e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right that scenar calling the work session meeting of Monday May 6 2024 to order at 6:02 p.m. all stand for the pedge of Allegiance pledge allegiance 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 Madam cler roll call please council member brusher here council member Cole council member Harris here council member Patel here council member ptil here council member pointer Pres council member shuel I think I saw him but he'll be here well I think they're here okay U Madam CL please read the adequate notice adequate notice of this meeting as required by the open public meeting Act of 1975 has been provided by annual notice sent home News Tribune Star Ledger Desi talk in news India times on December 12th 2023 and post M Lobby mpal complex on that same date all right thank you opening up to the petition and remarks starting from the list first person Joy SHP Freeman Joy ship Freeman 4 41 Main Street first I want to um talk about the mini bville and when I went to the mini bville building the other day I remember me and the North Edison civic association fighting for that building and fighting for James El depart when I went into the building I noticed that uh Miss ville's picture was through over here I couldn't find James Elder uh picture um Lieutenant H Haskins and uh and Alonzo these great black artist that had given paper to uh who had given a famous picture to represent North Edison and then I was uh listening to people saying uh let's let's be hard let's be much harder on juveniles well uh when John SP was there and I were there earlier they had programs for the actual teenagers and they had programs for the Adolescent they was very very thriving building prior to that but then I heard there was Mercury there on the floor all right so I'm like I've been there like for 30 years I've been in the school system so I mean I must be full of asbestos and then now I'm full of Mercury at the same time so I you know it should be somebody that I could sue for my health now um on on May 1 which was an exciting day uh Woodbridge had a summit for their seniors and also mouin had a summit for their seniors seniors were afforded the opportunity to find out everything that middle states county offers for seniors and also still the meetings are being hidden from the constitues they said they don't know what's going on they just you know seeing other stories and hearing other stuff that's going on they getting emails but a lot of them who don't have online they want to know when the meetings are somebody said one was as late as a Friday night I don't I don't know because I um I have internet so I see that now and then they got uh we're talking about all these extra extra police officers that were hired but I don't have a problem with it but we got a whole lot of Chiefs and very few Indians so therefore we we have all the Chiefs that limits the amount of Patrol men that we have on the streets so I don't think that would be braggadocious I don't think that's a good idea because I'm still hearing about the um robberies and stuff in the clar Barton section and I know I was given information before that they've calmed down on um taking the catalytic um converters okay and then the uh the extra the extra 60,000 money for the pr firm uh only reason why I'm speaking about is because the mayor spends his time trolling me with the his little PR firm and uh I think it's ridiculous because if I look in other neighborhoods when they do the pr when the Mayors and other people do it the actual town the constituents and everybody else pays for it not the actual not the actual taxpayers you know I think that's ridiculous that we're paying for that now for that and then I want also wanted to know about the opah request people said that the lawyers salaries are doubling because of the Oprah requests and some people have to almost go out and get lawyers in order for their Oprah requests to be honored and we know that down in Trenton they're still talking about trying to make the Oprah request weaker but they don't have to worry because in our town it's like being with the CIA for you to get information it's very very hard you don't you don't get information nobody can seem to answer you and that's why some people just think they told me they said well you go to keep going there there's a bunch of Bible heads you're not going to get anything and I said oh that's not nice because some of them do answer you some of them do others don't answer you and then I was like at the amount of money that being paid out and for us to be sitting on the we have a person sitting on the insurance commission and for us to do all the back door deals plus double the amount of lawyers that's a lot of money that's a whole lot of money especially for seniors that have to pay out of their pocket so I'm just uh expecting more because I'm saying that if there's so much mercury in mini bville you're saying well we threw the kids out so let's just kill off the seniors by putting them in there so I'm very very disappointed with the way things are going on like that but I do uh wish that we would think twice before we keep hiring a PR firm because we're not supposed to pay for your election we're not supposed to pay for political stuff and I think that's unfair that people have the ability to spend my money for you to insult me thank you thank you uh just question on the Mercury on the floor I this is the first I've heard of any allegations regarding Mercury so obviously we look into it so thank you for bringing it to our attention Okay and uh also about the meetings not being broadcasted on TV did we get an update on that the meetings are broadcasted on the TV they are shared on YouTube um on our website um so to answer your question they are aired and they're available for the public okay can we get the timeline on excuse me sir can we get the timeline on that because I mean I could I could show at 6 a.m. or 11 but you know what I mean please get the timeline on it is her time okay she still have time okay that's fine yeah uh can we get the timeline on it because I think the last time the complaint was that they were really at off hours okay so can we uh get it done twice I think that's what the request is if that's possible sure thank you and last time is up I'm sorry please sit down thank you and uh last question was the okay can you please sit down I sit down in a second if you can can you please sit down all right and then the last question was on the Oprah request um is the salary being doubled of lawyers again uh I can't I can't confirm that allegation obviously it's part of what the scope of work our attorneys do so I I don't I'm not understanding that allegation necessarily okay thank you uh next person please not talking back and forth next person is Madu simati uh good evening dear Council and administration my name is Madu s murti from District 1 as a Committee Member um I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering dedication shaping our Edition Township into current state thanks to your efforts we find ourselves in a far better position than we were in previous years the implementation of new initiatives has played a significant role in revitalizing our Township and restoring its greatness I have a topic however despite these strides one glaring Gap remains with the absence of Edison youth volleyball I I believe all of you agree that we need Sports in our um in our school age children our high schools JP Stevens are Edison High representation in the volleyball is low because of lack of we are depriving of volleyball or other valuable opportunities like extracurricular engagement and growth so introducing this youth volleyball program early on in the elementary middle school Etc will give us more benefits not only for the students but also entire Community our nonprofit uh we have started recently and is fully commutate in investing time and energy into this cost but we cannot do it alone um I I'm hopeful that our Edison mayor and council members will consider extending their support to this endeavor through grants and other means the lack of indoor codes and ey cost associated with rentals and coaching are major barriers preventing kids from participating this is not only diminishes their opportunities for development but also adds to the financial burden already borne by the parents through the taxes um by establishing such a program we can provide our children with the tools they need to succeed and Foster growth of of Future Leaders within our Township this is this is an investment in our community's future one that promises to yield long-lasting benefits and generations to come I I sincerely thank you your consideration and support in making this a vision a reality um I appreciate uh you all all your support and I want to make we have a an organization formed by all the likes of uh kids that are wanting to move forward with youth volleyball so we look forward to making this happen anywhere they go there's no no facilities that are available for them to venture out uh we want to play all the seasons and make Edison schools better and out own ship better I really appreciate everyone's support in this thank you thank you Madu I think you applied for the grants and we council president we have a meeting with the organization on Wednesday okay thank you thanks everyone for taking this of course all right thank you m uh next person is Charlie cretto I hope I pronounce that right good evening Council Charlie Caville I'm from New Brunswick I'm the editor of New Brunswick today a community news Outlet um through you uh chair for the deputy chief I wanted to know uh was the Edison police department's handling of the January 1st incident at the train station appropriate or inappropriate [Music] I would ask you to take it offline if you don't mind well I'll have you know that I did I reached out to the Chief and the deputy chief since May 1st I reached out twice by phone and three times in email and got no response so I'm here so you're looking for comments from I'm looking for yeah an answer was it appropriate or inappropriate what happened that night I would ask them to respond to you via email or you can take it offline sir will they respond via email because I've tried three times now can you ask the gentleman to respond council president if I could if I I I'll certainly make sure that request gets out if you could just send it to my attention and we'll coordinate something okay I will follow up with the ba but I don't understand why the police department can't speak for themselves um I have did not even get the courtesy of a response uh you know on my My article that I'll draw your attention to was published this morning on New Brunswick today.com um mayor Joi gave a no comment but at least he responded um the police department has not responded in any way and um yeah I'm I'm disappointed I understand I will make them aware and I'll be sure that they'll respond thank you I appreciate that and now I'll just speak from the heart I I am you know here for a reason I'm I'm concerned uh I think migration is likely to become more frequent partly due to bad things like climate crisis and political unrest but also due to good things like improvements in transportation and I think it's important that we have logical and compassionate policies for how we deal with migration and not policies that Empower Fascism and I'm concerned about how Edison handled the incident on January 1st I'm very concerned about the language that's been used by the mayor and I'm now more concerned that when I'm asking questions that people aren't don't want to talk about it now I think we need to talk about it now because the decisions we make today will set the policies for how the future is handled and uh you know I'm uh very concerned about what I what I saw in the videos and what I learned from my reporting and so I would encourage everybody to discuss this and for the council to to be leaders and speak on this and you know if the police aren't going to speak on it by all means the council should take the lead and I I would hope condemn what went down uh in the early morning hours of the new year thank you thank you Charlie uh moving on to number four we have Spider-Man with us thank you for recognizing me am I recognized you're recognized okay one thing I want to say we all just witnessed the deputy chief is right there if he wants to answer a question he will answer the question he as a cowards usually do he just sits there doesn't answer the question exactly why I got aggravated the last time I was here in fact he had so much slander to the media to say about me after I beat my case I asked him outside I said hey deputy chief D Dash You're the media Coordinator would you like to give us an update on the Predator catcher case he just smiled walked away just smiled and walked away did you find something funny deputy chief D Das why doesn't he want to make the comment that I beat the case which is an act factual statement my trial starts on the 13th I'm going to go to trial I'm going to beat that trial Shame On This Town absolute Shame On This Town shame on councilman pointer for disrupting me when it was a legit rebuttal and the speaker before that who was doing a legitimate rebuttal okay I I watched some of the recordings with the Bus full of immigrants and uh racist stus and cops once again racist stus and cops talking about we got to shoot them out of town you understand like it's the Wild Wild West treating immigrants we don't even know if they were immigrants you guys acted like it was 20 bus loads of people I watched the video it was one bus between 10 15 people they could have been going sightseeing so now Edison police and Mayor Sam Joi is gonna kick people out a town who they don't want to travel through town it seems they kicked the Hispanics out of town and then call them drug dealers and driving around with kilos and the bus while we allow the South Asians to come here down Meadow Road down the boat docks five 10 20 buses but we're not allowed to stop them we're not allowed to stop them it seems like it's racism there's racism going on against Hispanic people there's racism going on against people that live in this town how much time do I have left marinaa 3 and three and a half minutes to through the chair the councilman Brasher and the deputy chief D Das this is how you train your officers this is how you train your officers let me grab grab some paperwork i' like to submit some papers I'd like to submit some papers on the record okay I'm I'm receiving mails all around town they say Chief Brian's making 300,000 a year by state law will be ending his career in December there is a provision however in the law that allows the mayor to extend his time another two years the chief wants to do this so the chief can spend time with his living girlfriend this is what other people in the town are putting out not me not coming out from me who is also his personal and private secretary in the police department the police department is in shambles the town is crime ridden and needs to be reorganized and properly run a professional Police director not a police chief should be appointed who could turn this department around how come Christo is out catching child predators and Deputy CH Chief dudes and his officers are not how much time do I have left and a half minutes where I would like to submit where I would like to submit some proofs to the council when this is done furthermore I receive mail allegedly this is saying and this is for you guys to investigate it's not for me to investigate it's for you guys to investigate Kenneth Shrek at the time of this incident was a sergeant the violations he pled guilty to were criminal in nature however because of his relationships he was able to evade criminal prosecution where it becomes interesting is Shrek was promoted to Captain by Chief Bryan and was placed at the head of internal affairs which is a direct violation of Attorney General guidelines with his record he should never have been placed there however the chief did not care now Shrek serves as the head of OEM fredison this Criminal is collecting his pension and being paid by the taxpayers for this other position um apparently there's there's proofs that I'm going to submit to miss Marina we're not we're not going to do the chief's contract December let him go we're spending hundreds of thousands are you aware through the chair councilman brush are you aware that they can't find me guilty there's no evidence in any of my cases so they now got the County prosecutors working with them to Spider-Man you can address me please I said through the chair the councilman Brer this is what I'm talking about VI vice president I am following Robert's Rules of Order and here he is creatinga chaos to take away from my time so I can debate him on irrelevant matters this has to stop don't f a buster me when it's my time to speak how much time do I have left Mar huh 44 seconds you know shame on this Edis and police department this is how you train your officers you used to train the officers deputy chief dudash did you train them to be racists did you chase them to to chase people out of town violate civil rights violate the Attorney General's guideline violate the right to free travel is that the kind of character that you have your officers when they go out that's a reflection of you and how you train them and if that's not caused to fire Deputy Chief dudash and chief Brian for not properly training these officers I don't know what is investigate the police thank you uh anybody else that would like to speak Octor ner Pleasant Avenue Clara bar is continuously being bullied into directions that do not beit the neighborhood it's happened three times with various administrations including this one that Tred to close the library and the last two administrations that have supported four-story buildings to Spur Redevelopment eight years ago clar Baron residents opposed four story ordinance and to this day residents do the same because it just hasn't worked at last Monday's planning board meeting we were excited to see that the planning board agenda had a vote on the resolution ironically only passing through the council with 75% of the vote from North Edison Council Members it's a shame that we couldn't get all the other South Edison Council Members to vote in favor but that's another story unfortunately last Monday's vote never happened because the chairman of the board stated that we need to have another study to figure out why the current plan wasn't working doesn't that sound weird a study to figure out why a plan doesn't work if a plan of eight years didn't work maybe it's time to try something different when do you think maybe listen to the residents that live there so this begs the question of if the planning board knew that the planning if the planning board knew that the plan was not working why didn't the planning board conduct a new study prior to the last week why do we have to force their hand by a resolution and why did it take them 45 days to come to the conclusion that they needed a study that seems like a delay tactic doesn't it if the planning board knew that the plan was not working why didn't they conduct this study two years ago when the town just started working on the master plan instead of doing at the conclusion of the master plan that's what I would have done but what do I know as of this moment I'm just a committee person it's very frustrating to see how this whole situation has unraveled for months we wasted so much time at Council meetings to try to get a repeal ordinance to make it to the floor I wish those that set a repeal ordinance wouldn't work would have found the pathway of the resolution sooner and that includes the legal team I continue to question those that voted against the public advocate in this case we could have used that official it is clear that the planning board will only listen to the public if the council acts but the council has no purview in what happens at planning board meetings so that is an ineffective tactic the reason some of you say we shouldn't have a public Advocate is because we gave them funds to hire experts but they just don't hire those people it would be great to have a public Advocate because they would have stepped in when the planning board refused to do so every time I go to the planning board they turn a blind eye to my legal points and to give a runaround to me in the council case in point I asked them if they would amend the master plan if the study came back saying that we should only have three stories the answer I received was the master plan is never done it is evolving a good answer would have been yes we give you our word that we'll come back and we'll change the master plan once the study is complete but an even better answer would have been we hear to council we hear to people Clare Bon we know the plan is not working let's bring the ordinance back to three stories until the study is done that would have been a rational decision don't you think so where do we go from here there was no reason why you should have taken 45 days for a response actually I don't think there really was a response it was my understanding the planning board had to have completed a study in 45 days what can the council do at this point can the council vote to change the language on the ordinance now okay um Council so uh which part do you want me to address uh first address the public Advocate would they have helped in this situation my understanding of the public Advocate ordinance that was proposed is that they really wouldn't have had the ability to affect this much um they may have been able to present something during the council meeting but no action was actually taken by the planning board and the the the public Advocate uh is designed to challenge actions that are actually taken um that would be the the role so if they had voted it down that might be a role of a public Advocate um but under these circumstances an action wasn't taken so it it's you can't compel them to act in that circumstance so that that's that aspect of it okay and in terms of uh what actions can we take now is that something you can research or you know I I certainly I'll I'll sit down with Mr renon we'll talk about it we'll figure out exactly what the council can do rather than we speculate on the possible actions that we could take right now I'll I'll get that back to you before the next um okay before the next meeting so that means Wednesday as as long as Mr rown has time to sit down and talk yeah okay so it is something that could be possible that we can do something so we're not twigling our thumbs and waiting a year for them to come back with a study because that to me is not something yeah I don't want to tell you something and and find out that there was some other I don't know what happened at the planning board meeting I don't know what they ultimately determined to do um or what they actually put in front of it so uh I need to figure that out first before I tell you we can do X Y or Z and it might be a multiple choice uh answer where it's we can do this or this and the council will have to figure that out how they want to proceed at this point councilman app pointer can go ahead and fill in you with that because he is liaison so if you want yeah I'm going to have to talk to him talk to him offline okay yeah thank you all right anybody else that would like to speak all right seeing none can I get a motion to close the public portion motion to close may I have a second second now that's a motion by Council vice president second by councilman pointer all in favor I okay uh moving on to number five review of minutes any comments uh now councilman bresser oh not for five okay all right uh moving on to number six reports from all Council committees starting on my left I mean right councilman brusher uh yes I I still have not set up that um a veterans uh committee we've had a for the veterans committee okay we've had just difficult time kind of coordinating everybody's schedule but um we'll set it up with the majority of the people even if I can't make it but my other two colleagues can make it um so at least we can have this and move this forward um I know that they have stones that are made um it's a matter of just getting some work done you know in the park um that could easily be done by the township um or or even through um like donations but I I don't know where that goes with like legal you know whether we could have somebody donate um to do electrical work if they're licensed electricians here um I I maybe you know what maybe that would be something nice Michael if you could look into and see if we have people that'll donate their time and material um if they could come and do that I I think it's highly project dependent um if it's permitted at all so can you email some of the details maybe we can talk about it a little bit so that I can I can Target the research it it's real simple we're we're going to do headstones much like a cemeter so we have to pour a couple Foundation shallow Foundation footings um and we're going to do a little bit of electric for some lights and put a light and put a like a flag pole up I'll look into it all right um that would that would be counc Brer uh Council mccoil none sir uh Council vice president yes from the animal shelter the monthly report the news is good dog adoptions there were 11 in the last month one was Fred who had been there in the shelter since June of last year so that's uh that's big news cat adoptions there have been eight total animals in the shelter 15 dogs two nursing mom cats one pregnant cat 26 kittens and four FAL uh they are Cur currently perfectly staffed one there's one ongoing abuse case K9 uh that is housed there um and to the business administrator does that mean that this has been a report of animal abuse and they are being held in the shelter until that is uh resolved I can look into that particular situation for you okay all right thank you um upcoming events July 13th is the first annual adoption event and July 19th is a it's a big event that is going to the benefits will go to the animal shelter it's the Somerset Patriots Friday J July 19th 7:05 p.m. $15 a ticket which is pretty reasonable and it the fundraiser does Ben benit the the municipal animal shelter so you can uh let's see you can oh there's a scan on here I think there's some flyers downstairs in the lobby on the desk there but um you would go to so there's a website you can go to the website is m t n g o l i e Somerset patriots.com or the phone number 908 25514 one9 and that would be my report thank you thank you Council vice president councilman Patel councilman pointer thank you council president um nothing crazy I did have uh not a direct meeting with the Housing Authority but I did have a good conversation with debor Hurley in regards to the goals and objectives of the housing authority and I'll be sure to uh keep updated as the year moves on thank you council president thank you Council po thank you Council poter councilman Shel not at this time sir all right uh as for me I attended the open space committee meeting this Thursday and one of the things that was presented uh by Walt stosel was this plan that was actually completed and I'm going to put it out on the table for anyone that wants to take a look at it uh and can we make a cop I have to send it up to upstairs okay that's fine uh essentially it's the Municipal Boulevard papani Park Central Avenue bike way connectivity project uh phase one this was contract number 92702 and this was when mayor Jun Chu was around and pretty much all the engineering is done uh and it's a pretty good plan and I'm hope hoping to revitalize this plan or the open space committee is hoping to revitalize this plan we might have to make some changes as there's obviously new changes on the papani park but this is something the open space is very interested in continuing so I'm going to put this on the table if anybody wants to take a look at it and I'm going to be presenting it to our ba so hopefully we can move forward with this all right and uh that's it for me moving on to number seven uh Points of Light uh starting on my right Council oh anyone have any points of yeah I do I've got quite a few yes um in no particular order first of all uh I want to wish anyone who celebrates a Happy Greek Easter I want to wish everybody a Happy Mother's Day this coming Sunday um it's also happy appre uh Teacher Appreciation Week today is Holocaust Remembrance Day and um May 19th is the mayor's 24 Mile bike ride uh the bike tour through mouin and Edison which uh I will be taking part in and I believe my Council colleagues uh Council president Patel yeah Patel and councilman uh councilman pointer will be uh joining this year so we look forward to that hope that we have good weather um and finally um the Police Unity Tour starts this coming Friday and prior to that on Thursday May 9th there's going to be a team ride through Edison to honor and remember the fallen officers they will be stopping by locations the locations of their deaths from moment of silence until lay flowers in the memory the ride will leave the police department at 9: and return at 11: there will be a ceremony immediately following the ride hopefully at the police memorial in front of the police department whether permitting if not it will it will be moved inside to council chambers we will introduce the team and talk about the unity Tour purpose then on Friday May 10th they the 17 officers as I understand it 17 who are participating in the UN Unity Tour that goes from uh it's going to start out in Franklin at the Franklin Police Department at 495 deont Lane in Somerset and that's kicks off at 7:30 a.m. on Friday I will be there the first night they will be in Philadelphia second night in Baltimore and they will wind up in uh Washington DC on Sunday the 12th and they go to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial so for those of you who want to give a send off either send off here um that would be Thursday at 11: at 11:00 a.m. here at um at the municipal building um and if you do want to go over to the Franklin Municipal complex to see actually see them off that's Friday at 7:30 p.m that will be it thank you Council vice president any other council members all right seeing that I'm going to be repeating a lot of what council vice president already said uh so we have the fishing derby uh that was this past Saturday uh also on Saturday May 11th uh Town Hall Parking uh lot there'll be 8 to2 there'll be non I'm sorry confused by this what is this ecle it's here there's a flyer oh so there's recycling for the ecycling and what the items are accepted are CRTs computers laptops monitors printer scanners facts machines uh televisions cell phones tablets what will not be accepted is white goods household appliances light bulbs batteries hazardous ways compress gas cylinder medical waste uh that'll be May 11th Saturday 8th to 12 uh at the Town Hall Parking Lot okay and on May 12th it's Mother's Day so uh we have to thank all the ladies in our lives uh that have essentially made us strong and helped us get to where we are so happy Mother's Day to everybody uh and matachin Bike Tour as Council vice president already covered is on May 19th 800 a.m. is the registration at uh which starts and it starts at 9:00 a.m. I think it's going to go up until 2 p.m uh Saturday May 25th is a Memorial Day Parade uh May 20th to October Farmers Market at swes Park uh located at 64 Parkway from on Thursdays from 2: p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Monday May 27 at 11: 45 a.m. is Memorial Day flag raising at Oak Tree Pond Park okay moving on to the Departments and questions uh starting at number eight from the business administration a through C any questions or comments yes council president Council vice president on a on the vision media contract um I'm okay I think it's important that the public is is made aware of things that are going on I did speak to the mayor this morning about the fact that what I do object to is the fact that Council input has not been a part of this particular publication we had I think one time last year when uh Council councilman pointer was was council president and I was vice president where there were little blurbs that we gave in there but that was it so I had a long conversation with him and we agreed that in forthcoming issues in issues of the Illuminator there will be reports from some of the council committees and commissions um it may not be from every every single committee or commission it's going to be more in terms of uh real uh important action being taken and um so that will now in forthcoming issues be a part of the Illuminator and I will definitely be holding the mayor's feet to the fire on that thank you thank you Council vice president anybody else yes counc pres brusher um to the business administrator Sonia can I get a a list of everything that Vision media has worked on this year um dated so if if they did a flyer that they sent out right um if you could send me a copy of the email or something that shows it stated I want to see what kind of uh value we're getting and how much work they're they're actually doing and whether that that work is for the mayor because on their website it says they work for the mayor and they work for the township now I don't know that we ever approved Vision media to work for the mayor I believe we approved for them to work for the township okay so I'd like to see what that is because I also was sent a uh an email um that was a little concerning and and it did relate to that whole January 1st um incident where you know Vision media was talking with the mayor about how to um publicize this you know and and I know our mayor loves publicity right he he did the whole racist flyer thing and now he's got the January 1 thing but to be quite honest with you we shouldn't publicize things like this and and bring these up like these are big hot topics when when they're really not that hot a topic so I'd like to see the work that they did for this Township that earn them this money um and I'd like to get that for tomorrow so could talk with colleagues about it as to whether I think we should move forward with this or not um that would be a council president pressure anyone else all right uh seeing none moving on to number nine from the Department of Finance 8 through I we are adding two capital B Bond ordinance uh Madam clerk if you don't mind reading the uh titles yeah titles please okay um a bond ordance providing for various Capital Improvements appropriating to 29,8 55,1 126 um and financing 28,000 28 million1 4413 in bonds or notes and the other Bond ordinance is for providing improvements for the solid waste collection for for 1,400,000 okay and uh Sonia if you don't mind can you cover a quick summary of this sure it's not quick but I will cover it um surley so uh and then I will provide this memo also to all of the council so they see the breakdown of all of the Capital Improvements so I'm first going to cover the 2024 Municipal Improvement um authorization so what that covers um I'll start with police um that's for various police public safety equipment and projects including in addition to the police garage um next is the fire department that's the purchase of a fire engine pumper I believe that's a 15 plus year old um vehicle icle and those things are taking about 3 years to get on order so we want to get ahead of it um next on under engineering for 6.5 million that covers all of our road our road program essentially um under a separate line item two $250,000 that covers the drainage and storm water we like to we've now um elevated that number because when we're doing the road project there are concerns about the drainage in some of those those roads so we want to make sure we have enough to cover that issue separately um in addition under engineering uh design and procurement installation of the solar power drive driver feedback signs um which we've identified certain locations that include uh but not limited to but for purposes of our bond we are covering Brotherhood ethyl Old Post Boulevard and McKinley those have come up to the council quite a few times so want to appropriate some funding for that um again under engineering 250,000 for RO various roadway striping projects throughout the township um this includes center line striping train crossing striping signage um the do not cross uh boxes throughout the township uh 150,000 for the design construction installation of pedestrian flashing Beacon system at Old poost Road and Boulevard of the Eagles um 4.3 million under Public Works the acquisition of VAR Vehicles equipment including dump trucks back hose Paving units salt spreading equipment tree removal vehicles and Equipment utility vehicles trailers and other mobile equipment I'll tell you a lot of this stuff is about 30 years old 20 to 30 years old so um and I can surely have a breakdown of those specific vehicles for you um which I plan by the way to have all of this broken down into that budget binder in great detail before um so you have weeks um to look at this before it gets adopted um then under Public Works 1.5 million for various building improvements Renovations construction repairs lighting alarms this is everything that comes Under the Sun for all of our most of our buildings well uh various buildings 250,000 for various Park improvements including General improvements Renovations new construction of various cords Fields Trails parking security playgrounds um and other related equipment uh 5.2 million under Public Works uh for various Parks again you know we have about um 30 something odd Parks 36 uh more or less just to make sure all of our um parks are up to par safety uh everything including um Court basketball courts tennis courts volleyball courts um you name it so we want to make sure that we are full steam ahead and making sure that all of our parks are being addressed um 1.5 million for purchase installation of fuel tanks related to systems and including removal of equipment and Remediation this is at one of our garages we are required to remove um and get new tanks in there um 355,000 Recreation purchase of area vehicles and Equipment um again we want to make sure that on the recreation side we have the proper equipment and vehicles to hold all of our various programming throughout the township um under Recreation the purchase of property included Renovations furniture and fixtures if you look at the bond ordinance um the location is 925 Amboy Avenue again I'll provide greater detail for everyone on that acquisition um $50,000 for purchase of various equipment under purchasing this is for um believe the new mail machine that that is in Di need um under technology 300,000 for installation of new network network infrastructure switches um telecommunication systems desktops uh computers monitors everything that you can think of that we need throughout um throughout the year for um for all of the township uh employees and then for 2.1 million section 20 costs so what this does it covers our Professional Services some of our engineering Personnel we can um add to the section 20 costs um so that's more related on the professional side when we're working on these projects and we're able to do that and uh bond for it so in total um that's 29, [Music] 855,000 million what that covers is various vehicles trucks equipment um and the renovations to um various facilities including roof Replacements and repairs and this again uh goes back to the solid waste this is what we're bonding with that budget that's presented before you okay thank you Sonia uh now I will open it up to our my Council colleagues if anybody has questions council president Council vice president just just a couple on D um and I had a conversation with the business administrator last night but just a couple of comments and a couple comments and questions with regard to the revenues that were down six million this year and it's explained why that that has to do with I think we said liquor licenses and that had to do with the um the rescue plan I think that is no longer in effect is that correct correct yeah um it just occurs to me and I've uh seen an article and this is just just for the record that in Neptune uh revenues from the Cannabis taxation accounts for 1.5% of the $ 56.3 million Municipal budget in 2024 marking the first time the township will use that money to invest in the town and helping to lower the tax rate and that little blurb is um I think is very it's very significant and as uh uh as we as we don't have liquor licenses out there to to Really sell to give out well to sell um it it just seems to me that if we had if we had approved the ordinance for the Cannabis uh for the uh for for the Cannabis locations this was I think in a way it's a missed opportunity so I just want to uh put my two sense in for that um I also wanted to know and it's the sheet 40c the um the waterline Replacements in looking at the estimated total cost is 3,724 th000 um and looking at the projected for the years 2024 to 2029 it's kind of a zigzag it's uh in the 6.8 million for 2024 6.2 million for 2025 then goes way up to 9.2 almost 9.3 million for 2026 then way down to 2.7 in 2027 and 2.7 in 2028 same in 2029 and I just wanted a clear explanation as to how how we come to those numbers and how they Zig and zag as they do so I wonder if someone can address that sure I just wanted to confirm our conversation um that we did have regarding this was that this is is a breakdown uh of what we're required to do Under the ACO for the pump stations and the gravity inspections main for so um again Ken can elaborate on more or less how the planning is coming through thank you this was compiled from our Consulting Engineers based upon the work schedule that they need to do and it's sequencing it and some of it is being staged so that we're not doing everything all in the same year uh we've got certain physical limitations and financial limitations we don't want to overburden the water rates so that's why we've spread it out as much as we can so that's why you see it's not a flat consistent amount every year uh but these are programs and projects that are engineer had put together based upon a reasonable work schedule in order to comply with the ACO okay so um I'm just interested in the number especially for 2026 where it jumps to 9.3 million from the 6.2 yeah well you'll see in 2025 we're up to uh 14.8 million uh so we in 2024 we're anticip we're projecting 17.85% excuse me Mr Roberts I'm looking at sheet 40c um yes and I'm looking this is water line Replacements that the estimated total cost of 30,700 okay just the water line yes yeah yeah so I'm just wondering about the year 2026 and what H what's going on there that they number gems so much the anticipation is that the bulk of the work is going to get done then um it will take some time to do the inspection work but in 2026 you're going to see some things the other thing is too just just a reminder to everybody um if we were to go out there and do everything all at once and rip up every road it would be unimaginable and we'd probably get a lot of angry folks so that's why the planning is done in this manner so but in 2026 I I almost guarantee you that's when you're going to see a lot of the roads being um opened up for purposes of actually getting the work done okay um all right thank you all right thank you Council vice president council president councilman brusher yes I have um first I'd like to State for the record here tonight um because I did this when I was on the board of education when they were trying to pass a bond for $189 million and the public said no to that and I understand the Public's will and I've always been an advocate for the Public's will but at the rate that the construction cost has increased over the last few years that 189 million is now going to be 240 million so if the public would have approved it um we would be saving tens and tens of millions of dollars and my fear that I have here is the same thing where we're talking about putting this stuff off until this mayor's term is up so so this mayor we're spending money on like a splash park right and and all the fancy shiny dads but we're not taking care of the infrastructure okay and during his four-year term I will guarantee you that the cost for this infrastructure increase is going to be 50 to 70% higher than if he would taken it by the rains on day one so I'm not a fan of of putting this stuff off for years okay um talk about our residents being you know up in arms because we're digging you're absolutely right but Sonia can I ask how much money we spent on Paving in the first year of the mayor's term the second year and now the third year what have we projected to pave on average I want to say 6 million each year million so $18 million and then there's a possibility and tell you somebody can correct me if they're going to tell me that there's no possibility that we have to open up these brand new roads to do the seore and water and infrastructure things to to fix these or has Bob Smith guaranteed us that there is no need to open up any of these roads the just just to answer your question that's coordinated with with our engineering department so we're we're coordinating roads and the the road list with uh Mr Smith okay I I mean I I heard that but we're we're talking about having to open up all these roads yet we've paved $18 million of roads to date or we might have paved 12 million to date and we're going to do another six this year um my point being that everything to date that's paved will not be opened up for our infrastructure that's simply my question um would that be a true statement or are we going to open them up later on because it wasn't coordinated properly and then at at who gets held accountable for this because this body is is not charged with you know execution execution of this so who do we hold responsible at that time I think Sonia you said that they coordinated it with the engineering so that there should not be a reopening of roads that are already been paved right correct correct okay um with water sore right um fuel tanks um the fuel tanks why are they being replaced and why do we have to take care of contamination um wouldn't we have and I'm just going to say this like like if I were to have built something right and I know I'm going to be pouring uh diesel fuel right I'm going to make sure it's not on the ground it's going to be over concrete or something like that you'd have a pad or something like that to catch it so so what would this contamination be from so there's I can I can have Ray poro come up our DPW director we're not saying there is contamination but we're required through DP to do these inspections um but I can have him elaborate exactly on the process good evening um councilman as you know as yourself and the rest of the council you approved us to do and to build a new Road garage um recently we had our audit of our fuel tanks uh we had to do some repairs to them and uh it was solidified that those tanks are between 25 to 30 years old so what we decided to do um rather than building a new road garage and now all new ashall to your point of what you're referring to in your other comment is to remove the tanks out put in a new fueling station before we go ahead or actually in conjunction with when we build a new road garage there isn't any contamination um that we're aware of we just had our spill tank tested uh came back clean we have all of the reporting so it's more of um uh trying to coincide as you just mentioned projects together so you don't have to do something twice would these tanks be in the ground that you're going to place them so that that's to you know we hired an architect uh we're about to go into some conversations with him um it we did a uh internally right now a program component meaning we have X amount of trucks we're looking for X amount of space um it really depends upon the ultimate layout of what the site is on those size tanks take up a tremendous amount of space to go above ground so we really have to see what our space availability is before I make that commitment to you one way or another okay all right thank you sir uh um uh we have I guess this is like 381,000 we have for the network and stuff um I just hope that when we do this whatever money we're going to put into our Network into our it room you know that we take care of it so we have the proper uh Fire Protection in there that won't wipe it out at some time yes I think we briefly talked about that today um question 925 Amboy Avenue um $5 million and what is that for what what parcel were and and what would be the purpose of this um that's 924 Amboy Avenue it's my understanding that um the community over there um in the clar Barton section of town is requesting a potential um Community Center or area in which they feel that would um be a proponent to what they're trying to establish within the community um so it's my understanding that this is for that acquisition of the property so the residents are asking us for to what is what is there on the ground right now at the 924 Amboy [Music] Avenue is there a building four stories three stories restaurant it is a closed restaurant it's a closed restaurant correct this isn't J Dynasty yes yes it is well you had like $5 million in here I believe but it was L listed for I think $2 million so the one this this if that's the truth t I'll be honest with you I'm going to say this right now this mayor is going down the road of George sporo with the $5 million pond so what is is this 5 million just for the property you're talking about buying the no it's the acquisition and and any improvements thereof so it's not just acquis it's the acquisition 2 million and then you're going to build something for 2 million can you tell me what you've built here in this Township for $2 million because I know that we have a 10,000 foot facility that we're building and I I think that's like 12 million so I'm wondering the size of whatever you plan on putting on the property um that you that you have left with the $2 million you got left over so it's my understanding there's an existing building so that building is there and there were just improvements to the building the restaurant you're going to turn it into a community center hate to tell you but you can't play basketball in there I've eaten in there okay maybe you could play Bad Mitten and bounce it off the ceiling I'll be honest with you this is the silliest idea I do hope the mayor puts this up as as God is my witness he will be George pedoro 2 all right this will be the $5 million Pond deal um but this will just be the second one and you know it's all done for politics I'm sure we'll get it out there to the rest of the public um but thank you for being forthcoming with that information uh that would be it council president councilman Brer uh anybody else Council councilman pil a few questions I will not go into the details but the the way the bond ordinance landed on the desk $30 million on Monday evening it's a serious concern I don't know why this was not published a month ago or socialized with the council members uh but that's a first rate Flack to me yes the some of the projects are good uh but some of those questions will be to mayor uh during the budget presentation my question to you is the there are several line atems for the parks uh have we considered matching grants from County for all that i' would like to really see the package that would say this this is for the park Improvement and here is the bond and here is what we are going to get from either state or from the county or from wherever it is so that would really help that's number one number two may I answer or do you want me toad okay so with regard to any grants so those are on a rolling basis so we don't know exactly what the grants are uh but just to reassure everyone just because we have a capital Bond ordinance doesn't mean that we're able to spend it without having to go to the council for obvious reasons to make sure that the procurement process takes place so um what this sets is allows the township to have a plan um certainly will we will provide that to you um with a good notice in advance and in detail understood Sonia but this is not the first time we are passing the bond I hear this commentary year over year but I don't think you know we really follow through that but uh that's a debate for during the budget and for the next session but my second question is what what will be your net debt after this Bond the township debt what will be carrying on our balance sheet assume that we are going to spend this because that's the only the reason we we have this not today but tomorrow this will be spent so what is going to be total debt as of today if as of Wednesday if this goes through so if we pass this ordinance this will add 20 about $28 million to our total outstanding debt what is that total it's just under 200 million I'll get you the exact number okay so all together we are around 200 to 25 yes yes that's more than 25% of the township budget where somewh 180 175 180 Township budget for the year correct is more than what probably we receive thank you yes that's again a red flag but you know more of those questions I once I go through the budget once IIA once you send the uh the details on the the projects uh that will be really helpful to understand because what I have not heard yet is the the line atems that really I would say the matters the most to the residents the quality of life yes the parks are great those are supposed to be done year or year this is not the first Administration they are doing the part every single mayor has done it uh we have great DPW Department who you know who is constantly doing manyi projects so that's a good sign uh but I will have more questions once I see the detail breakdown of the uh the bond line attemps my comment was on the you know sorry Council vice president about the missing Revenue with the Cannabis hey let's control our spending don't spend when you know know that if you look at last 3 years how much money we have spent we have outspend any m in last 25 years so if you control our budget we control our spending I don't think we need to go cannabis route or any other route to bring the additional Revenue so let's do a good job I'm not saying cut the corners but yet we can improve the quality of life without getting miscellanous money drugging the people thank you council president thank you councilman pel anybody else council president just one um it was a request I I got caught up in the whole 920 you make it quick yes um Sonia with this Bond here and this was something that I was actually looking for and I really haven't gotten from you in the past but but this will help explain it if I go to page two and you have the like Police Department right estimated maximum about 970,000 let's say and then there's another line item fire department that's for like the fire engine right and it says 970,000 can these bonds we've pass we've passed bonds like this over the last um let's say three years could could we get this document and then on this document you know instead of it saying 970 if you only spent 850 can you just put the 850 in that line item and I'll tell you where where my concern goes is we we got a list of the bonds and what we expended but we didn't get expended For What and and and this goes back to where we did a cancellation on bonds which I know is a good thing but I'm pretty sure that my Council colleague if he would have known that you know we were cancelling out um stuff for Clara Barton in one of those bonds and he would have known that over the last few years he would have been advocating to get those projects done so I'd like to see the bonds that we've passed over the last three years that just has what we actually expended you know on the sheet like on this sheet sure um we did provide expenditure reports so did but but it's not you see this one here this is really clear what you're spending it on right but what we got wasn't really clear on what we spent it on so right like over here this is for um acquisition of a fire engine and pumper um let's say we did One two years ago and the pumper came in at 850,000 if you can just put 850,000 like with brackets on it just so we know what was expended and and what's still open um that we could possibly spend because I know that we we approved a lot um especially water and seore and stuff also you know what I mean right just for clarification so whatever we wrote in the manner in which we wrote those bonds you can't put anything new into it if it's not what it's dedicated for so um I understand what you're asking me so you're looking for three-year report uh of expenditures and that against the bonds that we approved listed with that Bond right yep we'll get that to you thank you all right uh just one more um um one more quick thing I'm it's just an advice thing and you take it or leave it I noticed in all my years here right I mean even before your time that we purchase trucks and cars in fact every month we're purchasing trucks and cars hundreds of thousands of trucks and cars has anybody ever purchasing right and I know you're a purchasing agent has anybody went to all the Departments and said hey what kind of trucks and cars are you guys could you possibly be looking for over this next year and then put together a list and say you know we need 50 white tahos or whatever it is no tahos for the record okay and and then send that out to like every dealer um saying we're requesting bids because like I have a feeling when we bid stuff on the Cooperative they do they give us a low price there but nobody's figuring that we're buying this volume and I think maybe with buying that volume you might actually get a substantial discount um I haven't done it but maybe as the ba maybe you could check with other people there was an issue with the supply but we could we we could do it in three ways we can go through a co-op which we do through the Educational co-op we can go through State contract or we can put the stuff out to bid of which we've done all in different ways again it's the supply chain um what we're doing this year much different though rather than requiring departments that don't need SUVs we are looking at the hybrid vehicles so that there's um more obviously more uh Energy Efficiency looking into it but at the same time we there is no need for the larger Vehicles which obviously are more money so we could probably do with more um so that's the change we're looking at to see if we can go through the hybrid which uh we could probably find could be more readily available versus you know we had problems with the Fords and getting those vehicles in um and I think that's why there may have been all those tahos when I first started uh but again I don't I think that we need to look and be open to other vehicles especially environmentally friendly ones um that are inspe inspectors could obviously drive around who are you know constantly stopping and going so going going that route is probably a best but we've tried those three different ways to to to procure it I know it's hard some folks are like well I go down the road and then there's three trucks there um but they're selling at a premium and they're not even going in there and we can't even negotiate with them in that at that figure um they put in search charges were you know and that was always a contentious point we've gone to our attorney saying is this even legal and it was sort of like well you need the vehicle so you have to buy it so um it it's been a really interesting uh time to purchase vehicles and trying to find ways to do it I mean we've gotten calls and you know we've all our folks even our fire chief will call and like I know so and so down there and they're on a state contract go go get that purchase order done you know but then we have to go through this process and get the council to approve it so it's been a challenge the long and short of it oh and and I get it with with the state contracts like if I put a bid in to sell for Bell Ford or whatever it might be at $30,000 because that's what I think I can make money on but then what ends up happening is I can't purchase them for 30,000 I tell you you have a three-year wait but yet I'm going down to B Ford and I'm looking at them on their lot um so I do get that but I'm just saying if you did something in a volume type of thing it might motivate them to move 30 Vehicles out and make a you know th000 bucks on a vehicle as opposed to 2,000 on four vehicles that's a good point that's all thank you just to make a quick point I think there was a supply chain issue and that was the reason why we were waiting like six months or whatnot for each of the vehicles uh but moving forward councilman Coy uh to the ba uh the council president for the road resurfacing the 6.4 million of that allocation as Council brush mentioned uh any he wrote any sewer Improvement or water improvements the list that we have out that that comes with this Bond could we at any time hold off on Paving a road to do the Improvement first uh we sure we can do that absolutely and that's what coordinating together exactly we're we're doing a lot of coordination there and for the park improvements how many how many parks are we doing for redoing or improving is it all parks or um I can give you a brief list through our DPW director if council president I'll wait for a list would you like a list okay sure we can get fine I don't have to bring up here and for ambo Avenue the mayor mentioned also doing or this is a part of brick pavers ramboy Avenue where what part of that is in this Bond or is that something separate in the budget um I don't believe that's in the budget in the capital Bond ordinance okay thank thank you all right thank you Council mccoil anybody else all right uh seeing that I see that uh there's a central line striping uh for the warus road I just wanted to point out on parsonage and Lafayette uh at least this the one that I constantly deal with uh which is the right by menow Park mall with the Panera Bread there's always uh traffic backing up and pretty much holding the Lafayette app so if you can get a box there because I think that's a County Road it is County I was just going to mention and um I can certainly bring that up and see where that's at they did PVE it they it last year yes so it's paved but uh it's not striped properly and people essentially Block Lafayette a uh going into route one and it essentially blocks all the traffic and moves it back I'll reach out to our County folks thank you thank you uh moving on to number 10 from the Department actually yeah number 10 from Department of Law A and B any questions or comments counc councilman P for a uh if I read this ordinance correctly it says for one EV station we are counting there's a two parking spot so we are waving one parking correct yes okay is there any reason in fact you know everyone should be put the putting the uh the parking uh charging sure it it's if I understand your question correctly the statute um surrounding the electric vehicle ordinance has certain requirements that are mandatory for the township to have in its ordinance so when councilman pointer brought this up uh a few weeks ago uh asked me to review and amend um what I had to do was I had to go back to the state statute compare it to the current Township ordinance and make any of those Corrections necessary to bring it in line because there are very specific aspects of it where the state statute says you may not amend this you may not change this for your town it will apply regardless of what you do to your code so rather than have any kind of confusion around that a lot of the language in there is pulled directly from the state statute and what it requires so under the state statute what it requires is that uh for every electric vehicle or make ready space that you put in it counts towards two of your required parking spaces but what the township ordinance didn't have and what the state statute says you can have is a restriction on the number of those that you can count towards your total overall or by how much you can actually reduce your overall parking obligation so you can't say well I need 100 spaces I'm going to put 50 Make Ready spaces in with all the the wiring and then that'll be my 100 spaces for a building that really needs 100 or 90 spaces creating more of a parking problem um I believe it's a 10% reduction right uh just trying to remember back to to what I wrote uh so that overall reduction while still uh to in in depending on how you look at it may be somewhat uh of uh at least somewhat of a problem where there's already a problematic uh amount of parking um it is there to encourage electric vehicle use it's a state statute uh mandate from the state to say we want to encourage the availability of electrical charging stations um all throughout the state and it's why they do it understood in fact you know a few years ago you know on the same Das I had mentioned to mandate the EV station in cdbg z or any any of that type of uh area but again this that back then the council didn't adopt that but my question here is do you know when the state statute was amended to have the mandatory EV stations off the top of my head I can't remember I think Mr pointer knows exactly when it was amended he's got that excited look so I will recognize Council um the council in 2021 in August had passed its ordinance for the EV stations which you are referencing the state put out its guidelines which then mandated that they had to be part of the or Municipal ordinances actually September so the municipal Council had approved its EV uh ordinance essentially a month early compared to when the state statute came understood but does the state statute says very specific zone is that residential commercial or doesn't have any specific language didn't see in regards to specific Zone it went towards like Municipal land use board applications that they would be subject to the reason I say that you know we always then a developer or redeveloper comes to the planning board or zoning board and ask for the parking variances now this will further create more parking situation in that if I need 50 if I'm a developer and I'm asking for 10 more I would say 10 less than what is needed and if I put two more EV station then it further goes down so we are kind of complicating that calculation and that's exactly the reason I asked is this applicable to only in the cases where the developer or redeveloper is fulfilling the full parking allocation and then yes EV station can further reduce but if they are taking the variance then that defeat the whole purpose of this ordinance so I believe the minimum that they that they have to have is two parking stations anything above that minimum amount would be subject to the 10% maximum that they could reduce the total parking requirements by okay thank you coun thank you councilman P thank you councilman pointer councilman Brer yes um quick question and and I might have have misread it I didn't have time to reread it so I'm just going to ask a question to the attorney I I thought I read something in there that said something about the the charges for the electric uh maybe it was on a municipality side or something that um it doesn't necessarily have that they don't have to charge you for the electric or something to that effect and or did I misread that no I'm I'm I think I know what you're talking about uh I believe that there is uh the ability to charge people for the electric within here I I would have to take a look just to to refresh uh and double check um but that it's not necessary like it's not required to try you can you look at it and I'll tell you where my concerns are um W with the whole EV thing right I got it right uh Elon Musk gave free electric if you bought his car kind of thing at the very beginning um there was a a push to to give the free electric um so we push forward with uh electric vehicles I'm look driving around Edison I'm I'm looking at like I don't know 20 30% of the cars seem to be like electric vehicles at this point so I was advocating um down in Trenton to make sure that when they raised our gas tax that people with electric vehicles are paying their fair share of the damage that they cause to the roads just like the damage that my car causes to the roads and I think they did that just recently I think they're they're making it so that if you have an EV you're going to pay an extra $0000 when you register your car right so now it's back to being fair to everybody but if there's anything where municipality is giving free electric um then I propose that I I would like to change my gas boiler out to electric baseboard heat and have the township pick up the tab for my free electric baseboard heat oh okay I okay I I understand what you're asking now so the there was nothing in here um that I recall anyway that gives the electricity to the property owner for free there is I think what you're you read is the provision with respect to whether the property owner can then charge for the usage of the electric um charging stations on the property so uh there's nothing that says we're giving away electricity okay so the township like we don't have free electric Chargers and we're not going to pay for electric for these for for business businesses for people to go there in charge um I I can't answer that only because that's up to you guys um but there's nothing in this this just establishes the rules for installation um on private property and what the requirements are within the zones for what you can have what you can't have uh and how that that establishes those I mean the township could if it wanted to install a bunch of electric uh charging stations on in public parking lots and not charge for them um but that's that's not something that this ordinance does okay Sonia do we do currently I know we have one electric charging station out here is that free we pay for that it's free it doesn't work but it's free oh well there you go so I guess we're not paying for the electric at least um but but you understand my my concerns and I think moving forward that should change um but I I don't understand I think uh I understand Council brush is concerned that we don't want to give out free electricity because it's not fair to the people who drive gas or hybrids so I think that's a fair statement and I think moving forward yes we should be mindful of that and I think when we fix this charger maybe we can make it uh one that we charge council president just as a point of clarification um six usage fees uh item a deals with uh public EV charging stations it establishes that uh the spaces shall be $0 however on Item B it says this fee may be amended by a resolution adopted by the governing body so subsequent to if this ordinance passes if we decided that for any Municipal charging station to charge a fee we would be able to do so by resolution that's my understanding yeah yeah that's what I mean when when I say it's up to the the Sor but no that I was looking for the specific provision of it so I could thank you okay thank you council president I I I would say at least I we in favor to change it to start charging I agree with councilman bresser that we should treat everybody fairly and I think at this point EV is pretty pervasive at least in our town um all right uh moving forward anybody else have any questions on number 10 A and B all right seeing none number 11 for Department of planning and Engineering we are removing B so it's only a any questions or comment yep counc on a through Council personent question to ba is this for the sdl I believe right yes how is the roll out going it's the all the employees are on board all of the employees are on board um believe the clerk's office was the last and um it's so far it's so good uh we've been um putting it to use good uh have our engineering and the zoning department is on board yes okay so are they able to add the violations or any of those things on the through the HDL portal everything is on the system perfect I'm going to cross check few of those that I'm aware and I'll provide my feedback and thank you for that thank you counc Patel anybody else you're you're pulling B yeah no B okay uh moving on to number 12 a through D any questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to number 13 from the Department of Water and Sewer a any questions or comments yeah I had a question on B uh from public works okay go ahead yeah the fire alarm inspection and maintenance service is this across the town or it's very specific to the buildings uh any for uh so councilman P has question on 12b uh which is if this is across the town or just specific Township buildings or it specific location we looking or uh there's the specific location so it's the municipal complex Senior Center um both Senior Center Stelton Community mini bvl Firehouse number two uh I'm assuming you all have the backup too if you want me to just kind of read through it but no I don't need you know the reason I asked the question is I want to make sure that I understand correctly it's the the senior center Stelton community and mini will those are the three predominant buildings um the health center the animal shelter Kilmer vehicle maintenance center and Firehouse number seven so for the uh Senior Center is everything working fine there the which is on the not Woodbridge Avenue woodge yes it is uh there's no issue there we passed the fire inspection last year all of that got got repaired yes perfect do we think that this 200,000 will be enough if we are including uh Stelton Community Center I don't know this that building is so absolute you'll end up spending it it's included in in the package so uh that's the reason I was surprised that you know why it is too low this should have been load or higher but anyway I leave it to you know rain in your hands if you can but I think it should be much higher uh especially for ston Community thank you council president and thank you councilman p Council Bress um yes with the like the fire alarm um I I know we spoke today uh about issues that you're taking care of now um here but I and and I heard that you said that we have everything functioning at our senior center can we get the the latest fire inspection report the latest sprinkler report and fire alarm panel report for the senior center you're looking for specifically for the senior center just so we can just check it and verify that um all the work there is done and everything's functioning okay any other questions Council oh that would be uh moving on to number 13 now um from the Departments of water and sewer a any questions or comments Council counc yeah a question through council person Sonia is this only supplies and equipments no emergency repair or any of those things right right this is just for the maintenance okay thank you counc thank you councilman P all right seeing none moving on to number 14 from the Department of recreation uh a any questions or comments All seeing none moving on to number 15 from the chief of police a any questions or comments seeing none number 16 from the Township Clerk A and B any questions or comments council president councilman pointer uh for a uh for anyone that knows Walter stal and the value and asset that he is um this is a win for the Dismal Swan commission so thank you yeah Council vice president and councilman pointer took the words out of my mouth this is a hearty endorsement for him thank you and as saying for me he is a big influence for me in the open space committee and he runs a tight ship and I hope I can learn a lot more from him he has all of the history of the town and anytime I ask him anything he always knows the answer so he's a great asset and I hope we have him for many more years all right moving on to just want to make a comment here you know by I agree with you know all my Council colleague including you uh he's really in asset you know you any question you ask about the town whether it's a north south Clara Barton or anywhere uh I call him historian it it's a wealth of information my only the question is why it is under Clerk and not buy mayor's appointment uh but again I I I was surprised you know this is I think we are recognizing someone so we should have put something under Administration but again if the statue says that so it be but typically all the appointments come from yeah I think this is the statue according to Madam clerk all right any other Council brusher um a this just a question question the resolution waving a permit fee for St James Episcopal Church um for electrical this like electrical permit I I assume right why do we even charge them like why do we so I think this is because a nonprofit they have to do to have to go through this process is is that that that's what I'm getting at like for all the nonprofits they have to come to this body to execute yeah this so they don't have to pay the $39 Fe yeah I think is there a we streamline this they have toay GC oh they do yeah GC cannot okay oh wow our church Oh I thought they were exempt wow I don't know it depends on the permit and the percentage but the DC okay all right thank you all right thank you Council brusher any other questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to number 17 from the council member of the planning board Council pointer thank you council president plan board held its regular monthly meeting on Monday April 29th with the following items presented and acted on first resolutions the following resolutions were all accepted P 08-20 23779 new durm LLC preliminary site plan approval p13 d2020 designer greetings Incorporated amended preliminary and final site plan approval p19 d223 A andd Holdings denial for preliminary and final site plan approval and p04 d202 4 the L at Edison LLC preliminary and final major subdivision approval next several miscellaneous items were brought forth first item resolution R134 03202 4 this is the Amboy Avenue Redevelopment plan chairman seli indicated that the planning board would be having bfj planning whom is the planner for the master plan review the requested adjustments and provide their their feedback second was ordinance number 2213-20 24 this is the amendment to the zoning billboard ordinance uh found to be in conformance with the master plan resolution r175 42024 referring the amended Redevelopment plan for a th000 im Avenue uh this was found to be in conformance resolution r177 42024 referring the Redevelopment plan for John Street in Thomas place as what is before us uh on the agenda p13 and that was uh found to be in conformance p13 d2019 979 Amboy Avenue LLC this is an amendment to the resolution to amend the amount of affordable housing usit from 7 to six which was due to a calculation error uh This was um approved P 09-20 23 Garden State buildings LLC a one-year extension for minor subdivision with preliminary final site plan approval that was approved and finally the uh bfj planning had a presentation going over amendments for the board's consideration of the master plan finally the the planning board heard new business first was p06 d202 3 yourway construction 270 meal Road applicant seeking preliminary and final site plan approval to construct a commercial structure used for storage of constru construction materials and Equipment during the testimony there were items brought forward regarding vehicle repair and maintenance which because that is a conditional use in the zone may require the application to be heard before the zoning board the applicant agreed to meet with the township planner to discuss that portion of the proposed operation uh in more detail to determine which board is appropriate therefore the hearing was carried next was P 01202 raxon restaurants a a the Burger King uh 260 planfield Avenue applicant is proposing to add an additional merging Lane to the existing drive-thru as well as other improvements to the building and Landscaping as part of a complete renovation no bulk variances were sought the applicant explained that because of new buyer behavior in the fast food industry that the seating previously needed inside isn't as necessary and the renovations are geared towards more recent Trends in the fast food industry after all testimony was provided the board motion and approve the application subject to several conditions of approval the next plan board meeting is scheduled for Monday May 13th at 7M here in council chambers thank you council president thank you councilman pointer uh moving on to number 18 unfinished business uh ordinance for further consideration and public okay so this is just for comments uh let's start with ordinance 223-224 any questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to ordinance 224-225 any questions or comments all right seeing none moving on to number 19 discussion items uh councilman brusher um okay I I have the Amazon that I still don't really have a good contact to get anyone there and I'd still like to get that so the the next person in this town that gets any donation from Amazon right I'd like them to contact me um maybe you could put a memo out to all employees anybody that contacts anybody alive at Amazon because otherwise Amazon's going to be here and I'm going to trash Amazon at every meeting about being a horrible neighbor to our community and put out a warning to every community in the United States that you don't want an Amazon in your neighborhood not unless you have an industrial park where you can keep them um I'm kind of losing my patience a little bit with that one um the sprinklers thank you for your time today um I understand and we're we're going to take care of that and you know I'll be following up on that one um tree ordinance um it's good to see that we have this you know coming here to uh make sure that our residents are taken care of um in that and we still maintain the tree fund the oh legal suits um we asked for some information that came from the GIF it to our attorney I read something and it might have been Edison's code or maybe it's a state law or something like that that says that like the attorney or the mayor cannot approve any settlements without council's approval that's not necessarily true um so well where did I read that that's one of our fake laws I I don't know where you read it I'm saying it's not necessarily true because it's not um the council is required for approval when Township funds are being expended so if a settlement is done um in let's say a labor matter uh where disciplin is that issue right um and no money is actually being paid out no funds are being expended as part of the settlement that wouldn't necessarily have to go in front of the council um that also depends on the form of government that the the municipality has I'm talking that our government and your government something like that wouldn't have to go in front of you uh my understanding is that there are um certain aspects of uh the some of the the suits that get settled that don't require Council approval because they they're not spending Township funds um they're not um well now let me ask a question right um because we all know like um we call it the end around right um if we settle a lawsuit and this what's that gif called is that the Central Jersey yes so that's C CJ GIF right okay um so let's say that they settle a lawsuit and pay Joyce $100,000 because she said you know she was offended when she came here just arbitrarily um the GIF now has to pay but we're not required to approve that as per you because the township body did not have to pay right but here's where my question comes in and here's where I think this is one sneaky lawyer things maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong um does the GIF come to us and do we have to pay the GIF or does a gif do this for us for free neither um so you pay a premium for your insurance right and I I know you called it a sneaky lawyer thing right but this is not a sneaky lawyer thing this is an insurance issue okay and those insurance contracts are complicated and they deliberately make them so but so we pay if you paying your premiums right uh depending on the type of insurance and depending on the whether you've got a deductible or an SRI um that dictates how they can handle some of these claims so uh as part of your premium payment um it gives them the right to settle certain things below a threshold limit so that there is not additional exposure okay so let me put it to you like this Sonia I'm requesting the amount of money we've paid in premium to the GIF for the last three years including the current bill that would be in our budget um just to see that because if if they increase it right then they increase it because they had a claim then that claim would be because of uh the money that we expended not necessarily um and and M can you also do me a favor can you get me the bylaws or the laws that the GIF operates and runs under um because I I'd like to read very in depth with them um I'm also going to send an Oprah request to the GIF to get a list of any settlements that they had they're they're a public body and therefore they are well they'd have to adhere to the Oprah law but I'm going to send the Oprah as councilman brusher for my councilman email um so in case they have a problem they can contact me with that uh legal suit lawyer or right okay that was that one um Finance uh question for somebody that knows something about Finance here um if if the schools were to need a $30 million renovation and the classrooms were a $20 million of that renovation but the gym was a $10 million renovation and the township or this body or somebody um would agree to do some kind of like you know joint thing where where they allow us to use their gyms can the township do bonding so that the bonding isn't like a fiveyear bond it would be more like a you know 20-year Bond or something yes yeah we we would enter into T himount to shared services shared facility type of agreement and we can contribute Capital funds into the project uh the useful life would depend upon what it is we're building and what's equipped in there but and I'm not you know and and the school could pay that Bond though correct or with this body be so the school could pay it the school could pay it we could pay a portion for if we using that portion of the facility okay because they they were talking about you know we use their their facilities for um you know whatever the programs we run wrestling and stuff like that in their schools um and they're trying to do all this work the issue that they have is that they can only do like those short-term bonds you know which then the the payments are are quite large um as opposed to push it out over like a 20-year life cycle or something like that so that request would need to come from their Administration to our Administration obviously to uh come into some sort of shared services agreement that's how that would be initiated okay thank you very much for that one uh I have bonds and and this was just an understanding thing I kind of went through this a little bit with son son did give me an answer on it um but my my question was we we pass a bond kind of like like this Bond right here you know $29 million um this year the administration uses 5 milli of that um to purchase the George pedoro property on Amboy Avenue right now that's that's the shortterm bond and the question is what interest rate do we pay on that short-term Bond presently we would be borrowing one year notes at around three and a half% three and a half okay now if we were going to go for let's say uh a 30-year Bond or 20-year Bond what are those rates I it's a strange phenomenon we're in right now at this time because we're in what's called an inverted yield curve where very short-term interest rates are higher than long-term interest rates so if we were to do a 15 or 20y year bond financing the rate would still be around 3.5% so it would be equal doesn't matter whether we do short or long currently at this moment in time it's that's not typical but at this moment in time that's okay and typically what would it been it could be usually you would see at least a 25 to 75 basis point difference between short-term and long-term rates okay but to just to give you an example the way short-term rates are so high is uh we invest our funds based upon fed fund rates and shorter term treasury bill rates so are we're getting 5% on interest on investments on our funds well that right that's where I was going originally was that instead of us doing this the short-term bond which let's say would pay 4% if we took if we took the balance of the money and did a long-term bond which would be slightly less um and what we still needed that if we if we put that into um like a savings or um a security right that that would cover that difference um and it might be cheaper than doing two Bonds doing that little short-term Bond then doing a long-term Bond but you just told me that the rates are are the same at this current time correct so so I understand and thank you for that um three to four stories um our resident came he he asked the questions I was going to ask you know what can we do with it um how can that happen so I look forward to seeing what we have and graffiti um have we removed any graffiti over the last since our last meeting when we talked about this um so we have driven around but what I did request was if there were specific areas um but anytime we've got graffiti um we have made sure that we took care of it but I if you do have specific areas that ask that you put in so we can do a work order well no no what I'm going to do is I'm going to drive all around Edison I'm going to find the areas and then I'm going to ask you for your tracking log for all your employees because I know you track all their vehicles to make sure that none of those Vehicles went down that road and just didn't report it to you guys um cuz I I I asked you guys to do your job but what you're telling me is that I need to do your job right I need to tell you where it is and what I'm saying is that's not my job okay you have a a Township full of municipality employees we have police officers they drive around all day if they see the graffiti it's really simple they can send the email to DPW you know what I mean that's how things gets handled and that's how you fix it that broken window broken glass thing not by having your Council people right around this town to look for stuff but be because that was your request that is exactly what I'm going to do and then I'm going to ask at the next meeting how come nobody drove down those roads and why nobody sees anything right so this is a directive that should come from the top from the administration from the mayor saying that you know we have a broken window policy here um this isn't all about uh getting on TV for some bus but actually making the residents lives here nicer okay and and I don't feel like that's happening I feel that the residents are being neglected I don't believe it's coming from the mayor down to you down to DPW and from him to his employees to note all the areas of the broken glass around the town it's it's like we're walking around with blinders um so we'll leave this one here and we'll bring this up at our next meeting thank you council president thank you councilman brusher moving on to councilman Coy thank you council president um now that the budget's been presented to us I'll be asking for a finance committee meeting uh shortly if you just give me the date economic developer any any movement on that again we're pending um the interviews okay and um public works I just want to make few brief comments uh first I want to thank the council for supporting all the great equipment that we purchased for them over the last two years because I got a chance to witness some of the equipment for installing trees and so forth I have to say they have some operation compared to what we were before and where we are now I mean we are moving at a freight train level of getting things done I mean uh as we dig a hole place a tree in the ground I mean I think there's less of the labor on our guys and and um team on their backs but uh I mean it's an operation you should be proud of I mean definitely we are competing with landscapers any around anywhere around the town when it comes to installing trees I had a chance to be at DH Park where they installed probably you know 30 plus trees in that area and more being installed so um not only we installing trees we're it's it's treelined around the park so you should be proud and that's not the only park that's been done swes Park's been done and and many others so great things happening um I just want to piggyback on some of the uh parks and their conditions I've been pretty happy with what I've seen so far going through them compared to before we had broken benches and and graffiti and some areas uh I think they've improved a lot I think when understand that the lab the labor crew will write up a park if there's something there on site and that's the responsibility so for the parks itself to riches comments definitely the graffiti would be written up there and not long ago which was decades in in '95 when I started cleaning up graffiti one of my first tests as a doing community outreach uh the town was definitely in a different direction and today I can say I have not driven around to see any in the in the neighborhood and uh I think we do get it down pretty fast which is which is which is great so I'm happy about that but always more reporting is always worth it and it certainly helps all of us uh to bring it you know forward to the town and administration to get get things cleaned up so that's all I have for now thank you council president thank you Council MCO I'm moving on to council vice president yes um first question is about noise pollution ordinances one of my neighbors contacted me about the abundance of gas powerered leaf blowers grass blowers clipping blowers and she works at home works from home and she said during the day because it's now Landscaping season and and um there are a number of landscaping companies in the neighborhood she can hardly she can hardly hear herself think and I wondered what kinds of ordinances we have with regard to noise pollution and if there is any kind of enforcement about this so I think uh last time Sonia answered that that we could have multiple but one thing I do remember in California they pass so that there can be no gas powered uh you know electronic uh appliances but I'll have legal answer there are a number of municipalities in the state of New Jersey that either wholly restrict or seasonally restrict um some of the the two-stroke engines the the smaller louder engines U for at least part of the year um there are a number of there are a number of of impacts to doing that um that need to be taken into consideration part that's part of the reason why some towns do all right you can use those from March to May or April to May uh and then you have to move to Electric U before you you move on but um it's certainly something that can be looked into if that's if that's something that the council wants so do we have any such ordinance on the books right now for Edison not that I recall I mean we have a noise ordinance per se um as you know but you're referring to noise pollution with the um gas leaf blowers so to to our attorney's point there are several townships in uh New Jersey and I've worked in some of them that restrict them to Seasons if you will so we can certainly um provide that to the council if that is the will of the council to review that policy all right I would like to see us move forward with that um just to also comment on the settlement agreements issue that councilman Brasher spoke about I first learned about this particular settlement on Facebook and even though this is not a matter to come that that would come to council for approval I still think as council members we should be informed about these settlements I shouldn't have to learn this on Facebook and so I'm hoping that as we go forward that we are informed and that I don't have to pick it up I don't have to pick up the information from there um can we can we move forward on that so what what can we do in this uh legal is there something uh we can be informed like how does this process would work did just just for clarification this was done through the Jeff um I'm sorry this was done through the GIF The Joint Insurance Fund so uh I I again I'm going to Ray on legal in terms of the role of the GIF I I I don't think that's the question right now right the question is what can be done to make sure that the council itself is informed about these settlements when they happen rightly even if it's the GIF that settles it something should come even if it's an executive session um which would usually be how it would be handled is that uh either the insurance company for the GIF would come here and you'd host an executive session them to advise you about uh what the the the settlement is um even if there's no other way to to do it um that's usually the most frequent way that I've seen it done in other townships and I think it's been done that way here before uh I don't know the particulars of this this case I know it was settled at some point last year to know when it was settled and and who ultimately made that decision who does make the ultimate decision is it the town or is it the administration like as because I know last time you explained La that it's like they'll come to you and they'll say hey we will settle this for $80,000 if you don't want to settle it anything that goes above is here's your $80,000 anything else will be your problem so I I think that goes a lot um towards um what councilman brusher was asking for earlier with some of the bylaws uh and what you had requested um with respect to the contracts and that's a much longer conversation I think that we should um we should have um after after getting a hold of those documents but I am in agreement with our my Council colleagues as to we should be informed of these and I think maybe having a close session uh just to be informed not necessarily even if we don't have an input on it I would like to be informed especially since there is some Financial hit that the count it does deal with the financials as there might be some premium increases whether or not it's accurate because insurance is very complicated it might not be at all but still there might be a chance and we I would like to be acting our Council colleagues would we like to be aware of it I think yeah so just moving forward if there's any settlements uh maybe a Clos session [Music] yes yes okay if that's the will of the body to have a close session to discuss these particular or rather to get a list of these particular matters and I will surely bring it up to the attorney to see how we can handle that and give that to you all and and obviously confidential information sounds good thank you thank you um progress on the Fon house how we doing um I know we had some pipes to replace in that um recently so um I can give it to Rey who can cover us and where where we're going at this point Plumbing has been fixed good Stu in order to fix the plumbing we had to rip up a bunch of different floors so that's the stage we're at now next step will be to replace the flooring and decide what we're going to do overall with the flooring there and the next question you're going to ask me is when are we going to decide what we're going to do the aners I don't have that answer for you today they literally finished like 24 hours ago so I haven't even been up there myself to see it as yet to understand the damage I know it occurred in two or three of the bathrooms and in one area of the house um personally I was heartbroken because I really love that old looking wood plank floor um so I I just have to go up and take a look at it can you guesstimate as to whether or not the Fon house will be able to be open at any time before the end of this calendar year because the cultural i' say that's fair yes you think I'd say that's fair you know again it depends on the priorities in which I receed from the administration but given the current calendar I think that's fair that that may occur okay thank you yep all right um the racial flyer was discussed at the last meeting and that we coming up on the statute of limitations and the question was whether whether Council has any purview to get some answers from the attorney general about this I I had a conversation with the head of legal uh with Mr Renown about this um it's in the Attorney General's hands and uh the the unfortunate conclusion that we were able to come to is that you can't really demand anything of the AG's office um either they will move forward they will not move forward they will prosecute declin to prosecute um and even if you requested information they're under no obligation to Grant it uh or to to respond so uh that is the that is the unfortunate reality I would decode that to say that it looks like that's going to wether and die on the vine unfortunately and I think uh that's I think that's really a shame considering what a big deal This was um um to deorum and First Amendment rights um I had requested from legal last week on a couple of occasions to get some documentation about the rules of decorum as they apply to our Edison Township Council meetings and I hadn't heard back anything until just uh late this afternoon I got uh from our attorney I got a document a memorandum about this and so uh I've asked Michael Burns to um kind of give a to kind of give us a um cliffnotes version of uh of what this says and to try to clarify for everyone First Amendment versus rules of decorum yeah um so uh what I provided uh to the council vice president um was a more recent case uh 2022 from the federal district courts uh which goes into a fairly um detailed explanation of when uh and how you can enforce the rules of De Forum um at a council meeting uh we'll start with the the Edison Township Code the Edison Township Code doesn't advise invest in the council president uh the right to enforce the rules of decorum the right to have someone removed or to uh otherwise sanction someone for violations of the rules of the Quorum um that right is um imposable um if you are in violation um the the case that I provided Grant versus SL flattery um does go into a great deal of detail using a long line of established case law that indicates that these meetings are a public forum but they are not an unlimited open public forum where anything goes uh that in the event that someone is being disruptive to the point where the council has to act um that the imposition of uh the the restrictions under the rules of decorum is is not only acceptable but expected uh and that um there is uh a great deal of rationale for why that is important um part of it is because it does infringe upon the rights of others to attend these meetings it infringe upon the rights of others to be heard by the council or to participate in the council meeting uh now that being said um that is uh again where the council meeting is being disrupted actively disrupted someone who um uses uh bad language once um isn't disrupting the meeting that that that doesn't happen uh but someone who is being abusive threatening um using uh vulgar language that is um offensive uh is is in violation of those rules of the Quorum um the courts have have held that sorry excuse me the courts have held that time and time again and they have said repeatedly that the council or the board has the right to impose those rules um so uh I'm trying to remember the name of the the other case um that was in 2022 I think it's moms versus something it's it's another uh another group um in which you know they were being abusive they were being uh overly argumentative they were refusing to allow the business of council to proceed they were removed you know no one was charged criminally no one is criminalizing speech no one intends to criminalize speech but uh There are rules that have to be followed and the courts will uphold those rules so long as they are followed um based upon um decorum and not the actual uh ideas being expressed right so if this Council tries to stop someone because they want to be critical of uh the council critical of the mayor critical of Township employees even um that's not acceptable right being critical is not a problem um disagreeing with the council or the council disagreeing with you is not a problem but uh the the manner in which you do so uh can rise to the level of disruptive to the functions of this community uh disruptive to the functions of this Council so if I may I just want to read a paragraph and subparagraph here that speaks to how this affects us it says enforcement of the rules of dorm is legally permissible and has a long history of cases to reinforce that idea as per the grant decision Edison Township Code two hyphen 2.8 B States the council president shall on All Occasions preserve the strictest order and decorum and shall cause the removal of all persons who interrupt the orderly proceedings of councel do not criminalize speech nor do they block the I'm not quite understanding there might be a typo in there yeah yeah yeah this ended up being part of that that is not supposed to be that is the that is the end of the the thing there's an extra line in there that should have been taken out so the part that says do not criminalize speech nor do they block the expression of any content without a reasonable opportunity to present that content in another manner for example with the use of vulgarity or abuse of language yeah that should actually be not part of the Township Code section okay that is rules that do not criminalize speech or block the expression of the content violation so what I'm extracting from this is it sounds like it's pretty much at the discretion of council president to decide if deor the rules of dorum are being violated that is that is uh accurate yes okay so it's kind of squishy um so there there are two things one um if the council president makes a mistake on that then that is what lawsuits are for um that that's that's what it is it's if someone feels like they have had their first amendment rights violated that's what they're there for um and based upon uh this Council president's interpretation of it I don't have any fear of that um he's been very reasonable he's been very much uh siding in the favor of letting people speak to the extent necessary to express their ideas or points um the secondary part of that is that um if the council president makes a decision based upon uh his interpretation of the rules of the Quorum um that the council doesn't agree with with there's zo uh something that can be discussed afterward something that could be reinterpreted something that could be addressed um after that decision is made so if a member of the public should address anyone who any of the employees any of the council members or speak of the mayor and that they use curse words or and they they attack said person what is that considered a violation that would be a violation okay so if so the most simplest way to put it is you can be critical and say hey I don't like this job that you're doing you can even use a little bit of Cur curse words but if you're looking to incite anger in the other person and diminish them and essentially get a reaction out of them that would be kind of crossing the line rather than hey you're trying to make a point in that case you're looking to get a reaction trying to disorder uh our form that we here to do the township business and at that point yes you will be asked to stop and you will be asked to sit down and if you don't follow that then you'll be kicked out okay so it sounds like leeway is given to a certain extent yes to the speaker um if it turns into and so even with even with cursing um up there there's it's permitted to it seems to be permitted if that curse is used to label some somebody that's present or express your anger rather than if I were to you know curse someone out that's not allowed but if you were saying I am so eff and frustrated about this it's fine you're not looking to incite someone in this case you're just that's part of your language that's how you express yourself that is okay but if you're looking to attack someone that is different then you're looking to incite something that is not conducive to a a good form of discussion okay okay so it's but it's very discretionary but it seems that there's more leeway than we might have previously been made to believe it's not just that cursing is no long it's not out of bounds it's not grounds for taking someone out of here cursing I think I think we've always been or at least tried to be very clear about this cursing alone is not a problem and I think we said that at the last meeting as well and I think the council president said that at the last meeting as well that cursing alone is is not the issue um I don't think anyone's ever been threatened with removal if they used a curse word once if it came out in their language if it was something that wasn't being hurled abusively um or used uh in in a manner that I I I think clearly violates the rules of the Quorum so well somebody was though just you know uh and do you want to continue Council pres I'm sorry would you like to continue um I mean I'm happy to I'm happy to have councilman brusher comment Council Brer I was going to say yes when I was on the council we had somebody that came up with a sign and um they were asked to leave with the sign um this um this is I think I think Bob Dio was council president at the time and asked them to leave which then pred people to come back when Joe Quil was president with the sign but Joe qu didn't asked him to leave um he remained you know seated I I mean this I think this just gets like well I I don't even want I I want to say it's very very simple um this isn't something that even needs to be convoluted or or or murky you know when the lawyer said you know vulgar language you know would be uh a grounds I I think really and I want to try and make this as simple as possible I if I said the same thing but one way I said as a like like this that is attacking that is the issue where if I speak in the tone that I'm speaking and I sit like I'm sitting now and I use the seven dirty words to call anybody any one of us what whatever it is um I think that's protected by the Constitution you know and and I don't know that anybody here really disagrees with the the language I think it's the tone I think it's the tone and the Insight like you know like if I were yeah like almost like intention intention yeah and again you will be asked to stop and reiterate in the non you know threatening way and if you don't want to do that and you want to continue the verbal attacks then you'll be asked to sit down or removed and and that's what I read in that original I didn't see this new law and and I was hoping to see that so I'd like to see if I can get a copy of whatever they sent you um I'll forward it you know but right the original one that it was very very clear it was the threatening menacing part um so if I used seven dirty words and just started yelling or not yelling but just speaking and just cursing right yet you didn't use the dirty words at all but you were threatening and menacing your actions would be caused for removal so it has nothing to do with the verbiage itself um it's more the actions tone yeah I agree with Council Brer so as another example if I were to in uh a retort to uh councilman brusher say to him you're an FNA a hole um would but but instead using all the words would that be considered an attack so you say FN AO and you use those words yeah uh yeah that would be considered an attack but if you were to say Hey you know I am not appreciative of blah I get that then that's fine so I would ask him to stop and ask him to reward that and if he doesn't then yeah I'll try not to call councilman brusher F andhole all right uh moving on the last item um going back to the Edison TV council meeting showings and I know I I had had Communications with uh Sonia um and this was particularly involving Esther Nemitz who at 91 years old and does not have the does not really have the technology she has her cell phone she doesn't have a computer um and so she is she has has been limited to the rebroadcast of these meetings but sometimes is not able to see them because they're on such a limited basis I'm wondering uh Sonia did you finally make contact with her I I did not and I called her twice and sent a follow-up email so um what I would like to do is as we've done with our seniors um is try to accommodate her uh with something so that she's able to view them on her TV as you mentioned she has a cell phone and uh a TV that may allow her to do so so we want to get somebody out there to give her a hand as we do with our other seniors okay thank you that'll be it council president thank you Council vice president uh moving on to councilman P thank you council president I would like to just continue uh what council vice president mentioned on the First Amendment just question to the attorney you said it is up to the council president and the it's up to the council president's interpretation of whether he should stop or he should not stop to me not only this Council but including the administration and especially attorney you it's our job to protect and honor and integrity of the township employees I don't think we should differentiate we should clearly differentiate how we should treat if someone is coming and attacking an employee we are jeopardizing a lot of things here if they attack me or anyone on this Council Das they are elected I'm perfectly fine they can criticize they can attack I'm perfectly fine so I'm trying to understand that fine line and believe me again before you say that in my last 8 years I have never seen the attorney is the first who jump and take the bullet first whether it is a council member or is an employee of the town to stop and any attack and try to control the meeting which I have not seen in last year and this year but again I'm just bringing that to and you can answer my question sir sorry what was the question the question is where's that line yes so um the the short version is the the line is really wherever the council wants it to be um it's it's it's fungible if the council says that you come in here and you criticize employees of the township we're going to shut you down um you know that is something that the council president would then either have to enforce or not enforce right so uh we can we we can talk about hypotheticals all day uh up here um and at some point we Veer away from um discussing the the actual state of the law itself into to me kind of trying to advise you on legal issues that may or may not come up and which may mean that we should not do this in a public forum at that point uh and perhaps dedicate an executive session to discussing some of the finer points of this well what about when this happens can we do this um because at that point uh you know if you have an issue that you want a a real answer for um that may not be advisable to have that discussion in an open forum for someone to use against you or for someone to come in and deliberately to attempt to manipulate that there there comes a point there problem that's exactly the reason we have an attorney on these ties who can advise the council members what to say and what not to say when there's something happens on the podium which again I have not seen you doing that so this shouldn't be subjective based on Council Pres interpretation no it has to be black and white yes or no and that's what I'm saying you know I'll be happy to go in executive session but again the whole our objective of this council is to protect the honor and dignity of the township employees I'll start with my first question uh Council vice president council president with the public safety and especially North Edison substation I know the good PR I said this last time and chief if you want to if you don't mind answering the question question but is a great PR we say yes there is a North Edison substation I live very close by and I was actually I did visit uh this substation not once not twice but at least dozen time and I have not seen a single employee at that uh substation so I don't know what value we adding North Edis and that's what my question was on the operation when do I expect someone to be there or it is just there for the show okay let me make simple question is this 24 by7 substation substation is not 247 no there um there are hours up until probably around midnight when there is officers there um currently just so you know the substation was actually removed today uh temporarily for some service work to be done on it so if you were to go up there right now it is not currently there um I'm not sure what time of day you may have gone up there but primarily yes there are officers assigned to that substation I have been there various time daytime 8:00 10 p.m. 11:00 p.m. including midnight I have not seen any officer there uh if you want I can do the Facebook live if that happens but I don't want to do that that's the reason I wanted to bring it here that's just set the I just want to set the expectations when we can expect that residents can go there if there is any situation that arise that's the whole idea of the substation is the substation again not a 247 operation certainly during normal business hours into the evening into the early night uh that's when we were cutting it off because we even actually got input from this Council that you know we want to see officers on the streets so having an officer over there all night didn't make a lot of sense to us so that's why we had you know we closed it at a particular time and with that officer that may have been assigned there would be assigned to other Patrol duties okay do you mind posting the hours of operation because if the resident go there at 8:00 and no one is there we we can certainly look at you know posting hours um that's that's not an issue right again I'm not criticizing this uh the North Edison substation I'm just trying to see how optimally residents can use that facility that's the whole idea there yes sir no problem thank you uh my next one is the safety topics we discuss about the flashing lights uh speed limit on Calwood grow the New Brun Avenue this is going on for almost a year now right and it's good that we finally got the flashing lights they will be put around the schools but there are some hot areas uh the excellent areas I don't know why we are dealing you know we got $30 million Bond and hopefully that does cover some of those it is in there um okay perfect thank you so I will not you know bring that topic if it is part of that uh part of this bond school bus routing the now we have the Traffic Unit do they really go out during the school bus timing and see where the traffic congestion is there and how optimally we can resolve some of those route issues I'll tell you talage is always blocked in morning time evening afternoon time amb Avenue has the same problem uh you go on the newor stre Avenue has the same problem you go towards the Edison High is the same issue my again every year what you know the Board of Education goes out and bid for the bus routes so if the Traffic Unit can provide that food back and ask them to change some of those bus stops will be really helpful to control the traffic on these heavy traffic roads so my question is are we working towards that because I did bring this topic I think 2 3 months ago I don't know if anyone got a chance to look into that Chief if you will and I have the several pictures where you know buses on the two sides are stopped and there is a traffic for almost a mile okay so in in regards to bus routes obviously there's bus routes that literally Traverse all over the township you know a lot of them are on major thoroughfares lottimer side streets we don't really focus on bus routes per se but we have f focused in on working with the various schools to try to assist them with traffic flow in and out also bus flow in and out of schools and the roads that are adjacent to those schools so that is an ongoing process you know we have worked with um James Monroe we've worked with John Adams we've worked with Woodbrook we've worked with woodro Wilson so there's there's schools that have had traffic complaints that we've um assisted with to try to make things flow better but on the outskirts I can't say we've done anything in like away from those schools okay is there a possibility that we can look at and we have opportunities you know bus can really make little extra turn inside and the kids from those either complexes or the communities can get up or get down from the bus that would avoid the traffic situation and I can give the examples many examples on that and happy to work with you but again I just wanted to see that if any effort was made in a pass around that which particular School you referring to uh this across the board you you know buses come from all way right yeah so I can't I can't say every school's been looked at I can say a number of schools have been looked at some of which I mentioned some of which I haven't mentioned but um if you have a particular school or suggestion y I would be happy to look at it thank you sir okay the next one is the legal case status on the glendel property where we stand my understanding is that Mr Reno briefed you the the last time that he was here I don't believe there's been any change since then okay so we are it's a status okay I'll just skip the next one because I'm waiting for the uh master plan uh for the sport zoning open uh for the especially for the sport zoning tal me new BR traffic lights timing S I know you sent me the I think it was dated back 20 years ago can we do the again this goes back to the Traffic Unit right they do provide the report and based on that you recommend some actions to the council but I have not seen the Traffic Unit going and really looking at the traffic pattern especially uh this one it's a 6 seconds or 8 seconds literally from new Bruns week taking left or right turn on Talmage and it piles up the traffic so this is something you know if we can invest doing the uh traffic study will be helpful to avoid the congestion in that neighborhood the next one again this is the repeat question from last meeting condos town houses reimbursement update I I did ask for the list of the all these condos town houses Etc and what is what re reimbursement schedule or the the dollar amount uh but this this goes directly related to the tax question uh but again if if you don't have it now that's fine but if you can send me through email that will be helpful sure what I I just want to tell you actively we are looking at all the agreements to understand uh what we could uh potentially um seek with the various um HOAs so that's something this Administration is looking at uh what is your particular question in terms of the my question is if you can send me the list of all the condos town houses and how much money we have reimbursed them in 2022 and 202 3 okay next one is recycle and garbage pickup schedule nowadays we all know that we have more recycle items than the garbage and I think this topic was discussed a year two years ago uh the request was to look into the possibility of having frequent recycle pickup than the garbage pickup uh again without changing uh this thing I know you know that has been looked up but if we can exper it that would be helpful I'll skip the next one the tax assessments I see that you know we are purchasing a software so that's a good thing that was the suggestion coming from me uh I just wanted to see if we can make that as a better uh rather than judgmental if you can do some through the analytics Revenue questions what is the net 2020 three our tax revenue is that rateable did go up I I hurt somewhere $30 million or something let's just pull up that for you second okay well K looks at that and I'll just go through the miscellaneous our total ratables in 24 increased approximately 43.4 million over 2023 okay so we have a substantial increase uh in rable Impact okay it it's a increase of about 610 of a percent I wouldn't say it's substantial but it's decent it's a decent you because that should you know cover up our cost of living uh or the this amount of money that we spend in terms of agreement Etc so I'm I'm not sure why we are looking for additional money but that is where the the revenue uh was there any decrease in the revenue in any other sectors I know that for sure last year I did mention that uh the selling the liquor licenses is not our Revenue source which was never in past uh but we did account quite a bit money there and and there might be reduction but are there any other areas on the revenue side there is a less Revenue like the building construction might be less than what we anticipated something without getting into details of the budget there are several areas on the revenue side where we're lower uh one is uh we have significantly less funds coming in from the American Rescue plan to be use in 2024 and we're using the remaining 700,000 so last year we had over 5 million or plus so we're down there yeah and we're also down last year we re in 22 we also received extra uh State funding about a million point4 uh we have not been advised if we're going to get anything like that this year but the American Rescue I'm I'm I think you know this is linked with the covid money right correct and we all know that this is not a permanent Revenue source of course corre there okay okay that's the question I'll move on to the miscellaneous questions on the flooding this will be for uh DPW Sonia on the Winding Brook area uh there is a erosion of the backyard uh and there is a creek there's a blue line I don't know if this is on the list of the uh water lines or the the natural lines we clean uh rolling winding broke area Winding Road yes Winding Road the resident called me day for yesterday it it's some strange situation and that's the reason I had a question for the health was coyote they found that there's a male and female with few babies in their backyard coyotes coyotes yes and they called I believe our health department and they were told that you go and figure it out how to remove them fish in Wildlife is that a free service or it is that is through the state with fish and wildlife that's what you typically call for um um I'll call every other animal outside of a cat and Feline feline do you mind me sending details so you can perfectly thank you because you know they are panicking it's in the backyard right uh I sent an email on the facial road condition and I hope you know this comes on the uh this year the question on the mini ponds you know a couple of residents I I think couple of areas uh residents reach out they have the mini Pond I would say more of a dismal swam type of the pond is there some sort of a beautification that can be done when is off Talmage right on Talmage uh and the residents reach out it's a green water there can we clean that can we put some papers around can we plant flowers so it looks nice rather than looking at the green water there if you can and I'll send an email on that if you need my next question is on Amar Avenue the one again this is for the attorney when we send to the planning board the resolution I think we will be out with 45 days time period And what I heard that if planning board does not act within 45 days it Council has Council can adopt yeah and that's what I've got to double check on to make sure that the action it's why I have to speak with councilman pointer I want to make sure that I understand exactly what they did do for my understanding they sent it to the engineers for review but that's why I want to talk to them to make sure I can put something in front of you if necessary right but the clock has the meaning there right so they can take the 45 days is up y y that's what my question was uh and and last one you know thank you Chief and DPW for putting the 35 miles an hour sign they on o Road and traffic is in control I can see the difference thank you for that thank you council president thank you councilman ptil uh moving to number 20 ajour can I get a motion to adjourn motion to may I have a second right that's a motion by councilman Patel second by Council vice president all in favor I all this meeting is adjourned at 8:34 oh you see the same thing happen SP water e e e e e e e