Heat. Heat. All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Township of Clark Council meeting. It is Monday, April 6, 7:30m. Roll call, please. here >> here. Can everyone stand for the pledge of allegiance and then a moment of
silence? >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, madame clerk, >> this meeting is in compliance with the
open public meetings act as adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by mailing the annual schedule of meetings to the star ledger, the leader and the union county source by posting such annual meeting schedule on the bulletin board in town hall reserved for
such announcements. the official website of the township, rclark.com, in compliance with public law 2025, chapter 72, effective March 1st, 2026 and the proper filing of the said
notice. Formal action may be taken at this meeting. >> Okay. Thank you. Going to ask for a motion to suspend the regular order of business. >> Thank you, Council Member Tolk. Can I get a second? >> I'll second that. >> Thank you, Council Member Manetti. All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right. Mayor Albanese,
can you go to Deas? We're going to do we're going to do two special recognitions and then we'll do the five basketball teams. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, everyone. Great to see everyone here. I know that um tonight we're going to be honoring some people who've dedicated a
lot of their time, many, many years to the community, but also uh we're going to be honoring our champion basketball teams from the travel basketball tournament. Unfortunately, some people can't be here because it's spring break, but we're happy to see everyone that's here, and we will make sure that
everyone gets their certificate. So, at this time, I'd like to ask um William Helm, Bill Helm, come up to the podium. And I'm going to read um proclamation uh in honor of the services that Bill performed on the board of adjustment
which is a zoning board. And um here it is. Um this is honoring Bill Helm for his distinguished public service. Whereas public service at the local level is essential to preserving the quality of life, character, and orderly development of a community. And whereas
Bill Helm has exemplified this spirit of service through his dedicated tenure on the Township of Clark Board of Adjustment. Whereas Bill Helm began his service as an alternate member on March 14th, 2013 and later became a regular
member who faithfully served the residents of Clark through February of 2026, contributing over 13 years of thoughtful judgment, professionalism, and integrity. And whereas throughout his tenure, he participated in monthly meetings and deliberations that required
careful consideration of zoning regulations, land use, and the rights of property owners, helping to guide decisions that shape the future of the township. And whereas Mr. Helm demonstrated a strong and ongoing commitment to giving back to his
community through volunteer service, not only serving on the board of adjustment. And whereas as a resident of Clark since 2008, Mr. Helm and his wife Jill raised their two children, Jack and Maddie, and was a coach for their soccer teams,
softball and CIO flag football teams, and was also involved in the Clark Boy Scouts. And Mr. Helm earned a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Montlair State University, graduating magnaum laudy and has built a distinguished professional career with
Ernston Young um which is a CPA firm bringing valuable financial expertise and analytical insight um in his role in public service. Now therefore, I, Angel Albaneseise, Mayor of the Township of Clark, County of Union, State of New
Jersey, do hereby recognize and commend Bill Helm for his exemplary service to the board of adjustment and extend the gratitude of the entire community for his dedication and contributions. And it does take a lot to spend and as as many
of the people who are here tonight, coaches and parents, uh they've been involved with, you know, basketball uh many many years supporting their youth just as you did, Bill, you know, with your children, but also to give back to one of the committees um in the township
here is uh just we really appreciate the service. We want you to know that and we do appreciate that. Um do you want to say a few words? >> Sure. Yeah, sure. >> Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Uh yeah, I just want to say I I truly
appreciate the uh the recognition. It was an honor to serve on the board for all those years. Uh it was a pleasure. I know some of the board members I saw here earlier. It was a pleasure working with the other board members, the board secretary. I don't see her here, but the board attorneys and various other
township employees uh that I worked with uh throughout the years. It was a great experience and again I just appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. And what I'd like to do is take a picture of you and your family. Take a picture. Okay, moving on to the planning board.
Tonight, we'll be honoring Michael Triola for his distinguished public service. Uh why don't you come up Mike? Mike I did get a chance to work with and was um I observed that he was very uh active and um also g gave a lot of input
into what was happening and what was good for the town because after all we're the ones we also even people on the council here mayor we all pay taxes here we all live in this community and we want it to be the best it can be and Mike was one of those people who was really uh outspoken on the board because
it takes a while to get up uh to learn a lot about what's going on what your role is you you know, you have to follow laws and that's that's really critical to it. So, whereas thoughtful planning, responsible de development are essential to preserving the character, sustainability, and future growth of a
community. And whereas Michael Triola has demonstrated exceptional dedication to these principles through his service on the Township of Clark Planning Board. And whereas Mr. Triolo began his service as an alternate also on on July 21st,
2014 and faithfully served as vice president from 2017 through December of 2025, contributing over 12 years of time, insight, and commitment to the residents of Clark. And whereas during his tenure he tenure he participated in
monthly meetings and deliberations involving master planning land use and development applications helping to guide decisions that s shape the township's future. And whereas as a lifelong resident of Clark Mr. Triola
has shown a deep and enduring commitment to his community where he and his wife Rebecca raised their three children summer Ryan and Arniston. And whereas he is a proud graduate of Arthur L. Johnson High School, class of
1995, and earned an associates degree in criminal justice from Union County College, and has built a successful professional career as a senior sales manager with Total Remodeling in Union County. For the last four years, he has owned a successful business, Good Time
Charlie's Party Rentals. Put in a little plug there for you, Mike. While remaining actively engaged, he's going to be giving out cards and flyers later. um remaining actively engaged in his hometown and whereas he continues to strengthen his ties to the community
where he was raised where his parents reside and where he is raising his three children all of whom attend Clark schools and his parents are here tonight I'm so happy to meet them and whereas throughout his service Mr. Triola has been recognized as a thoughtful problem
solver, as I mentioned, careful analyst and attentive listener whose professionalism and fairness has greatly benefited the planning board and the township of Clark as a whole. Now therefore, I, Angel Albaneseise, mayor of the Township of Clark, County of Union, state of New Jersey, do hereby
recognize and commend Michael Triola for his exemplary service to the planning board and extend the gratitude of the entire community and this council for his dedication and contribution. >> Thank you. Thank you, safety.
>> Thank you very much. Uh, yeah, it was quite the learning experience. um starting off didn't really know much at all and then really found my voice a little way through and I felt everything I did was with the intention of the residents of the town for the best thing
for them. Hopefully everything I voted for uh you all felt and I did with with your you know your uh intentions at heart and uh my only thing that I said the last meeting show up to the meetings residents because it makes a world of difference. It really does. But thank
you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. I just told Mike he has to you have to when you leave a board you have to send another one in. You have to recruit. So, um I'm going to make sure Okay, we have several groups coming up.
So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read the certificate, one of the certificates, and then Bill who's on the board also and also a referee all in many respects. Um, so we'll ask you to come up, get
your certificate, and then if you could just go back and forth, you know, fill up on each side, we're going to take a group picture. Okay. So, the first one, uh, let me read the pro, uh, the certificate. It's with great pleasure that I, mayor of the township of Clark, recognize you
for your outstanding achievement on the 2026 Clark third grade boys travel basketball team. So, this is the 2025 26 Jersey Basketball League Division Champions and
the 2026 21st annual Clark Tournament runnerup. So, all right, I'm going to ask the coaches to come up. Angel Cologne's here, Eric Ka, and Frank Saluchio. If you guys can
come on up, thanks, Angel. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Uh, we're going to give out the certificates and then we'll ask Angel if he would like to say a few words. So, uh, when I call up your names, uh, come on up to the front and just spread out on both sides. All right, Angel, you
want to hand this? First one's going to be Jackson Cologne. >> Oh, not here. We'll give that to the coach. Dominic Saluchio, Matthew Bella, Colton Ka, >> Jordi Mimola,
Rocco Coochie, Then we got Ethan Kamacho, Francisco Smith right here, Theo Healey and Nicholas, see if I pronounced this right. Theor Aurelius. better than me. I always say
>> uh Angel, would you like to say a few words? >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> Uh first and foremost, thank you, mayor. Thank you, Bill. Rest of the council. Thank you so much. Uh Jason, and the rest of the board for Clark Travel Basketball. Thanks a lot. It was a great
season. I know this was the first year for just third graders. So, it was uh very exciting and it was good to for us to come out on top and really looking forward to the future with this group and the rest of the third grade boys that we have. So, thank you very much.
>> All right, take a picture. >> Come back here. Yeah. Stand in the middle. >> All right. Good job, boys. Okay, now we have the fifth grade boys travel basketball team. again. 202526
Jersey Basketball League Silver East Champions, 2025 26 Central Jersey League regular season champions, and 2026 21st annual Clark Tournament Team Champions. Okay,
going to call out the names. >> All right, we're going to see if the coaches I know Greg is not here. Greg Sukus is the head coach. And is uh Manny Fontan or Mike Coochie here? No. Okay. And I'll handle the duties. All right. Um if you're here, come on up
and we'll take a picture. Uh James Dolard, Benji Ramirez, Santino Russo, Lucas Fontin. All right. Nicholas Leinsky. Oh, I skipped over Dom Coochie.
Brennan Daly, Jake Fanino, Marcos Sukus, Justin Sakoriaak, and Braden Coutilla. >> No. So, he Greg was not sure if the boys
were going to make it tonight. Uh, he is away. So, on behalf of Coach Greg, just want to congratulate the boys. Uh, fantastic season and looking forward to next year. >> Okay, now we have the sixth grade boys
blue travel basketball team. the 2526 Jersey Basketball League regular season champions, 2025 26 Jersey Basketball League Playoff Champions, and 20 26 21st
annual Clark Tournament Champions. Okay. >> All right. Uh I see Jason's here. If Jason Ham can come up and if Carmine Rosetti and Harry stre. Thanks. Yeah. >> All right. >> Thank you.
All right. I'm going to read off the boys names. If you guys can come on up. Uh, Alexander Bonia, Christian Fernandez, Hudson Miller, Jake Miller, >> Jake. All right. Uh Jake Rosetti,
Jake Street, Joseph Agoglia, Lucas Ham, Max McKe, and Vincent Carbona. All right, Jason, you want to say a few words? >> Um, so thank you, mayor, for the the
recognition. Thank you to the town council for having us here and thank you to Ralph Bernardo for the the use of the rec center. Um, really proud of all the accomplishments of all the teams this year and, you know, couldn't have done it without all the board members and everyone in town kind of supporting the the travel basketball league. So, thank
you. >> All right, picture time. >> Glasses off the picture. You're welcome. Lost one. >> It's my son. >> What is this? >> All right. Thank you. Okay, now we have the Clark 6th grade
girls travel basketball team. So, for the 202526 Springfield preseason tournament champions, 2026 holiday tournament at Multisport Kingdom, and 2026 21st annual
Clark Tournament Champions, >> uh, TE Coach Bob Rey and Carrie Feny, if she's here, come on up, please. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. When I call your names, come on up again and we'll do the pictures. If you do see, there's two TVs over my
shoulder. So, it will be telecast again on TV36. So, if you want to see yourself on television, just keep flipping through the channels and eventually you'll find it. Or or you go to YouTube. It's on the YouTube. All right. Uh Sophia Suchek,
Laya Rodriguez, >> Denver Williams, >> Nadia Mowski, Sophia Takis, Bridget Feny, Melody Lang, >> Charlotte Brady here. >> Charlotte's not here, but the coach is here. That's great.
>> Madison Russo, and Kylie Spearnock. >> Kylie's not here either. >> That's Kylie's. >> Bob, that's yours. Carrie, that's yours. You want to say a few words? Carrie. >> Yes. >> Say a few words. >> Yeah. No, I'd like to echo what Jason
said. Uh we wouldn't have this tournament if it wasn't for the mayor, the council, and uh Ralph. Like often times you come to these meetings and people talk worry about politics, but the one thing you can guarantee is that they care about the kids in this town and and the use of the facilities is really huge. Um, after the first 10
minutes of me figure trying to figure out who Bill Helm was, uh, you know, because we we know him lovingly as RP, you know, I started to think about what to say about the girls and and and after thinking about all the miss layups, I really wanted to think about the tenacious defense that these girls played all year. When you play against
some big towns like we play against in um, in the bracket we played in, it uh, it takes that kind of defense and rebounding after about 80 drills of learning how to rebound. but they held Westfield to nine points in the championship game, which is kind of
really difficult to do. So, I'm proud of the growth of these girls. They're a really great group of girls. >> You have a tough coach. >> Picture time. >> All right. >> All right, girls. >> A few on this side, a few on that side. >> No, stay there. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Go over there. Come on. Slide over. There we go. Awesome. Okay. Eighth grade girls travel basketball team. They're moving up. 202526 Springfield preseason tournament
champions and 2026 21st annual Clark Tournament Champions. All right. Uh, the coaches are here. Mike de Bellardino, Will Sakaris, and Eric Ka. And
>> All right. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call the girls up. Addison Castro, Olivia Kauchia, >> Luchia Dellardino, Caitlyn Melvin, Taylor Sakoria, Noel Humphre
and Eloise Humphre, Victoria Ferrer, Rosie Sakaris, and Ariana Tigini. >> Thank you uh on behalf of mayor, board, and board. Thank you so much for the the
timeless stuff you do for us. Uh on behalf of the girls, I know they're excited to uh go into high school next year and wear that Crusader uniform proud supporting this town and traveling further uh to show support of this town, a town I know they love just as much as we do. Uh so thank you very much. Thank
you. this way. >> Oh my goodness. need those whip. You know, who knew you needed? >> Good. >> Thank you. >> All right. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
So again, we I'm a board member. I've been involved now about 18 years with the travel basketball, maybe 19 years. Uh it takes a lot of work. Uh I want to actually call Jason Katz to come on up for a second. >> Okay.
Sorry. Uh if Jason Ham could come on up, board member. I know Bob Reed is here. Um, I don't think uh Gary Duchellis isn't here. Ray Gonzarowski, Mike Settle Meyer, Michael Pzik, Euros Nicolik, and
Greg Zukas are the other board members. Um, Jason's been president for two years now or three? Three years. Uh, he has another two years to go, I assume. Uh this man does it's an unbelievable amount of work he does to coordinate the
scheduling. I know Bob uh helped out with the scheduling this year. It takes a lot. Ralph Bernardo is very accommodating to us uh giving us the gym time and uh it's takes a lot of moving pieces to coordinate all the scheduling for the league as well as the
tournament. Jason Katz is the tournament director. This is your third year. >> Third year doing it. This year we had a little bit of a monkey wrench thrown in there. If you remember, we had that second blizzard hit on Sunday. And so Sunday we had a close at 1:00 and
Monday. So we lost 43 games and the championships were the next Saturday and Sunday. And we literally had games every night of the week. So this gentleman over here had to figure out how to fit 43 games into no spaces basically. So at the end of the day, I believe we fit 25
of the games in. And so we only lost about 13 to 15 games which was amazing. So I just want to say credit to you. I know it takes months and months to put this together and a lot of aggravation but at the end of the day uh you basketball players you could always
you'll see Jason. He's at the high school a lot uh and he puts a lot of time in and he doesn't have any children as I don't anymore involved in the basketball. But we love to give back and we love to make uh you guys smile and have happy smiles on your faces when you come in and the tournament's a
babysitting service for the parents because they drop the kids off at 8 in the morning and they pick them up at 10 at night. So I just want to congratulate my board members and as well as Jason for a phenomenal job uh with the tournament. So thank you son. All right, you are all more than
welcome to stay, but I'm going to take a two-minute recess that you are allowed to leave and whoever wants to stay, we'll continue the meeting in a minute or two. So, thank you very much. Congratulations. Okay. Okay. Can I get a motion to resume regular order of business that please?
>> Thank you. Councilman Hun second. Councilman Tol. All in favor? I opposed. All right. We're going to move to communications from the mayor. Mayor Albanesey's here. Okay. So, I want to uh give a brief presentation of the
budget um that was approved at our March 16th meeting and Councilman Pat O' Conor presented an overview of the budget and um that night they approved it and introduced the budget. Um, this evening I'd like to touch on some important
points regarding how the budget process works and what you can expect. Okay. So, while the budget is approved near the end of the first quarter of the year of the budget, the process actually begins
in early August in the early August time frame. And this slide gives you a little outline of what's involved uh in planning the budget. So at the beginning of the process, we focus on our capital plan and we're always working towards
getting grants to help us with capital projects that we're involved in. Um and you know, Jim has been working vigorously on uh filing a lot of uh applications for grants we're hoping to get this year. And last year we were very successful in getting significant
amount of grants. So our our primary focus is on as it says roads, public safety, maintaining public properties and various equipment that's needed to run our operation whether it's in the um for the assets of the town or whether it's related to the pool or the sewer as
well. Um, we do our best, as I said, to focus on grants that are available and apply for those. And, um, all capital commitments must be approved by ordinance. So, we do an operating budget. That's what was approved by the
council. And in the budget document, which is posted online, we have the um six-year plan. All towns over 10 with over a population of over 10,000 people have to have a six-year capital plan. But, as I said, it's just a plan. Well,
even a budget is a plan, but um that all the projects that are listed must be approved by a separate capital ordinance. So, uh once we conclude that we focus on the budget for the operations, what are the revenues that are going to be uh
collected from outside? You cannot budget revenue that is um a higher amount than what you have in past experience unless you have received the cash in the current year. So that's always a limitation on what you can do
when you have new fees put in place etc. So let me move on here. Approximately um skip that for a second. Approximately one-third of the budget relates to salaries and wages for the most part and
they're all covered by collective bargaining agreements. So, it's it's pretty um easy to start the budget early in August except for turnover or breakage in um positions. It's easy to um come up with what the forecasted
amounts for salaries and wages are. Um sometimes, as I said, we have turnover or retirements and that can also affect various costs. Many of the other costs are s that are significant and are not available until early or late December, such as statutory pension obligations.
We don't get that information till about the first week in December. Um or our health insurance and general insurance obligations, which we'll talk about later, but the department heads and various staff are involved in establishing the budget early in the process. Um pretty much
our goal is uh safety for our community. Um making sure that we continue to provide the services we have provided. We believe that the citizens are satisfied with those services and we want to continue them and we have many more services in Clark and some of the
surrounding communities. Um during the entire process, our business administrator Jim Olrich and Christy Vieiraa, our CFO are working through all the areas related to revenue and other costs. Early in the first quarter, the discussions are held with the chairman of the finance committee
and also the members. So, as you know, some of you who are here tonight and maybe out in TV land, the budget is that's a big responsibility of the council. The council must approve the budget. So, the administration recommends the budget and
the council must adopt the budget as as was done uh at the last meeting. Uh right now, I'd like to um just show the members of the committee. Uh in particular, I want to thank our administration, especially Jim Olrich, Christy Vieira, for all their hard work
um in putting the budget together. It's kind of like a puzzle that you have to put together because all the revenue must equal the expenses. And as I said, you cannot budget revenue unless you have a track record or a history of collecting those fees. I'd also like to thank the members of
the finance committee uh chaired by Pat O' Conor and members James Maniti and Jessica Hoff uh for their involvement in the meetings that we had to discuss different issues regarding the budget and responding to all of their questions and suggestions that they had to
contribute to the process. Um, as I said, we continue to support our goals, ensuring that we have a safe community and um provide a community that's focuses on activities for children just like we had tonight. We work closely
with a lot of organizations. If you're ever over in the U recreation center, we must have hundreds almost a thousand people a day going in and out of that building. And I work in a town where there's 50,000 people and we don't have a facility like that. And even during that tournament, you can't believe how
many people come and are just uh a in awe of the facility that we have there. And it's used until late at night. You see teams coming in at 9:00. And now we have a huge pickle ball uh group that's here. And uh it's about 750 members in
that group. So those are some of the programs that are offered. And then of course we have a lot of senior citizen programs, a lot of activities for our seniors. So, where did the money go? So, our tax collector and the township, we're responsible for collecting taxes not
only for the township, but also for the county, for the library, and for the schools. And this is a breakdown of where the money went last year. So you can see similar to most towns the schools in New Jersey are funded by real
estate taxes and here in our town um schools are 51% might be slightly lower than some other places actually um but you can you can take a look at that on uh I could give you websites to look at to compare and um our schools get very
high ratings on the um evaluations that are done by the state education department. So, I know there's other uh surveys that are done, but they are top-notch uh school system, and we're very proud to work with them in all all
respects. So, you can see that the municipal tax levy was 28%. Okay? And we have a a open space. We must have had a open space referendum years ago. And the county collects open space money. It's a percentage of the
taxes that are collected. and then the Union County tax levy of course. Okay. So, here's a summary of the property taxes 25 versus 26 uh as as was as I
said approved and in the budget that was presented at the last meeting. So the pro the appropriations must equal the revenue that's collected from other sources as well as the revenue from the tax levy. So here we have in 25 it says
12,377 and the revenue went down 9,664. That's all related to grants principally because we had a lot of grants and some of the grants come in during the year and you are permitted to add those to your budget once you receive them so
that you can start spending them within the confines or the terms of the grant agreement. So we work very hard throughout this year to keep the tax levy as low as possible. So what happens is and if you look
further down on this slide, there's a line the the fourth line says average assessment. So what we do is we take what's the average assessed value of a home and that changes each year. So that's the net valuation of all the
properties. So it's like a big pie of properties and then the taxes get allocated out. So the average assessment last year was $526,79 and this year it's $528,516. So the value went up or there were more properties added. And if you look at Clark and if you're familiar with the
redevelopment that's been going on there there is no vacant virtually no vacant land. There's really no vacant land in Clark that hasn't been built. So, we in the in the process of the redevelopment for round four, we had to identify
properties that had pro uh buildings on them or facilities on them and we had to add those. We don't have to do anything. We don't no one has to sell their property, but we have to identify those as potentially uh areas in need of redevelopment and
they are zoned mostly in the downtown village area. So they have what's called an overlay of zoning um so that they can be used and a developer can take advantage of uh the benefits of um being a redeveloper.
So on this slide it shows $9746. So if for the average homeowner that's how much taxes will be going up. So $9746 that's the municipal portion of the taxes. So that's about $812 a month,
less than 3% increase. And I'm going to talk about some of the larger increases in expenses that we had this year. And um we'll we'll talk about what they are and and how we are dealing with them. So
we don't know what the taxes or the budget will be for the schools. It's not finalized yet. And we don't have the um taxes for the county yet. So what happens is in this process we submit our budget to the government. They they
approve it. They review it. They approve it and we usually get the information back mid June sometimes late June early July. So the first two tax bills that you received this year is 50% of your taxes from last year. Your tax liability
from last year. And they divide it by two. And that's what's on your bill for February 1st and May 1st. It's 50% of last year's taxes because we're creating the budget in the same year. So hopefully that makes sense to people. But what we're proposing is $9746.
And a key item to keep in mind is a budget is a plan. Hopefully we don't spend all the money and we don't run out of money because we can't spend money we don't have and we can't make budget transfers till later in the year in November and December. So last year the
uh if you look at the bottom line on the um left side of the screen, the total taxes for the average assessment of $526,79 was $11,992 unless you had some type of other credits that were given because you had
senior freeze, etc. So here you you you're looking at well how much of what we have in our budget for revenue is tax levy and how much is other revenues. So we have about 30% of our revenues coming from other sources
other than taxes. Now it would be nice to have more revenue from that area but this is this is our uh this is what we have right now. And we h we always look at what fees we're charging and then make sure we increase them as necessary.
U we're not necessarily the highest, but we don't want to be the lowest either. So, some of the fees that go into the other revenue are uniform construction code fees, licenses, fees, permits, liquor licenses, the municipal court, which in most towns is kind of going
down over the years because we get less and less of what what is um the portion that applies to the towns. Interest on investments, we've done pretty well this year. So, we were over budget. we we obtained more interest because we have a higher interest rate with our
relationship with our bank and um we don't know what's going to happen. So the interest rates have come down now they're going back up. So we'll see what happens. Cable franchise fees uh those are fees that we collect from basically Comcast, Verizon, and those are pretty
much going down too each year and you can only record for your revenue what cash you collected in the current year from last year. And um you know a lot of people are buying sticks or you know Hulu, other other different sources, Prime Video etc. So franchise fees from
cable vision are pretty much going down. We have a hotel in town. We have hotel tax and um that's doing well. Um and then we have state aid from energy receipts. So the state collects tax when we pay our utilities and they're
supposed to give that back to all the townships. Except the state really keeps all this all this money and they haven't changed the amounts in more than 10 years. Over 10 years we're still getting the same amount of um state aid for
energy receipts tax. So that's um disappointing but very hard to do. It's very hard to uh do anything about it. Grants, as I said, we're we're applying for grants and we had a great deal of grants last year and especially um thank uh Senate President NickQatari who was
involved in helping us with the fire funding of the fire truck which is on order and also for our Vector machine which we were um pleased to have him stop by and take a look at and that is really helping in our sewer cleanups. We have pilot fees. Again, some of the
pilots are just coming on board. So, you know, we have to get their audits, true up the numbers, and then give the county their 5%. And um that's what's happening there. Delinquent taxes, we get some interest from that. And then, of course, we also
can if we don't spend money, it goes into the surplus. If we don't spend money from this budget, we have to wait until we do the 28 budget to take what's left over and put that in the surplus. You have to wait a year till all bills come in.
So here we have um various components of what the appropriations go to. So you can see other expenses are a large part of um of our expenses and one of the largest
expenses is uh of this 13.08 million uh relates to health care costs. Healthcare costs have been rising and that's about 5.68 million or 43% of the other expenses um are related to health care.
So if you think about it, so we are a labor intensive operation. What we do is principally has to have labor involved which is principally the police department and public works and then we have several support staff at town hall who support those operations whether
it's administration HR um the construction department the clerk's department finance department the health department those are all um some of them have their separate activities in addition to supporting um whether it's the council or the staff of other
departments such as payroll, things like that. So, healthc care is an uncontrolled cost and I'll talk about that a little bit more um what's happening with that. But this year, we also had to put into the budget um some software costs for our
dispatch system. We need to upgrade the software this year. And last year, we budgeted $119,000. That's going to cost us about $300,000. So, we budgeted $419. We don't have the exact number but that's what we put in the budget. So that's um that's one
aspect. Also as you all know utility costs are going up. So we didn't budget too much. We wanted to budget just enough. So we increased that budget from 819 thou it's in this budget it's
819,000. We increased it by 89,000 which is about 12% to cover increases in utility costs. So, um, as I said earlier, if we need to make a budget transfer, we can do that later in the year. Also, as you know, we
talked about it when we were talking about the with the basketball. We had this, we had number of storms this year, and storms are very expensive, especially when you have to um you can't just plow the street once. You have to go through maybe passes. Um, all the
storms were on weekends, our bad luck. So, it's all using staff that worked all week and then have to come out on the weekend working overtime and um maybe not, you know, it's a drain on the staff. Let's put it like that. Now, we on the positive side, we did see
a $265,000 reduction in recycling. So, that was one of the positives and there were other small changes up and down in various line items for the salaries and wages that you see here. As I said earlier, that's pretty
much easy to budget if you've got contracts in place. So, if you have your contracts all settled and they're not up or lapsed, then uh it's pretty easy to budget that. And we had a $344,000 increase and that was about 3.2% which
is in line with what the contracts had in the collective bargaining agreements. Our debt service includes payments for two serial bonds and then we also have notes and then the interest that's owed. So interest is coming down on the on the serial bonds and we're in a pretty good
position. We've always tried to keep our debt the same. Now we've had some big project over projects over the years and this um police station is one of them. So that was one that um you know added on but again we're paying it down and um
our borrowing rate is 08%. You're allowed to borrow three and a half%. You can borrow up to three and a half%. And what's included in that 08% is also ordinances that you passed but you may not have borrowed the money. So you know you're doing a project yet you
didn't you didn't have to pay for it yet. So before you pay for it uh or go out for bonding it is included in the total debt because it it will become debt eventually theoretically if you need the money. Uh the next item I'm going to talk about is statutory expenditures and this
relates again to employee benefits and thankfully we did not have any significant changes because this is again a uncontrolled unknown and it goes back the statistics that they use for the pensions go back two and a half years because it takes time to do all
the actuarial calculations etc. So that was pretty flat but it was um of this total expenditure of 3.39 million approximately two and a half million relates to the township's funding of pensions and also the employees have to contribute just like with health they have to contribute based on the amount
of money that they make. The other 900,000 relates to the township share of social security for the employees. Okay. Really what's driving the taxes that I mentioned earlier, the $98 is this
health benefit increase. We are a member of state health benefits and um we've probably talked about it throughout the year that the costs are well maybe that program isn't properly
managed as well. Let me put it that way also in in terms of how much money they were using out of surpluses that were available. Well, now they're at the bottom of the barrel and they have to pass it on. And as you know in medicine, if you are in any health plan, whether
it's, you know, they tell you to go to Hackinac Meridian or Summit, there's hardly any doctors left. There's people are joining groups. So, um, the costs have gone up not only for medical treatments, but also for drugs.
drug costs are very expensive and we always try to have they try to have programs where you're try one drug to see if that works etc. So it doesn't take much for this to all add up and um this increase from 4.55 million to 5.68
million. So remember we looked at the whole budget's 32 million and 1.1 million alone was the increase and the total of that 33 million is 5.68 68 million for health care costs and it's um honestly a hardship for employees
because they have to contribute and their salary increases for many were lower than the amounts of the increase in their health care costs. But what can we do? We have an agreement and it's it's very hard but it's it's happening all over. And even there are some towns
that belong to what's called uh HIFS or they're self-insured. If you have a big population over 600 people, you might be self-insured. They're all getting everyone's catching up with one another. Eventually, they'll be just like the New Jersey health benefits. Um I I went to a
conference uh the mayors talked about health benefits and this is basically what they said the trends were. They're seeing that the HIFS are increasing as well as New Jersey state health benefits except that is managed by the state of New Jersey. Um,
and that's pretty much what I wanted to talk about. And I did add this because some from time to time I'll talk about the fact that wow, we we're pretty low. Our taxes are lower than most towns in the county. So there
you see the average tax bills. You know, some towns we're not going to compare ourselves to Planefield or Elizabeth. you you might look at Scotch Plains or Springfield or Summit or Union uh some of those towns and you can see where we stand and what the average tax bills
are. And then it also shows you obviously the name of the town, how many residences or not not just residences, commercial properties and the average assessments um and the average tax bills in all those towns. So these slides we'll make available online as well as
this recording will be obviously as part of tonight's presentation. And I thank you for um listening to me speak about the budget and uh you can look on our website and go I put the web link for our finance department and here
you'll find all the budgets, financial statements, debt statements and audits. So each year we have to do an annual financial statement um that's already filed. That's in the beginning of February. Well, I guess it's early March now. Um they changed some of the dates on the laws. Um the annual debt
statement is at the end of January. Um audits have to be done by the end of August and we're usually pretty quick on that here. And um and as I said the budget, so this budget document is available online. It has been available
um and we'll also be presenting the userfriendly budget um when we uh in the near future before we adopt the budget. Um, so the hearing for the budget will be at the next meeting, April 20th. So if you have any questions in the interim, you can call me if you leave a
message on my cell phone, leave your name and phone number and a time when you would like to meet or we can meet by phone or in person or a mutually convenient appointment will be arranged to discuss any further details. I know some people like to dig into the details on this and uh other people just want to
know what's the bottom line, right? So hopefully we've you have that information now and be happy to hear if you have any questions. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Thank you, Mayor Albanese, for that in-depth summary.
>> Do you want to go through their summary of the consent agenda? >> Yes. >> Do that before we move on. Okay. Okay. Tonight, ordinance 2612 is on the agenda for adoption and a hearing. And this is to establish a division of human
resources within the Department of Administration, adding a new subsection of the township's administration titled Division of Human Resources. An establishment of this division within the Department of Administration will enhance our operational efficiency and
strengthen compliance with state and federal employment laws to support the township's employees and the departments. Now earlier this year we had an ordinance 2602 which was adopted creating various human resource positions to set up the organization but
this ordinance will replace that um ordinance uh 26 and and create positions consistent with the New Jersey Civil Service Commission. That's the main thing we need to do here is this helps us comply with all the civil service
laws which honestly they the government isn't investing a lot of that right now but you have to comply you must comply with that. So that's that's where we stand with that ordinance and um as I said we're going to have the hearing tonight on that. Tonight we're
introducing a new ordinance 2613 which amends the employee policy and procedure manual. So all the employees of the townships are subject to and shall abide by the policies and procedures set forth in this manual. And the manual is common in all towns especially because of
insurance for insurance reasons for discriminatory reasons for different laws that are in place. And the manual was originally adopted in 1996 and it's been revised 13 times in order to keep current with new statutes, insurance requirements, and other operational uh
issues in compliance with best practices as well. Resolution 26 uh 108. Moving on to resolutions. This authorizes the planning board to undertake a preliminary investigation to determine whether lots 6, 7, 8, and nine of block
77 qualify as an area in need of non-condemnation redevelopment. And the address for that block and lots is 199 and 205 Westfield Avenue. In accordance with New Jersey statutes,
the governing body is required to pass a resolution authorizing the planning board to undertake this this investigation. So the planning board shall advertise the hearing. At that hearing, interested parties may speak. So that's where citizens can come and speak about this issue and regarding
that property and state their objections for consideration by the planning board. The planning board shall then make a recommendation to the council no later than May 8th, 2026. Resolution 26109 authorizes a one-year contract with Gov
Pilot, which is a software uh that we use when you report a concern. And you see the other uh modules that we have um and that's not to exceed $86,580. So we, as I said, we currently use this. It's a proprietary software.
Resolution 110 uh authorizes a non-fair and open contract for the annual 4th of July 2026 fireworks display for $22,400. And that's to be held on Saturday, July 4th with a rain date of Sunday, July 5th. And we hope to see everyone there
to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country. And we're hope to do a few special things that evening prior to the fireworks. Resolution 2611, the Department of Public Works received quotes for grass disposal services. Three quotes were received. The lowest
bidder was Frank Galbreth and Suns and is being awarded the contract with a bid of 1475 per cubic yard. The total cost is $35,000 and in accordance with the local public contract law does not exceed the court quote threshold with a QPA of less than 53,000. So the price is
less than 53,000. So we can proceed in that manner. Uh resolution 26112 amends the budget that was approved on March 16, 2026 uh which will have its hearing on April 20th as advertised. So what we're doing is since we received grants in the
interim since we started this process, we want to get those grants into the budget. So that increases the revenue with an equal amount of cost as well. And the three grants are 30,000 for the infrastructure grant from the county, 12,000 for the kids recreation grant,
again, Union County grant, and a $4,000 greening grant for a total of $46,000. As I said, has no no impact on revenue and and appropriations. Resolution 26113 relates to sewer balance adjustment issues at 11
residences totaling 17,073. So, as you may know, the sewer bills are based on water usage for a certain period of the year. And in these instances, there were adjustments needed because the water was not impacting the sewer flow. It included sprinkler
systems, pools, water leaks, and there was also one water company billing error. Resolution 26114 relates to refunds for overpayment of sewer fees. Simply overpaid. This happens sometimes because sometimes people use mortgages to pay things or whatever they, you
know, maybe both husband and wife pay. So, we had seven residents that needed to get an overpayment refund for $1,750. Uh resolution 26115 is similar, but it relates to taxes. That's for overpayment of two t of taxes for two locations, and
that total $5,788.37. If people want to leave the money there, we we'll gladly accept that as well. So, um resolution 26116 authorizing the township to advertise and schedule a public hearing regarding this is for a
contractor's pre-qualification regulations for CR contractors to bid on the roof restoration at the historic Robinson Plantation House. They have to be um contractors that are used to or um
work with historic preservation and know how to do the work that's required in accordance with the grant from the preserve New Jersey historic preservation fund. Um so in order to distribute uh to for to get that grant money, we have to follow those rules. On
March 5th, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs approved pre-qualification regulations enabling us to proceed with the hearing. So, these rules just changed recently and a notice regarding the project will be posted on the website after adoption of this resolution by council.
Um, resolution 26117. I'm very pleased to um uh see this on the agenda. Approval of Christine Adnesio as an alternate one member of the board of adjustment. And I'd like to thank Christine Anio for volunteering to serve on the board and I hope you'll
approve that this evening. So, Mr. President and members of council, I and the administration support these ordinances and resolutions. Mr. Olrich and I are here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. >> Thank you for the summary. All right,
Madame uh clerk. Well, actually before we do that, uh reports of council committees uh we do them on the third Monday of the month, so there'll be no reports in the committees. So at this time, madame clerk, you want to move to ordinance appropriations and claims. No objections have been received in
connection with the proposed ordinance 26-12, an ordinance establishing the Division of Human Resources within the Department of Administration by amending section 3-24 titled Department of Administration
to add a new subsection 3-24B5 titled Division of Human Resources. >> Thank you. At this time, I'll open the meeting for a public hearing on this ordinance and this ordinance only. If you'd like to come forward on this ordinance, please do so. And please just
state your name and town you reside in. And you'll have five minutes of duration. Good evening. Uh, Michael Schulman, Clark, New Jersey. With regard to the ordinance creating a new department, uh I am asking the council to consider
voting down this ordinance. Uh we just heard a budget presentation that talked about the increase in costs, mostly coming from personnel and the associated benefits that come along with that. The ordinance that is proposed uh creates a
department that as I understand it Clark has not had ever and most towns about our size do not have a separate HR department. They have a BA and they have maybe a CFO type position. Many things are done through shared services. They
are done through outsourcing like payroll. Um, this ordinance, and I'm pulling it up in front of me, creates nine different positions that can be filled. Looking at these,
they seem redundant. A personnel director, an assistant personnel director, a personnel officer, a principal personnel technician, senior personnel assistant, senior personnel technician, personnel assistant, personnel technician, personnel aid. I'm
wondering if the council knows what those positions actually do. Do we need potentially nine more people to service this town that has never had these nine positions before? Are we missing something? Have we missed something for
decades and decades that this is now an imperative issue for us? Because if you look at those codes and you go to the civil service page, you know, information and the averages that these town positions get paid and what the salary ranges are, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in
salary plus those benefits that keep going up. So, I'm wondering why at this time we are making a decision to create another department more administration, more government, which I know the conservatives don't
like. And is this necessary? Um, our town has employed, I believe my notes indicated from the budget last year, 118 employees in the town in 2025. Somehow that's gone up to 149 in the 2026 proposed budget. I don't know if this
constitutes the additional HR people potentially, but even if it didn't, let's assume it doesn't. That's 16 employees per HR employee. 16 people need one person basically on average. That seems like a lot of
unnecessary bureaucracy. So I would think that either we're not doing something and Clark has been behind the eightball for years and years and this is almost an emerging issue or we are unnecessarily creating more government bureaucracy
which I'm sure many of you would be very much against. I do think for those reasons uh the council should vote down this resolution or at least in the very minimum significantly trim the positions that would be available to focus on what's actually needed and not just
growing our government. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Schulman. >> Anyone else like to come forward on this ordinance? Okay, seeing no one, I'd like a motion to close the public hearing. >> Thank you, Councilman Tolk. I get a second.
>> Thank you, Council Member Huff. All in fa Excuse me. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Uh, at this time, >> Mr. President, I'd like to make a comment to address that. And I think I I agree with Mr. Schulman on the the bureaucracy that's created, but unfortunately, we do have to comply with
civil service. So, we're not going to hire all these positions, but we need to create an organization in accordance with the guidelines that are required by civil service. We in fact, I mean, I wish we could have a referendum to eliminate civil service, but I was told that that's really not, you know, a good
idea. We're really not done. Um, but so we have all those positions, the organization set up. Um but we we're going to have one person to make sure that we have consistency amongst all the departments handling all of the HR
matters and you know giving out all the personnel policy manuals. We have to take cyber security tests. You all know that you have to take them as well. Um so this is uh what we feel is needed. We're not going to fill all those positions but I said we need to have
those positions identified. I don't know if you want to make any other comments, Jim. Yeah, I do. And as we discussed originally when we introduced this, this is coming out of the uh mail, the mutual excess liability joint insurance fund. See, I remembered to explain my
abbreviation. Um so there's some critical aspects that we need to um manage through this process and it is they are in fact employee uh employment attorney or advisor personnel policies
and procedure manual conscientious employee protection act notice, employee handbook, model local unit civil rights resolutions and managerial and supervisory training. um training for all other personnel and
having the MEL uh EPL hotline available to all of our employees. So, as part of that process, we have to make sure that we identify all of those aspects and um comply with them. The benefit of this is
that if we don't have the those policies and we don't comply with that checklist is there's a $100,000 deductible and a um a 20% co-ayment above that with an unlimited cap for liability. So that's
um EPL, the employment practice liability and also um cyber security. What what we have though, if we comply with all of those, is a $20,000 deductible, a 20% co-ayment with a cap of $50,000. So, by setting up this
department in a in an um a formal um process, we have the ability to make sure that all of these things are being done. It's not that these things haven't been done in the past. They were done by me, by the CFO, by um Gina, the assistant accountant, and also by um
Donna, my assistant. This is formalizing the process. This is giving the responsibility to one person. Right? Again, as the mayor said, this is a requirement to set up the department by civil service. Civil service is probably the most inefficient unit in this whole
state. And you know, even to get a response, it takes days, weeks at times. And then to even get a test um set up, it takes months. So, this is their process. It's not our process. it's not
the positions that we're filling and um so it benefits the township from a liability risk control perspective and that's why we're doing this has nothing to do with everything that he's saying that it's going to cost money. It's going to it's going to save us money in
the end in the event of any issues. >> Thank you for the explanation. All right. Can I get a motion, please? >> Council member Hoff. Thank you. and second council member Hund. Anyone else have any questions for the BA or
mayor on this? >> All right, roll call. Madam clerk. >> Council member Huff. >> Yes. >> Council member Hund, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor, >> yes. >> Council member Tol, >> yes. >> Council President Smith,
>> yes. When you're ready, we can move to introduction of proposed ordinances. >> 26-13, an ordinance to amend chapter 48, section 48-5 of the code of the township of Clark entitled employee policy and procedure
manual. >> Thank you. Can I get a motion? >> I'll move that. >> Thank you, Council Member Okconor. Can I get a second? >> I'll second that. >> Thank you, Council Member Maniti. Uh any discussion or questions for the mayor or BA on this? Jim, you have anything to add on this?
>> I mean, it's just been minor changes. Again, it's all coming out of the MEL. The changes are, you know, additions to the American Disability Policy. Um additional uh additions to the policy against harassment to include uh some language on hostile work environments.
um changing the language of vacation leave policy to be in line with the controllers's report state law requiring carrying over vacation leave limitations and additional acknowledgement of the receipt page of each manual primarily the uh manual is is the same those are
the only significant changes >> and I was going to say that pretty much in every town that in the state that's participates in the mail they're all this is like an annual event now to keep up with statutes that are in place courses that need to be taken regarding discrimination, etc.
>> Thank you. Uh, roll call, please. >> Council member Huff, >> yes. >> Council member Hund, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor, >> yes. >> Council member Tol, >> yep. >> Council President Smith, >> yes. Public hearing will be on April
20th, 26-14, an ordinance authorizing the sale of certain land in Township of Clark, shown as block 129, lots 11 and 14 on the Township tax map at the intersection of
Broadway and Grand Street to be sold at private sale in accordance with NJSA. A 40A colon 20 I'm sorry 12-13B5. >> Thank you. Can I get a motion? >> I'll move. >> Thank you. Councilman Tol. Can I get a
second? >> Thank you. Council member Okconor. Uh any discussion or questions? Jim, anything to add on that? >> Um these are two properties that we got appraisals for. I mean, this is just a a strange situation that there the
property on Broadway right next to Mother Sedan. They if you look at the house, the walkway is actually their property coming from Broadway, but the property to the right of it, and the property to the left of it is not, right? So, it's it looks like a T. So,
the two properties on both sides are not theirs. Um, and they are looking to buy those pieces of property, which makes sense to us because then we get rid of it. We got some cash, some additional tax revenue, and we don't have to maintain it. >> Great. Okay, a roll call, please.
>> Council member Huff, >> yes. >> Council member Hund, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor, >> yes. >> Council member Tol, >> yes. >> Council President Smith, >> yes. >> Public hearing will be on April 20th.
All >> right. Now, we'll move to payment of claims. Councilman Okconor. >> Thank you. I have reviewed the bills encumbered through March 25th totaling $17,41262. >> Great. Thank you. All right. At this time, we're going to move to citizens hearing on the agenda. I'll open the meeting to the public. Public comment
portion of the meeting is to allow the public to bring to the council's attention their concerns and comments. In accordance with NJSA 10 colon 4-12A and the code of the township of clerk, each person addressing the council shall give their name and the town in which they reside to the clerk. All remarks
shall be addressed to the council as a body and shall not exceed 5 minutes in duration at the conclusion of the statements or questions for a member of the public. The council president at his or her discretion may choose to respond or not respond. So if anyone would like to come forward on any agenda item,
please do so. Yep. Citizens hearing on the agenda. >> All right. Uh, seeing no, I'd like a motion to close this portion. >> Thank you, Council Member Tol and thank you, Council Member Hund. All in favor? >> Any opposed?
Okay. Uh, the consent agenda resolutions, the mayor summarized them all. So, I'm I'm going to ask that we just look for a motion and a second. And that would be number four through 11. I get a motion to adopt the consent agenda. >> A motion.
>> Thank you, Council Member Hoff. Can I get a second? >> I'll second that. >> Thank you, Council Member Maniti. Roll call, please. >> Council member Huff, >> yes. >> Council member Hund, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor,
>> yes. Council member Tol. >> Yes. >> Council President Smith. >> Yes. >> Okay. When you're ready, Madam Clerk, we can move on to resolutions. Number 12. >> Number 12. Authorizing the township of Clark to advertise and schedule a public
hearing regarding proposed contractor qualification regulations for contractors to bid on the roof restoration at the historic Robinson Plantation House. >> I get a motion. Thank you, Council Member Tol, and thank you, Councilman Hun, for a second. Uh, I believe that
the mayor uh summarized it in great detail, so roll call, please. >> Council member Huff, >> yes. >> Council member Hund, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor, >> yes. >> Council member Tol, >> yes. >> Council President Smith,
>> yes. Before we move to 13, just want to announce that Councilman Hunt is going to recuse himself from a vote on number 13. Go ahead, Madam Clerk. >> Number 13, appointing Christine Estasio as alternate member one of the board of
adjustments to fill the unexpired term of Dante Tini. >> I get a motion. >> Thank you, Council Member Okconor. Can I get a second? >> Thank you, Council Member Hoff. Any uh discussion or questions on that? It's pretty self-explanatory. Uh so, roll
call, please. >> Council member Huff, >> yes. >> Council member Manetti, >> yes. >> Council member Okconor, >> yes. >> Council member Tol, >> yes. >> Council President Smith, >> yes. Is there any new business on the
calendar? >> No new business. >> Great. Okay. Now, we'll move on to public comments. I'll open the meeting to the public. Public comment portion of the meeting is to allow the public to bring to the council's attention their concerns or comments in accordance with NJSA10 col4-12A in the code of the
township of clerk. Each person addressing the council shall give their name in the town in which they reside to the clerk. All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a body and shall not exceed five minutes in duration. At the conclusion of this statement or questions from a member of the public, the council president at his
or her discretion may choose to respond or not respond. Okay, the floor is open. Good evening, John Grees from Clark. Uh I just had a few questions um uh regarding the HR thing. Um maybe just clarify a little. I guess you know one
of the big questions overall is you know what is the you were saying that it's not nine people, they're just potential positions, right? That's what I understood. Um what is the budget for what you're going to do like in this year roughly? >> Yeah, it is one person who's currently
employed and it's part of our budget um plan. >> Okay. And then um I heard him I heard Mr. Shman say that the number of employees had increased from 118 to like 140 something. Um,
where what where did that how did that happen? >> We're working on that. I talked to the uh CFO this afternoon about that. So, I think she didn't allocate the um sewer and the um pool employees >> in the previous year.
>> No, are you talking about the advertisement? >> No, I meant um in the the the budget that was put out last month or whatever, there's like a number of employees. it says in the budget and it says last year it was 118 and there's like 148 or 49 this year and it just seemed like a lot
of >> employees that were increased. >> So we're looking into that. >> Okay. Um >> so okay so those were just the the detailed things and then you know the two things um you know I'm I'd still just like to say I'd really like to see um you know a way for people to use Zoom
or some type of video conferencing to basically participate from home. >> That will never happen while I'm up here and this team's up here. We have two public meetings. Mr. Greavves, I don't know what else you want to do. The cost of doing a Zoom is thousands of dollars and we're not doing it. So, you can talk about and come up here, but
>> okay, >> waste your >> Okay, >> you will never Why would we? We have public meetings. We have two public meetings. >> We're all available. We're not going to sit here and make this business meeting a circus and have people zooming in and be on TV.
>> Come to the meeting. Every time there's an issue, we have more than enough people. come to the meeting when there's no issues, the room's like this, everything's running smooth. >> Okay. I my my only response would be you since you asked the question, why would you? It would be so that we can have more participation and so people who
can't always make the meetings are able to do so from home because sometimes people don't want to sit through the whole meeting to necessarily make a statement, >> send an email like Frank because >> it's a modern convenience that is used in >> almost every facet of our daily existence these days.
It's very rarely used. Um there's that. And then I guess finally um you know there's some new candidates this year for um council seats that are coming up on both sides. I believe on the Republican and the Democrats. Um are we again not going to have a debate this
year? Um is there any possibility of doing that and how would that happen? um there didn't seem to be a debate the last couple years, but I know that I guess it was almost like 10 years ago that there was debate and I think that especially with new candidates, people would probably like to have an idea about that. So, um I would like to see
if you guys could somehow arrange a debate and uh that's it. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Good evening, Julia Collins, Clark. I'm here about the reservoir and everyone knows what's going on. There's death of
aquatic animals. Uh the conditions around the reservoir are horrendous and everyone mostly social media is saying go to the county, go to the county. Many of you have never been to the county and seen how they react to
questions put to them. One thing I want to get across is the D hotline. It's 1-877-9276337. If you see something, say something. Around the reservoir, there are turtles
dying, fish dying. Um the this is affecting the other um lake in the rawway. Uh the experiences at the Union County Commissioners meetings, they do not respond to you present when you're
pres when you present your issues or concerns. They immediately after asking a question, that's the end. They may or may not respond at the end of the meeting. Similar to the Clark Council meetings procedures, Ed Oakatman, the
county manager, usually is a spokesperson unless he defers the issue to a division director or has a specialist in the area answer the questions. Even though the reservoir is a county project, the township should at least be
actively involved in monitoring the occurrence in at the reservoir once the issues are brought to light by township residents to the administration. Clark officials need to listen more
intently to the residents and respond to issues concerning our environment which the reservoir is a part of. And also I have a question for the environmental commission. I'd like to know why they are involved in cleaning up the area
around the reservoir at times and also at Jackson's Falls when this area is county property. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Do you good evening again? Mike Schulman, Clark, New Jersey. very briefly. Um,
some residents from W 2 had reached out for some reason to me um, in the area of Featherbed um, heading toward to and from kind of the backway into Henley about more speeding. I know this week we're all off and there's some construction going on over there, but
um, some folks were just concerned about if I know there were some radar details that were done in the past that seemed to have some success. Um, but people shook my tree that sometimes can't get to the meetings or don't want to come to the meetings. So, I am uh effectively
passing on some information I received. I hope it's received by uh the folks in public safety to uh take care of that if they can uh starting next week once school starts. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Schulman. >> The police are already aware of Thank
you. All right, seeing no one else, I'd like a motion to close this portion. >> Thank you, Councilman Tol and thank you, Councilman Hun. All in favor? >> Any opposed? Uh, do you have any Jamie, you have
anything you want to address or mayor? >> Um, I do want to address the reservoir and so everybody understands what's going on there. uh any loss of you know animal life is not something that we you know condone. We think that should
happen but unfortunately of a project of this magnitude it will um happen. So you know it's an important aspect of the dredging process was relocating the fish
and animals that they could. Um just you know for your information there was 4,126 different fish um relocated to Bryant Pond, Jackson's pond, Bloodgoods Pond
and Rowway River. Um you know there was 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 different species of fish that were captured. The project is over 100 acres, closer to 110 acres. It is an important dredging
project, you know, for not only the town, but for everybody on the pumpkin patch. This way, you know, we could mitigate flooding. Again, you know, it's not something that um anybody wanted to see, but it is um it is being monitored
by the D. It is being monitored um by the county. And when issues and concerns, you know, come up, we have, um, looked into them, myself and Councilwoman Hoff, um, walked the reservoir and, you know, to show us some of the things that were happening. Um, I
believe it's being done professionally. I have never called there and, you know, not got a response. And from an overall project perspective, it is running. It's on time. even given all of the horrendous weather we had during the
month of February, they're still looking to finish it on time in their 660 days um allotted to them. So, I mean, again, it's not something anybody wants to see, so I'm repeating that, you know, for the third time. But they did everything by law and they did, you know, a really
good job of making sure that the um reservoir was at least u managed. You know, you're always going to have stragglers. There's no way to capture every fish, every turtle, every um animal in a in a reservoir that's, you know, overund um thousand 100,000 acres.
100 acres, sorry. >> Also, you know, in addition to the adverse conditions, I mean, that could have affected the turtles. I'm not sure. There didn't look like they were um pulled apart or anything. They were just they could have been frozen during we
had almost a month of below freezing temperatures and I know I was concerned about the animals. I have a lot of animals around my house. The birds you could see they were frantic. Um so I I don't know how those things happened and
we do feel bad but um you know some some residents have said to me, "Oh, it's muddy there. Well, that's why we're dredging." So it's going to look that way. and they've had a lot of we've had a lot of rain that interferes with the work that they're doing and I'm happy to
hear the report that we are on schedule. So that's that's we're grateful for that. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Now we're going to move on to a mayor council professional comments. Mayor Albanese, you have anything else? >> I do. Um first of all, uh I want to
acknowledge the volunteers from the ALJ Key Club uh that helped out with the Easter egg hunt. also the council people that showed up that day. It was a great event and even when you watch the video of the event, you don't get the full magnitude of the hysteria and excitement
that was going on there that day. So, thank you very much to Ralph and all of his uh helpers and all those that donated uh prizes and different things to make that event a huge success. Um, I know this is kind of old news, but I did, you know, want to mention that it
was it was wonderful to see that the police took care of the lost dog lost for two years for someone that was in lived in Texas and uh, you know, it was it was wonderful to see that they took care of it and then the owners flew up and retrieved their dog because uh,
we're we're dog people here, right? Um, want to remind everyone the Memorial Memorial Day parade is Monday, May 25th. And I hope all township organizations will be participating in the parade. Um, we've got the 250th anniversary. We're hoping to have a a nice float and if
you're not participating and walking in the parade with an organization, you can walk with the float. So, we'll have more information out about that. Um, this Saturday is Little League and Girls Softball Parade opening day. So, um, support the teams, get out there. Um,
also, uh, ALJ has a, uh, I was asked to promote this. The senior citizen, uh, prom is going to be held on Friday, May 1st. If you're interested, uh, sign up by April 17th. Um, summer recreation program. Um, you
can you can sign up now. I know right now it's a little cold out so people aren't thinking about summer but once those few warm days come up hopefully you'll sign up um as soon as possible. Uh lot have a couple hundred people already signed up for the camp. So hopefully you'll sign up for the camp
which starts on June 29th and runs through August 6th. Um the mayor's wellness campaign. You may have read about this. So, uh, in a partnership with New Jersey State League of Municipalities, communities, uh, that
go above and beyond improving health and wellness programs and their communities that focus on exercise, healthy eating, and mental health awareness, um, were recognized. Of the 564 municipalities in New Jersey, there were record-breaking
46 healthy town winners announced this year, and I'm extremely proud to tell you that Clark was one of them. and this is Clark's first year to receive the healthy town designation. So, we've progressed over the years um from healthy town up and cominging uh healthy
town to watch. So, I appreciate uh all the people in the administration who've worked on this program. Uh there were, as I mentioned, there were 40 uh six healthy towns. We were one of them. There were 12 towns that were designated healthy towns to watch and four were
healthy towns up and coming. Uh in that regard, uh there's a program called Join the On the Mark Health and Wellness Wellness Challenge. So, it's not too late to join. You can do that today. It's a free 10-week program. It
runs May 17th uh through May 17th. that invites uh residents from 3 to age 123 to earn points by completing uh simple activities that support healthy living such as staying active, reading, spending time with family, and practicing mindfulness.
So that um if you go to clark library beantock.org or you can email um Christine label atourclark.com and she will help you get signed up. um on um let's see, it was last Thursday,
Laura Caliguire, our tax collector who was here earlier with her grandchild uh celebrating uh the basketball uh tournaments award winners. Um we're going to have on April sec uh not second, no, we did that one
already. April 16th, Thursday night, 7 p.m. right here in this room. Anyone who has questions on deciphering property tax relief programs. I see that Frank Maserella, our councilman who talks about our DPW issues, isn't here. Also want to remind citizens that from time
to time the county has hazardous waste disposal programs and there's going to be one coming up on April 25th in Scotch Plains. So that's an opportunity you can go online and figure out what you can dispose of through that process. I know
Councilman Okconor, he's taught me a lot about it. He's an expert at uh disposing properly of dangerous items. And uh that concludes my report except for one item tonight. We have Christine Deepo working
as our clerk this evening, our first meeting, full meeting. And uh thank you very much Christine for all your assistance with the meeting and doing a great job. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Huff.
Thank you. Um I want to say a couple things. Um I want to say first of all how lucky we are in Clark um with our the strong administration that we have. So thank you to our BA Jim and Christie for all of your work and what an amazing benefit that we have a multi-deade experience CFO as part of the team here um in our
mayor. So I want to thank you for the comprehensive and clear budget explanation. And again, thank you to the mayor, Jim, and Christie for all of your work um answering all of my questions and doing a heck of a job keeping um the municipal tax increase for the average homeowner um in spite of all the rising
costs that we're seeing to under $100 a year. So, I thank you for that. Um we got to see Madagascar at Valley Road and Little Shopahar at ALJ and I couldn't stand it. It was so good. the the this the teachers um and everyone who put the
plays on and the set decorations and everything else and then the kids were just absolute little stars um and and blew my mind. So, I was my absolute pleasure to go. I know several of us were able to go together and um I just thought it was absolutely tops. So, a
lot of stars there, a lot of stars um today with the Clark travel basketball teams um and the athletes that we have here. So, congratulations to them on their achievements and um especially to my brother-in-law Jason Katz who got, you know, the accolades tonight, which I appreciate, but for everyone on travel
basketball, um that will go down as the one with the blizzard and hopefully never again. Um but he lost a little bit more hair on that one. Um and also thank you to Bill Helm and to Mike Triola for everything that you guys have done. Um the Easter egg hunt was absolutely awesome. I do want to just I have like
two little antidotes I want to throw in there. Um so I'm going to echo the mayor because it was a fantastic day. Um the energy was incredible and I got to help a little cub scout get his badge by answering questions um his civics badge in the middle of the egg hunt answering
questions about what it um the electoral process in New Jersey. So it was a very well-rounded but an amazing event to attend and uh it was it was just an absolute um so much fun. Um I also just think it's great that you know I noticed when you did the budget presentation
that's your cell phone number that's out there. everyone else's cell phone numbers are freely given out. Um, you know, I appreciate Jim and the mayor with your explanation about the HR and clarifying that. I think that it's bringing organization and transparency,
minimizing risk, all of these things that, you know, we all want and we talk about wanting and things like that. Um, this is not some big dramatic change to the township and um, in terms of personnel or expense and things like that. So, I appreciate the detailed
explanation you gave and also we've talked about this at several meetings that this was happening and what it's going to look like um and and everything that we're doing and I think it's a really positive step and I appreciate the organization um progress and the transparency in which we're moving forward in Clark. So, thank you for
that. Um and I think I was just very excited. Oh, last thing I have to say, I'm so sorry. But also in terms of asking questions and things like that with, you know, not making it to meetings or being concerned about things like that, um I just want to tout the
benefits of report of concern. Um I I have to tell you when I first got um onto the council, the first thing that happened is my mother gave me a hug and then she asked me if I knew how to get a tree taken down. Um so before I could attend family dinner that following weekend, I asked our BA, "What do you
guys do about trees?" And man, did he pull up from report of concern every time my mother's called because of her address and in there every time somebody looked at a tree and every person who talked about a tree. And you know, lo and behold, her tree still stands because there's been enough eyeballs on it to confirm that it's fine. Much to
her disappointment, but at the same time, um, whenever PE people reach out to us, you know, we always say to them, we're not trying to pass you off. But one of the things that impressed me the most or in the beginning when I spoke with Jim and we talked about report of concern, you actually said we I want
people to do it because it puts things in writing and it holds us accountable. And I thought how many people walk around like encouraging themselves to be held accountable and that just stood out to me. So um when we get the emails or we get the text messages and things like that and we say to you please go to
report a concern which is on rclark.com and it's a little button there. It's not because we're, you know, not trying to be helpful, but I encourage anybody, um, put it in writing, put it through a report of concern, and let the proper people in the township handle it. Um, it's it's fantastic and encourages
accountability, which I don't think we can ask for anything more from our administration. So, um, thank you very much, and I can't wait for the parade this weekend. I encourage everyone in town, come out and wave at the kids. It's a very small parade. Um, but if you are in between, what is it? Denman and uh Westfield Avenue, like that whole
strip of the area because the library is closed, I think, the morning of the parade. But um you should come out and wave. There's all the kids, the teams, they'll be in cars. It won't be so whatever, but hopefully we have a nice day and I hope to see everyone there. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Councilman Hund.
>> Thank you, Council President. I'm not sure if there's anything left after Council Member Hoff covered everything, so I'll keep mine even briefer than I thought they were going to be. So, congratulations to all the child basketball teams. Um, when I was involved, we were lucky to
have one team win the tournament if we were lucky to get one. To see that many tonight is out is outstanding to see the growth that our young boys and girls have made in basketball. So, they had a great great seasons for all those teams. Thanks to William Helm and Mike Triola
for their services. Uh, 13 and 12 years, I believe it was that they gave their time to the town. So that's a tremendous amount of time there. And then also thank you to the mayor for her presentation of the budget. I hope hopefully assisted members pe people here as well
as people watching on TV. What goes into making a budget and it's not as simple as some may think. Thank you. >> Councilman Minity. >> Uh thank you, Council President. Uh not to repeat what uh Councilman Hun said, but congratulations to all the Clark
Travel basketball players. um as they were coming up to get those certificates, I said to Councilman um Okconor, you know, I remember those days of three and five and sixth grade, "Savor those moments, man. They don't last forever." And it's just uh I'm, you know, proud to see those kids and the fathers coaching. Um brings back a lot
of memories. Um spring sports at ALJ. Um we got baseball, softball, track, boys and girls, lacrosse, tennis, golf. Come out and support the Crusaders. Um softball and baseball's off to a great start. Lacrosse is having a great start, so come out and support them. Um, other
than that, congratulations, uh, Christine, on your first day. And, uh, other than that, those are my comments. Thank you, >> Councilman Okconor. >> Yeah. Again, not to repeat everything. Um, mayor, great job with the budget. Great presentation. You broke everything
down into simple terms where everybody could not only hear, but visually see where their tax dollars are going and how it's appropriated. So, thank you so much, Jim, again, your team for putting the budget again uh together and uh getting all the information out there.
With regard to the HR department, I guess this is just more Trenton rules that we're following. Um, you know, in order to comply, we comply so we don't get uh financially hurt by that. So, I appreciate that. Um, I want to talk a
second about lawyers. Are lawyers good people? Well, some are and some aren't. And where I'm going with this is my mom, who lives in Clark, received a letter from a law firm. I'm not going to give him any um any uh notoriety here. Barbara, which is my mom's name, please
read this written almost like it's handwritten, but it's from a machine. And just picture you're a senior. You've worked your whole life. You own your own home. And then you get to hear this. This letter is to inform you that according to court record data provided
to us, a foreclosure and/or litigation may have been filed against your property by your lender or other entity. Now, the first thing I would like you to know is that there is real help available to you and that you honestly do have rights and options. Ignoring a
foreclosure lawsuit, if filed, could lead to losing your home. This is what's being sent to people. This is what's being sent to seniors. Guys, we need to protect our seniors. If you have a neighbor that's elderly,
if you have a parent, you know, there are people to reach out to, you know, there's help available. We all know people who have been scammed for a lot of money. And again, you know, just because, you know, there's a law firm in
the upper leftand corner of the envelope doesn't make it legal, right? If you're unsure, I don't know, but I would maybe go to the police. They might not be able to help me, but at least they might be able to point me in the same direction. Hey, why wouldn't you go to town hall? Go to somebody. If
you're not sure, you're like, "Wait a minute. I pay all my bills. What do I What's happening?" Guys, don't call the number in panic. Find somebody, a relative, a neighbor, police, town hall. go somewhere to get
somebody else to take a look at it. They're not going to think you're stupid. They're not going to yell at you. They're not going to treat you like a child. We all have parents. We all have relatives that are are in a position that, hey, wait a minute.
I thought I did this. I'm not confused, but I don't want people to think I'm confused. If I get confused, they're going to think they're going to think I can't be a live live on live on my own. they're going to take my car. These are all real thoughts that seniors have. It's up to us to protect the people who
protected us when we were young. It's our turn to give it back. So, please reach out. And seniors, if you're listening, you're not stupid. You're not confused. It's okay to ask for help.
It's out there for you. Please ask. I know people who've been scammed for over $50,000 because they were promised you won the publisher clearing house. All you have to do is send us money. But you know what they sent? They sent gift cards.
I saw a lady in front of the police station crying one day because the bank told her that, "Hey, wait a minute. You've been sending a lot of money." And when the bank finally looked at it, they're like, "This isn't this isn't real." They told her to go to the police department and file a report.
It's our turn to give back and protect the people who protected us. That's my comment. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilman Tol. >> Thank you, Mr. President. The Rowway River Cleanup is this July April the 25th. April the 25th at 8:30 at the
Windfield Park Dam. Joe Zebo runs this organiza runs this event and we ask you to come out and help join in cleaning up mother nature. It's a great event from 9:00 to 12:00 noon. They have refreshments after, but it's a great event to do the Rowway River from
Winfield Park, Jackson's down to Jackson's Falls into Rowway Park itself. So that's the Rowway River cleanup. The Clark reservoir was brought up and I'm going to answer what I can answer, but I'll direct all the questions about the reservoir and why the cleanup is
being done to the chairman of the Clark Environmental Commission. But I will say this, if there's something wrong, something that you see that's not correct, you you you do what you can to make it right. Cleaning up the reservoir was always we're giving extra help. We don't own it
anymore. We haven't owned it since 2007. What I'm saying is if we have to if we can help the county who owns it, then that's good. We go and clean it up. Are we happy about what's happening now? I'm going to give you my own personal opin opinion. No, I'm not. The reservoir in
the current state is a mess. But there's a reason it's a mess. It's being dredged. When you take wet mud, wet dirt, and you carry it out from a location out of the where it was water, and you drag it out of there, it turns into a mess. And that's why it's then
deemed a construction area. And when the construction is completed, the mess will be clean because they've been going back and forth in front of St. Agnes cleaning that on a regular basis. But for now, in my opinion, it's a mess. And it will be a mess because they're digging wet mud out of the reservoir and that's was the
original project. We wanted years, I'm talking 40 years. We wanted that done and they finally are doing it. I wish they would, my own personal opinion, I wish they'd go deeper. It shouldn't be just four feet down. It should be 8 feet down or more. Go down to bedrock, clean it all out properly, go shore to shore,
not just at a channel in one side of the reservoir. But that's my opinion. Now, environmental commission does their thing. They do what they got to do. I'm a lison. I don't make decisions for them, but I take their thoughts and bring them back to here. Please join them when we do the full reservoir cleanup in the fall. We will only gladly
help keep the waterways that are in our town that we have no more jurisdiction over, but we try to make a better community and a better mother earth. Next, uh if you have any questions about the reservoir, which I know a lot of people did. I got emailed text for the turtle issue and I felt horrible about that.
But I went down to the resi and I saw what was going on and it's horrible, but it's you're dredging a a waterway. It's not going to be not everyone I don't want to say not everyone's going to be saved, but you want to make sure they go out of their extend it themselves to get it done right. If you have a question or
concern about the reservoir, I'm not the the solution or a question to your answer. I refer you to BA Jimmy Olrich who's going to take your same thing that you send to me. I send it to him and it goes down to the county officials. I don't have the solutions, but I will take your concerns and I'll take your
voice and make sure it's heard in the proper location at Union County. So, that's for the environmental commission. It's been fun. Tough week in Clark. Uh, my neighbor of 50 years passed away. He was only a year older
than me. He was ALJ, class of 79. He was on the football team. He everyone when you knew him, maybe you didn't know his name, but his name was Joe Yosh. And I can't believe I'm speaking about him tonight because he was always a character, but he was a good neighbor. Watched out for my mom, watched the
neighborhood, always, hey, you moved in. Come on, welcome. What can I do for you? One of those special people that made the fabric of this community. And he was too young to heart attack took him out quickly. But again, when you have that kind of loss, it makes you appreciate what you've got around you, what's your
neighbors, what your community is. And yes, we will get the answers done. Maybe you don't like it. I'm sorry. But we're going to work our way to getting a solution to the problems and working to a better Clark. Thank you, Madam President. Mr. President, thank you m mayor and ba you. I don't mean to throw more work at you, Jimmy, but we want to
get this questions answered properly about turtles. >> Thank you. Uh Jim, you have anything from the BA administration? >> I just want to congratulate Christina. I
guess she lost the towing cost. Councelor, you have anything? >> No report, Mr. President. >> Captain Akaboo, do you have anything at the police department you want to add tonight? Thank you. Christina, anything from the clerk's office? >> No comment. >> Thank you. All right. I don't have anything to add to the meeting other
than please come out for the softball and little league picnic this Saturday. Kicks off 9:00 a.m. So, a motion to adjurnn. >> Thanks, Councilman Tol. Second. >> Thank you, Councilman Hund. All in favor. >> Any opposed? Thank you. Have a good evening.