees. Um the the next
orange area over there is calorie pears which are invasive species. We have them all over the city and we are really trying to make sure that no other calorie pears are planted. And then scholar trees is the green one. And then you can see there's the rest is a
variety of a lot of different things. So we can move on to the next tree slide. And um the community forestry management plan is actually required. It is a five-year state approved document guiding the management of public trees
by municipalities. And it's required for us to keep the New Jersey urban and community forestry um accreditation. And that accreditation is really important so that we can apply for grants for trees. So it also provides liability insurance. So we wanted to make sure we
have that. Um the the licensed tree experts are actually helping us develop that. Um it's really important um that this plan is really important because it's actually going to inform what the city is planning for the next five
years. So it's important for budgets. So you figure, okay, we know we have all these trees that need to be taken care of or taken down. We need to budget for that. We also need to replace those trees and and um so we have to it it'll be really important to identify um
budgets and it it's also important for us to identify trees that we want to plant in the future, right? so that we have the diversity that we have that we don't plant trees that are invasive and that we try to um prioritize planting of native native species. Um and then the
other thing that's really important is to ensure that the right tree is in the right place. We know we can drive all around the city. We have all these trees that have the crowns topped because they were planted under wires. Any tree expert would tell you never plant a a
tree that's going to be a big tree under utility wires. It just doesn't make sense. It requires a lot of effort and work from the from the city and from the m from the DPW to maintain that tree. And the tree is never going to live live to see its full potential. So we don't
want to do that. So we can put that in the plan as well. and and also to ensure and put in the plan that no invasive species should be planted in the city and we can identify those. Um so it's really critical this is a city plan. This is not really a shade tree plan.
This the city tree is leading this effort. But it is a city plan that needs to have you know agreement from and input from city council from the major departments from use um from city manager um from from finance from DPW
and um from um from basically all the major departments. So um it's really important. So go to the next slide. It's um we're providing some input initial input to sterling consultants. Um we are having a meeting and this is at our next
um environmental shade street commission meeting which was moved to the 5th from from this 3rd Tuesday. >> I thought it was the 29th. >> It's the 29th. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, it's the 29th at in city council chambers and we welcome community um to come and to hear about
the plan to give their input and their thoughts. Um and any council people who who can come, it' be great to to learn more about that. Eventually, um we will have a draft document that we'll provide to the key departments and council to
review the document and to give us further input. And then we we'll finally have a finalized um draft. I'm hoping that's done by the end of June um that will be submitted to the New Jersey D and they have to approve that plan and
then once that's plan's approved then the city can be reimbursed for um the grant. That's how we get reimbured. I mean we had to pay for the consultants but we will get reimbursed once that plan's completed for everything. So, and are there any questions that you have
for me? >> I have a couple. So, for people who are moving into town who may want to plant trees, is there information available for them to help them to figure out what trees would be best to plant on their properties? >> Yeah, that's a good question. I think
what we're trying to look at the website for the my shade tree commission and and have a list of trees but in that document we will definitely um identify trees that would be better trees to plant and then trees that they should definitely not plant but I think in the
meantime we can try to I know that that we have a new member on the shade tree commission and she's trying to work on um the website and improve it. >> That's great. What >> and one more question. How did you determine what areas of the city you were going to inventory?
>> So, we tried to do a variety like so we wanted to do some coastal like areas that are closer to the beach and then we wanted to do we did some west areas in the west but we also wanted to concentrate on the southwest region to
see you know we know that there's trees needed. There's unfortunately those areas are hard to plant trees because a lot of times the aprons are a foot wide or less and the trees aren't going to survive. But where we can plant trees um we should try to plant trees. You
mentioned about um beautifification. We met with the um New Jersey Tree Foundation, remember tree foundation today, Tom and I, and they are wanting to give away trees. And so we thought, you know, we have um an event, the ESTC
is planning an event on July 18th at Sunset Park and we he is going to come and set up a table with information on how to register to get a tree and the the trees would then be distributed. We were thinking maybe in spring with um
park in the fall because you can't really plant a tree in July. So he he wants to have an idea of how many people want that, but I think it's an opportunity to to um give citizens trees that that are free and they they'll be native trees. And one last question,
sorry to take another question. Um what's the plan for the trees that are dead or need might need to come down? So all the ones that were there there were some that that that the licensed tree experts um found were like hazardous and
I think there were a total of nine or 10 and they worked very closely with George and his team and those trees have already come down. Um there are a few that that um we've also given um George a list of trees that should come down
that are down for routine removal and what we prioritize there are the largest trees. So, I think we identified 17 trees if they could take down somewhere in the course of this year um that that those trees could be removed and then the other ones slowly and surely like
over maybe the next three or four years. So, anything that's hazardous, but it's it's a great plan. It's really important that once we have this inventory, it's it's up to date or kept up to date. It's not a perfect system. It is definitely
not an arborist system, the Argis. And we've had a lot of problems with it. For instance, they don't name the species correctly. They So, in um the scientific name for an oak tree, like it comes from
the the genus quirkus, but it's the the actual name of the tree, the species is circus alba, but what they have in the RGI is just alba, which is white. Well, there's a lot of white things like there's a lot of there's red oaks and so if you have wub room for wub room that's
not a species that's just red and so trying to get that updated is really cumbersome. We're thinking maybe we should just transfer that data into something that is a little bit more user friendly for us which is sort of defeats
the purpose of what we did in the first place but it's we need something that can be updated. Um, it's really important for George and his team for the DPW to be able to use that to to look at what they need to do and then to update it and say maintenance was done.
Otherwise, it's not really it's then it's just like an Excel sheet that you have and it's not meant to be meant to be really a living database of the the conditions of the trees in the city. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Questions?
>> The meeting that you're having on the 29th. Yes. What time, please? >> 6:30 at 6:30. Thank you. >> Yes. Yeah. So, we're going to The only thing is I would ask if there's a way that we could communicate that more broadly out to the city so that we have a lot of community um anybody from the community who wants to attend should be
able to >> Cassandra, will you ask Nate to put it out? Yep. And we should also ask Nate to tape it so people can keep track of that. So, I'm going to bring two uh two things. First, I want to say this I know has been a full unpaid job for you,
Gabriella. So, I just want to acknowledge the huge amount of hours you have put into the forest management plan and the tree inventory. Um, often on a weekly, if not daily basis. Um, so thank you very much from all of us.
>> And then the one interesting thing that everybody keeps beating me up here about is that we have the oldest tree in Mammoth County, or so we're told, which is like an exciting thing I think, right? We have a tree that's like 250ome years old. >> I beat her up on it.
>> WELL, THE WHOLE ALL OF THEM UP HERE BEAT me up when I said it and think that that's not true. But these people said that, right? >> That's what they said. >> Okay. Well, >> that's what they said. >> I'm going to believe arborists would know what the oldest tree is in Mammoth County. And I'm going to say we have it because
>> it's on Asbury Avenue on somebody's somebody's private property. It's not actually a street tree, >> but I don't know. suspicious of this. But >> the only way you can really tell is to take a pore sample. And you're not going to do that.
>> No, no, no. >> Okay. So, thank you very much. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Y >> I have a quick announcement. Um the city council and mayor have proclaimed uh April to be child abuse prevention month
and moving on to public participation. Do have a motion to open the meeting to the public. >> Move to open. Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Public participation is now open. Any member of the public wish to speak, please use the microphone. State your name and address for the record and you have three minute time limit.
>> Okay. Uh ready. There you go. Okay. Frank Cuchinatada, 2096th Avenue. Uh had uh I was here two weeks ago and asked about the uh maintenance plan for the uh permeable pavers
and I was told to go submit an open request. I submitted an open request and it came back and said something to the effect that at this time the city has no um records responsive to your request.
So is there a maintenance plan for the permeable pavers or per uh pvious pavers or not? Um so that's my first question. Is there is there a plan? Second is if there's a plan, what's the cost for this? Because what what are the
taxpayers paying to maintain these per uh pvious pavers throughout the city? So, I was on the New Jersey D uh website for their New Jersey store management best practices, and whoa, it's a long document. There, a
lot of lot of stuff in there. And they talk about the fact that it needs to be maintained at least four times a year in order to maintain its per uh pviousness.
Otherwise, it's useless. So, we're we've got all these per these uh so-called hardcapes or pvious uh areas that aren't doing the job if they're not maintained properly. There's a lot of information about this. In chapter nine, they they
go over a 10-point plan or 10-point system indicating that failure to correctly maintain a pvious paving system will shorten the lifespan or result in system failure. The surf second point is the surface
must be inspected after every storm exceeding one inch of rainfall. If mud or sediment is tracked on onto the surface, it must be removed as soon as possible. A third item indicates surface could be must be inspected at least annually. Uh
the surface fourth item indicates that the paving system must be vacuum swept, not power swept, at least four times per year. So there's a lot of maintenance that goes. You think of, oh, you're replacing the the grass and putting in these uh permeable pave impervious
pavers and you're done. It's not that easy. In order to maintain the the permeability per permeability of that, they have to be maintained properly. And I don't see a plan for that. And there's 10 different items in there about this.
So there's a big document on the on u the pavers. So I guess a couple things that I'm asking is I'd like to see a plan like to know what the taxpayers are paying for this plan. And then finally I'd like to ask that no green space be
removed or or replaced by pvious pavers until we have a plan. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Adam, could you look into the look? Yeah, please. Thank you. >> Hello. Uh Terry Adlestein, 510 Deal Lake
Drive, and I just have a simple question. When are we going to start to see the construction on home plate so that we can start working on some affordable housing? I know a couple months ago some agreements were met, but that's the last I've heard of anything. >> Is that your only question?
>> That is my only question. The city signed off with the housing authority like you say a couple months ago. The housing authority is in the process of getting all the titles and it's in their hands now. So until they get all the titles and all the deeds and
everything then yeah we don't have a time frame. >> Thank you. >> We can ask them. Yeah, I I mean we just we need out of it. >> Agreed.
>> Hi. Uh good evening. Chris Olith um at 306 Steel Lake Drive. I'm with a community group called SOS Asbury Park or Save Our Structures Asbury Park. We formed in January um in response to the issue with the potential demolition of the Grand Concourse. And um I've been
attending all the city council meetings since then, since we formed this group. And this is kind of the quietest one I've been at. Uh so I just wanted to take the opportunity just to say um you know, I attend a lot of city council meetings in other cities for my day job and uh just so remarkable how
professional and responsive you all are to your constituents and just really want to thank you for that because we're, you know, have I feel like the city is at a big inflection point. I've only lived here for four years, but the change is really rapid and um just
really appreciate all you're doing. Um Mr. Marziti answered a lot of my questions that I came here tonight about about the Paramount Theater funding. So, thank you for that. Um we have been wondering though as a group at SOS if there was an opportunity to kind of
collect all this information onto a single page of communication for the city residents. There's so much going on with the redevelopment efforts, especially with the historic structures. We're having a hard time keeping up and communicating that with our network. So,
for example, this addendum that was referred to this evening that would include all the information on the Paramount repairs, hopefully a scope of work and things that we could follow along with, um would be really helpful if that was in one place as opposed to needing to pull that in and have to call
Tom Deseno for everything. So, um that's just essentially um my question if uh that's something that could be considered by the city and um SOS would be very uh happy to support that work from the administrative side if that was permissible because uh that's the kind
of work we'd like to share with our uh the members of our group. So, thank you for taking that question. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And uh I can't give you an answer tonight, but we'll look into it. And uh Adam, can you >> Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.
>> You noted that Nate would send out some sort of press release with this information. >> Yeah. What was from past meetings, people complained it wasn't up on the website. So, anytime we've gotten
news like we just got this news like two hours ago, so it's not up, but it'll be up probably within two hours. So anytime we are getting be it good news or bad news we have been posting it on the city website that >> okay again thank you
>> and what committee do you want to be on that you said we're doing good >> I know >> wait till the room's packed next time >> a second to close >> second >> all in favor >> public participation is now closed
uh I have the executive and regular Meeting minutes from March 25th, 2026. Do I have a motion? >> Move it. Second. >> Council member Bezerson, yes. >> Council Chapman, yes. >> Council Clayton, >> yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn, >> yes. >> Mayor Moore, >> yes. >> We're now on to the consent agenda resolutions. All matters listed on the
consent agenda are are presented presented collectively to the city council and be considered for approval with one vote. These matters are considered to be routine in nature and there will be no individual discussion for these items. If discussion is desired by one or more council members to any particular item, then set item shall be removed from the consent agenda
and considered separately. On consent tonight, we have resolutions 2026 171 through 2026 179. Please note that 2026 174 has been pulled from the agenda tonight is not part of this vote. Do I have a motion? >> Move it.
>> Second. >> Council member Bezerson, >> yes. >> Council Chapman, yes. >> Council Clayton, >> yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn, >> yes. >> Mayor Moore, >> yes. Moving on to individual resolutions. First up, I have resolution 2026180, resolution authorizing payment of bills. >> Move it.
>> Second. >> Council BZ Anderson, >> yes. >> Council Chapman, yes. Council >> Clayton, yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn, >> yes. >> Mayor Moore, >> yes. >> Moving on. Resolution 2026181, introduction of the 2026 municipal budget. Uh, first up, we have a presentation from city manager Adam Cruz
and CFO Joanne Booze on the budget. All right. Good evening, council. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. I can't hear myself. Um so tonight uh we are going to be uh presenting to council uh and you will be voting on a resolution today for the
introduction of the calendar year 2026 budget for the city of Asbury Park as required by the um DCA. So the the overview of the of our budget
>> are there slides or no? >> No. >> I should make copies for >> you have >> does everyone have time? >> No. >> Thank you. All right. So the budget overview um the proposed budget is under
the state cap requirements um for appropriations uh and the state rule is 3 and 12%. uh for the operating portion of the budget. Um this budget maintains all current programs which means any and all
services that the city was providing back in 2025 will be continue to be provided with with the same level of service in 2026. Um there has been no increase in state aid. uh all municipalities in the state
of New Jersey have been um stale. Uh this has not is not something that where they pick and choose which municipality receive what this you know every year. Uh the city I mean the state takes it upon themselves to decide when
that's going to happen. Uh the and the state aid actually come from the energy um um money that the state receives for municipalities. uh they like to hold it. I get I think they make interest off of it and then at some point it gets released to the
municipalities and that is what we're getting. Uh for this municipality for the size of our budget is actually pretty significant because it is um um $13 million $13.6 million. Our budget
for this year is 63 million. So it's about 20 what? >> About 20% >> about 20%. So, it's actually for the size of our budget, as I said, it's a pretty significant amount of money that we received from them. And as I said, I mean, in all the other cities that I
worked in, there has not been an increase in years. They should, but they have not. So, as I mentioned uh now uh just a couple of seconds ago, the budget is 63 million for 2026.
63,85,13.94. Um, have to be very exact. And, uh, that is actually an increase of $619,889 from the previous year. Um, in 2025, the budget was 62,465125.
So the increase is uh uh very small compared to the strain that the city is going through uh with some of the increases uh that we have actually uh we actually have acquired just for being a
municipality. So, this is actually a a a very um a generous increase and a a a very uh restricted uh increase. How did we get there? We had some budget
challenges. Um so, uh we were uh ensuring to obtain a fair and balanced tax rate for our taxpayers. Uh we actually um the tax rate is going to be similar to last year's not one
penny more. Uh it's uh so the average uh the the the rate uh last year was uh 0.516 and is remaining the same for 2026 poor uh uh 516.
um department budgets in order for us to get to this and ensure that we kept the number low. We actually had to meet and I thank you and the mayor for uh leading that charge. Uh we had uh uh with the budget committee. We actually met
several times. Uh we met with the department. We got our directions from you to make something happen. And so uh we actually had a a little bit of a tough time. uh to actually get to the number that we are because as we all know and I am sure
the audience also understands uh the city has been uh struggling for many years because of transitional aid and coming off of that uh you had already done a lot of the tough work that had to
be done back then to cut the budget and uh I'm telling you coming from the outside it's actually uh impressive to say that you have kept the line going for all of these years to not be uh just
making it rain. Uh just simply spending money just simply because you have the money or you have the the means. uh you have been very conservative in the budget that you have adopted and it was very difficult for us to find areas
within the budget to cut but uh we were able to make some some adjustments and we were we cut some money. I mean, we kept in mind that the school board uh increased a huge amount last year and
you know, we were hearing rumors that there was a possibility that the school board was going to do that again this year. So, we tried to be as conservative as as we could uh where permissible. So, um we that's that's what we did. But like I said,
this actually comes from what you guys have set as a foundation uh from the previous years that we we are where we are now. And uh of course uh you know there there there will be harsher times ahead maybe hopefully not but uh you
know for this year this is the best that I think that that we could do. So, uh, our regular insurance, liability insurance, uh, and this is why it's a budget challenge. It went up 23%.
>> But 7%. >> Oh, 7 correct. Oh, you increase it. Okay. Yeah. So, all right. So, the number I have is it's a typo that we had and I hadn't gotten it. So, uh the insurance costs uh just for uh um general liability
u uh it's a 7% increase that the did the others change? No, the others remain the same, right? Okay. and the state health benefits. As you are aware, we were facing a 34% increase coming into this year that had already been announced by the state that this big uh wall was
falling onto municipalities uh for the municipalities that had uh a state health benefit plan and it we were facing a 34% increase which would have been a very substantial amount of money for our city. Uh so uh we pulled teeth,
pulled hair last year coming towards the end of the year. we were able to find a a plan that has been apparently in existence in the state uh that we learned about at the very last minute and uh we got all mostly all city
employees to to see the benefit of the new plan and uh I believe it was like 97% of the employees actually jumped to this new plan uh and uh instead of seeing a um 34% increase we are seeing a
13% % increase. So, it's a huge reduction in cost for the city. So, is it a budget challenge? Yes, it was. But we were able to make it happen. Um the pension cost only went up 3%.
And um we as we can see now we're having some challenges in the economy. everything is skyrocketing and so uh you know we had to make some projections that would that led to the number that we have now. So hopefully at some point
the economy will stabilize and hopefully the projections that we have made will be sufficient to uh finish the year in a very positive uh number. Uh you have the Okay. So the next steps
uh the next steps are uh upon the approval by city council introducing the the budget for 2026 uh the budget is then sent to the department of community affairs who then review the budget. They literally go line by line on our budget numbers just
to see that the numbers are actually factual and not made up. Uh that's why when we say, you know, we have $2 million that are we're going to generate on this, they say, well, you got to give me proofs. So, it's not as simple as saying, we're going to be producing uh
$10 million in parking. We need to show proof that where is that money coming from? So, those are the things that they look for. There are times that they say, "Okay, this line item doesn't look good here. Move it to this other part of the budget." And so uh once that's done uh
they there will be questions >> because every year there are questions that come from DCA requesting you know give me an explanation as to why this why do you have this number move this number here you know so uh uh uh Joanne
now this is for us this is where it ends but Joanne now has her hands full waiting for DCA now to uh advise her you know what's necessary to get the budget approved by them. So once uh uh so once it is reviewed by
by division of local government services um then it gets sent back to we we are given the green light to bring it back to council for council to then make an adoption. Um so we are um uh we believe
that hopefully all of that process will be done and we can have a public hearing uh May 6 of this year in the council chambers and upon the adoption of the budget. Uh well it's that first you have
the the public hearing and once we do the public hearing we can proceed to adopt the budget and so once the budget is adopted then council uh it it gets submitted to local government services uh this the tax rate is certified and
then we can proceed with the 2026 budget. we'll have about two three months of uh relief and then we begin the process for the 2027 budget >> because in October we're supposed to be working on the 2027 budget again. So uh
that is where we are right now. Uh there are additional uh tables that we provided to you. you can take a look at them and we try to make some 3D pie charts that also go with it and uh take a look at them and if you have any
questions uh down the line feel free to reach out to us and we'll be glad to no >> yeah I just want to I just want to thank Joanne and and Adam um you know we met several times to go over um everyone's
budget items. Uh all of the departments were part of this team, made budget cuts, made sure that the impact on our taxpayers was not going to be devastating. It was it was uh really quite a process. We know other municipalities have cut city services in
order to maintain their budget. We've been able to get through this maintaining our services. Some municipalities are doing garbage pickup every two weeks rather than every week and they've cut some of their services. So, I'm really proud of these uh our
city employees and staff for taking those cuts to make sure that we can maintain city services. And I just want to thank the mayor and um and everyone for being part of this team. >> Cassandra, >> thank you, >> Adam. Joanne, we met constantly.
>> Thank you. >> Again, yeah, I totally agree with what Eileen said and uh Cassandra, thank you also. and uh Joanne, Adam, the first meeting the increase was over $1,000.
Eileen and I basically walked out and said, "Call us back when you're serious." And so we were able to get it down to less than $200 because everybody's going to say, "Well, we're talking about this, we're talking about that. What's the city
what's the municipal rate going to increase for the year?" It's $192. Uh, it sounds like a lot, but over the past 11 years, the city increase has been
I have it here someplace, >> very minimum >> has been $412, which is 37.45 a year over 11 years, which isn't bad. And I can't think many towns that can say they've done better.
The problem with this year's budget is going to be on the administration because you're going to have to make sure nobody overexpends it because I honestly do not see 2027 being any better. I see it being worse. >> Uh former Governor Murphy said the state
health benefits plan is on a death spiral. Well, it's worse than that. And like Adam said, we were looking at a 37% increase, but we got it down to a 13% increase by going to alternate route, which saved us close to $2 million.
Uh, again, county and state was going up 10%, cities were going up 37%. There's some things in the state that just make no sense to many of us including especially myself am a myself met with
our new municipal liaison and gave them him some ideas to tell the governor where we could get get some help. And the problem is unfortunately our new governor I think inherited a budget with
no money in it. So she I don't think she's going to be able to pull hats out of rabbits out of her hat next year to like help cities. So the main thing this year is going to make sure nobody overexpends this year's budget. Everybody's going to be in trouble next
year. And again, I deeply appreciate the hard work, but everybody involved. And uh yeah, we did have quite a few meetings and I honestly think if if this wasn't a good budget, I wouldn't be voting to introduce it because we did go
through line item by line item. Uh so I have no problem with it. I think I'm proud of the some of the staff that saw how bad it was and said, "Hey, cut my budget 10%." So that meant a lot to me. Uh but it's going to be a tough
year. We just got to stay within our realm. We can't overexpand or else next year you're going to be in big trouble. But again, thank you all for doing such a great job. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Do I have a motion to adopt? President,
>> I have a question. I I'm sorry. This is my the first time that I've been a part of the budget. I don't sit on the budget committee and I haven't. So with this budget here, my concern being a resident here um of my taxes going up of the
residents taxes and our taxes have property taxes have increased steadily. The concern is for the seniors, those who are retired. Um so I I would like to know how much of an increase is it going
to be for our those that are on a fixed income? I mean, is it going you said something about um >> a total >> 192 >> correct for the average assessed house which is in Asbury Park close to
$700,000 $192 increase on the municipal side. >> Mhm. >> And the past three years or two years we did this before. This isn't the first time we've done a budget >> since you've been up here where you said
this is your first time. Well, for me to understand. Okay. Okay. No problem. No, I just wanted to remind you. >> Yeah, I understand. But I'm not trying to I'm not trying to get nasty or if I just that way that cuz I didn't mean it that way. I just I I need to understand cuz that is my concern
>> as to how this is going to impact all of the residents. >> Yeah. Yeah. But but as the mayor as the mayor stated, it's a it's close to $700,000 in the the value of the properties. That's the >> $200. >> Yeah. And the increase actually, as you can see, we actually kept the same tax
rate, but it has to do with the um the value of the homes going up in Asbury Park. >> Mhm. >> So, that is where the increase is coming from. It's not really a result of the budget and what we're spending because we kept the same tax rate.
>> Okay. And another big increase, and it was same with the Red Bank, uh the garbage contracts all up went up like $700,000 this year. And you know, it's still cheaper to do with an outside carter than doing it in house. >> So that was another large increase. And
again, last year's increase was $150. So this one is $1 192 considering like, you know, three and a 37% increase in state health benefits plan. again, Angela, it was bad when they said over $1,000 and it was like
ain't no way, ain't no how. So like they started whing down numbers and we met and met until we got to a number like, you know, >> was livable. >> Are we is anybody happy with it? No, we'd like to come in flatter with a decrease, but we did that so many years, >> right? >> We did that five years out of the last
11 years where we came in with a decrease where we're running out of money coming in to keep on pumping surplus into the budget. >> Yeah. And I misspoke because you're right, I've been on the council for four years. I just, you know, the taxes have gone up and up and I do have people that
do speak to me about the property taxes and not being able to afford to stay here. >> Um, and I, you know, I know of someone that has retired and they're talking about putting their home up for sale, >> you know, and we all love living here in Asbury Park, but we don't want to be
taxed out. So, that's my concern. Yes, I have been on council four to four years. We have passed budgets, but again, I need to know the impact it's going to have on the res plus with school the school board that um I understand that they're going to be raising taxes too.
>> Yeah. Terrible S2 bill. And that's why as much as Adam Joanne did the presentation, like if I was just sitting out the audience, well, what the hell does that mean? That's why it's $192 for the average house, it's $700,000.
So that breaks it down for everybody. So if you're assessed 1.4 million, you're looking at a $400 increase. >> Okay. >> And and Joanne, I wanted to thank you as well as at our
Uh >> oh. >> This isn't good. >> Thank god it's not April 1st. >> So I wanted to thank Joanne as well as >> as well as our city manager for uh working and putting this together for
us. I think I believe you've done a great job, you know. So, I just wanted to thank you. >> All right. >> Also, >> and and I just want to add that um we actually are using close to $10 million from surplus. So, um all of the taxes
that we collect in the city are not enough >> to fill the budget gaps that we have. So, we are doing it the best that we can to reduce the burden onto the taxpayers. And as the
mayor mentioned before, uh it's been it was f almost you had a good run almost five years where taxpayers even got a got money back. Uh so I'm looking at some numbers here in 2018 minus $43.7.
So the you know instead of going up it went down. >> In 2019 they only went up average $10.40. In 2020, they went down $22.82. In 20 uh 2021, they went down $17.37.
In 2022, they went down 83. Like again, that's just the average taxpayer. So, you had a good run and this council has actually been very responsible actually in doing the best they can for
the residents because in no other city are you going to see four or five years in a row that you're giving money back. That's something that you normally don't do because in the end it affects you because uh you know the more you give back at some point it's going to catch
up to you. So uh you know it's I I I think the city did the best that they could during the good years and now these are unfortunately the economy has continued to go down in the last few years after co things changed and uh >> this is where we are now unfortunately.
>> So the vote for tonight is to >> just introduce >> introduce this. >> That is correct. Yes. >> Okay. And then we're going to have a public hearing. >> There's a public hearing. Yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you for taking time to explain to me. >> All right. Thank you. >> I would I would think maybe when we have
the public hearing slides might benefit because the public's sitting out there saying like well I don't have this so if we can do slides for the public hearing may be a benefit. >> Y thank you. Yeah, I know. We approve that
>> for the people for the people out there in TV land. >> All right. Do I have a motion to adopt the resolution? >> Move it to second. >> Second. >> Council member Bez Anderson. Yes. >> Council mayor Chapman. >> Yes. >> Council Clayton. >> Yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn. >> Yes. >> Mayor Moore.
>> Yes. >> All right. So, we have two additions to tonight's agenda. First up, I have 2026182. Resolution authorizing a professional service contract with TNM Associates for professional engineering services related to the preparation of the NJDMS4
watershed improvement plan. >> Move it. >> Second. >> Council Baz Arerson. >> Yes. >> Coun Chapman. >> Yes. >> Council Clayton. >> Yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn. >> Yes. >> Mayor Moore. >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026183. Resolution of the mayor and city council of the city of Asbury Park authorizing
the city to enter into an addendum to the boardwalk preservation sub grant agreement with Mass and Asbury Retail LLC dated March 26, 2025 to provide for the construction of the M phase 2 project regarding Paramount Theater. >> Do I have a motion?
>> Move it. >> Second. >> Council Bazar? Yes. >> Council Chapman? >> Yes. >> Council Clayton? >> Yes. >> Deputy Mayor Quinn? >> Yes. >> Mayor Moore? >> Yes. >> If that is all for tonight, do we have a motion to adjurnn? Move to adjourn. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Thank you everyone. Have a good night. >> You too.
>> Hey Adam.