all right all right we good okay good evening everybody this is the combined meeting of uh the council it is April 16th 2025 6:08 p.m please join me
in the Pledge of Allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for
all okay Madame Clerk can we get a roll call please council member Brusher council member Coyle here here council member Harris here council member Patel
here council member Patiel here okay um Madame Clerk could you read adequate notice long ones adequate notice of this meeting as required by the Open Public Meeting Act of 1975 has been provided by the annual notice sent to the home newsroom start
ledger and Disney on November 24th 2024 and posted main lobby mal complex on that same date okay council President remarks first um we are removing for tonight we're tableabling the ordinances
2247 and 2248 we're going to be uh tableabling that until April 30th and for 2249 we're also tableabling that tonight and uh we will we're just actually that one's going to be withdrawn from the administration withdrawn okay all right so um that's
the first order of business second order of business that there's a change in the calendar from uh the meeting of June 11th which was Wednesday which was supposed to be a regular meeting is being moved to June 12th Thursday and that is a combined meeting you're saying okay so that will be a combined meeting
on combined meeting on June 12th on and uh so just mark that in your calendars um some other events to share tomorrow a very important event the Yam Hashoa Holocaust Remembrance
Event that's at the JCC at 700 p.m that's tomorrow Wednesday April 23rd uh I'm I'm sorry this is next this is next week my my mistake wednesday evening April 23rd at 7 p.m there will be survivors from the Holocaust in
collaboration with the Matuchen Edison Area Interfaith Clergy Association honoring survivors and their families and pledge as a community to remember those who were lost and promised never to forget um so again that's Wednesday evening April 23rd at 7 p.m at the
JCC um now we get on to a lot of public safety news the um fundraiser over at the Brownstone last week on a cold rainy day actually was a tremendous success especially considering the weather there
were 200 people who attended and the best news is that they fulfilled the 2025 fundraising requirements for the team of 18 riders and three support staff who will be making the bicycle journey from Edison to the National Law Enforcement Off uh officers memorial in
Washington DC again this May to honor remember all officers who have been killed in the line of duty some events around that on May 9th Team Edison Police will begin the 2025 mission with the second annual Edison remembers ride and ceremony to honor the two Edison police officers who were killed in our
department's history the Edison remembers ride is an Edison only event which our team will pass 16 township schools where the children will be outside to cheer us on we will also stop at locations where our officers were killed for a moment of silence and delay flowers the day's ride will conclude as
the team rides into the Edison Police Headquarters for a ceremony at the police memorial um that uh we are scheduled to ride in the escorted helicopter flown by the New Jersey State Police Aviation Unit at 11:30 uh then on May 10th from the Franklin Police
Department station that's where everyone will be taking off and they head to Baltimore they head to Philadelphia for day one they go from Philadelphia to Baltimore for day two and then B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Baltimore to Washington DC on day three so those
are some those are some events to keep in mind um also the uh there is going to be an intro to Brazilian jiujitsu with a cop for all middle school students this will be at the Edison Public Safety Center on Ren 205 Ron Center Parkway in
Edison this will be every Thursday in May so that's May 1st 8th 15th 22nd and 29th from 5 to 7:00 p.m um then we have the uh this is the Guns and Hoses i like
that name the Guns and Hoses uh basketball fundraiser it's PBA PBA Local 75 versus IAFF Local 1197 and 2883 that's May 30th and that's $5 a ticket at the door at St matthews I believe um
so that's May 30th for Guns and Hoses and finally I think that's finally uh yes um Edison's Police Department Junior Police Academy from August 4th to August 8th is uh going to be having the from 9:00 a.m to 2:00 p.m at James Monroe
Elementary School and so this is for Edison residents sixth seventh and eighth graders K-9 demonstration trip to Newark airport state police helicopter secret service demonstration drunk driving simulator team building activities forensics and more so that's
August 4th to August 8th and applications are due by July 25th 2025 um I believe that concludes council president remarks let's go on to the resolution of recognition
whereas the Kuanis Club of Medicine was chartered by Kuanis International on April 5th 2005 with Dr douglas Lee as the first president whereas the club has been dedicated to improving the lives of children and families in Edison and surrounding communities through various service projects the Kuwanas Club of
Edison sponsors several service leadership programs including key clubs at local high schools and the Aken Club which provides service opportunities for adults and disabilities with disabilities whereas the club actively supports the Hand of Hope pantry organizes events such as Halloween candy
giveaways coat and toy drives stuffing Easter eggs and food drives the club also supports local initiatives such as National Night Out Family Day a a toy drive Middle Sex County DC P&P donations to visions and pathways a program for
the homeless teens and whereas the Quantis Club of Edison ensures that all funds raised are directly reinvested into the community with no administrative fees taken from donations whereas the members of the club have served leadership positions at the New Jersey District of Kuanas
International kuanas International including a committee chairs lieutenant governor and district governor and whereas the Quantis Club of Edison has recognized multiple times a distinguished club and his present secretary has been honored as distinguished officers by Kuanis International now therefore be resolved
the Edison Council of Edison congratulates and thanks the Kuanis Club of Edison for outstanding service to the community and his dedication to improving the lives of those in need thank you very much any remarks from the public yes sir
joel Bassoff Beach Lane Edison i'd like to urge the council to unanimously and enthusiastically approve that resolution um the famous French sociologist and historian Alexis Dtoqueville um wrote in Democracy in America in
1835 uh he made this observation americans of all ages all conditions and all dispositions constantly form associations if it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example they form a society as soon as
several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world they look out for mutual assistance and as soon as they have found one another out they combine from that moment they are no longer isolated but a power seen from afar whose actions
serve for an example and whose language is listened to nothing is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral associations of America if people are to remain civilized the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the
equality of conditions is increased and from my observation the Kuanis exemplifies D toqueville's observation about America's proclivity to form organizations that benefit society and Mr nagel e exemplifies the Kuanas
commitment to public service so I'm very proud as a resident of medicine i know people who have benefited from the work that Kowanas does i'm proud and pleased to see that this organization is receiving the recognition that it deserves and I hope everyone will vote
yes thank you Joel okay all right anyone else the public okay um motion to close public portion motion to close second second thank you very much um can
we get a motion to adopt motion to adopt second all right thank you very much um can we hear from the council any council comments council president um so I know many members of the communist club and like
Joel said I think any association to create better community for Edison is a great thing and thank you for all your work that you do thank you Councilman Patel anyone else yes Councilman Patiel i know you know
Steve Nagel for over a decade now and his service and promoting the Kananis club which also serves the children and the communities at large fantastic job i still remember every time we meet you do ask about the expansion opportunity that
shows it's the community service is near and dear to your heart and your club as well 20 years of self selfless service is not an easy thing week over week meeting probably in the Clarabartan section uh educating people how to give
back to the community is not an easy task we know that we are all busy in our personal life but finding the time for community and giving back to the community is a nobel clause and you are doing a wonderful job all your members of Qanis club congratulations and keep
up doing the good job thank you thank you Councilman Patiel what else houseman pressure i I would I'm almost going to echo um my council colleague Mr patil i guess I've known Steve i was just thinking about how long I've known him
um I don't know it's if it's been 20 years or 19 years or 21 years but but it has been a long time um you've been a great advocate for the community overall i mean just in so many different aspects um and the Quantis Club is really a
great organization i mean it's one that's really just about giving um so listen I I commend the hard work that you do i I I see what you're doing and I appreciate everything that you and the whole Kuanas Club does here um for us and for our community here in Edison so
I'd like Thank you thank you Councilman Brusher for myself I'm uh looking at some facts about Kowanis that it's uh found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas um in 1987 the organization began to accept women as
members hooray um the Kuanas and its affiliated clubs have more than 600,000 members they raise over a hundred million each year and report over 18.5 million volunteer hours to strengthen communities and serve children so yes I echo what my council colleagues have
said and particularly directed to you Steve Nagel who would give the shirt you'd give the shirt off your back to anyone to friends to anyone in need and Kowanas is so fortunate to have you with them and and have had you with them for
so long so thank you congratulations and let's move on to the presentation oh do we do that first oh we Oh the roll code oh okay sorry Council President yes i'm Oh I'm sorry Joe i'm sorry thank you
Council President i just want to congratulate you Steve and your great work and all your the people who are with you today and the sacrifice you make to go to meetings to create events people think meetings uh and events uh are quickly done they're not it takes time nothing takes five minutes i always
tell the people that and it's time away from your family time away from something you may love doing so thank you for the sacrifice you do steve's been a a good friend to the community a good friend of mine each every year he volunteers with me once a year for an event we do at the chamber we don't talk
we just meet at about 10 o'clock at night i see him at that event once a year in March and he's always there to help me i think probably 10 years now he helps me at that event and I don't even know if you get a free ticket you still He pays for his ticket thank you have a great day thank you Councilman Coyle all
right can we get to the roll call please council member Presser yes council member Coyle yes council member Patel yes council member Patiel yes council President Harris yes all right i was going on with If Sam has no crown for himself or
something all right so it is my distinct pleasure to present this resolution to the Kowanas Club and with all the thanks and gratitude that we could possibly offer it's it would
not be enough no matter how many people put in their their thanks but um you've done you do wonderful wonderful work and we are proud to present you with this resolution all right and thank you okay
okay [Applause] thank you thank you um would would anyone would anyone like to say anything um from the Okay good good thank you
unaccustomed as I am to public speaking it it is my pleasure to stand here and represent the members of the Quans Club Medicine 35 strong not all of them could make it tonight a lot of them have other commitments um I'm especially
proud to stand here representing our distinguished president Lisa Ero if Lisa can claim anything for her years as president of our club Lisa was the driving force along with Frank Cohen behind our starting a club called an action club which is a club for adults
with disabilities we have 21 adults over the age of 21 who would have no other opportunity to perform community service other than doing it through Kuanas so we have an entire organization built by adults with disabilities that their sole purpose is
to improve the quality of other people's lives our prime commitment is to our sponsored youth or service leader programs we have five key clubs we sponsor the largest key club we sponsor is JP Stevens High School has over 240
students involved in it they do thousands and thousands of service hours and I always said if Kowanas only existed for one reason and our service leader programs were it it would be doing enough we always want to do more um since I have the power of the pulpit
for the next 10 seconds so Margot rips the microphone out of my hand if there's any need in this community that our Kuanas Club can help serve please reach out to us at NJ Kuanas at uh I'm sorry not wrong one Edison Kuanas
atgmail.com and we will be happy to do what we can to help improve the quality of people's lives on behalf of our council people Council President Marggo thank you so much for this recognition and the opportunity for us to bring our Kowana story to our community thank you
so much thank you all right thank you all right so is it here that This one we don't even have this is what these are in the regular meeting in the regular meeting take a motion to take
All right um Councilman Brusher had you had you wanted to make a comment about the removal of these ordinances yes my the the question that I had was you know they're on the agenda um what
happened at the last moment that we had to pull them now like why were if the administration knew that they wanted to pull these why didn't they what is the reason for pulling them number one and you know it comes down to is it that they are
afraid they didn't have the votes and that's that's an honest answer and and that's an acceptable answer also but I I'd like to know what they are because some of these items address some of these items and and where I say with that is um it's kind of inconvenient
right you give us this stuff you expect us to look at it you expect us to you know spend time on it and then to pull it at the last moment as opposed to you know to pull all three tells me something's up something doesn't look
right if you pulled one maybe you didn't have data right i get it but why pull all three okay I can address that council yeah I think you're uh Councilman B you're pretty much on point i believe that uh yes Councilman Pointer
and Councilman Schmail could not be here this evening they very much wanted to be able to cast their votes with regard to these ordinances so in that they had requested of the administration and and of the council president ultimately that they be held until a meeting so that everyone on council would have an
opportunity to vote not just the few who are here this evening so that's it so to your I think you you pretty much hit it on the head we're we're seeking a a fuller uh governing body to make this decision on these particular ordinances so then let me ask you a question um counselor
um I have council president that has been texting me right quite often during the week to say am I going to be able to come to the meeting because we might have a problem with a quorum mhm right so so obviously we knew that those two
council members weren't here like a week ago we know they just decided that they wanted to do this 15 minutes ago that that's my question i don't know when they decided i just I and I don't because I was only
advised of it today um and asked and so they asked me procedurally okay what can we do what can we do if council members really want to have their their vote cast they're not here i said the only thing we can do is there would have to be the governing body you would have to vote to table this to a meeting at a
date so that all of your council members could vote on it but ultimately if it's a first reading the administration can pull it they have that right if it's a second reading this body must decide so ultimately I think there will be a motion to table you could you could very well vote against that motion to No I I
give that courtesy to the administration i mean that courtesy doesn't get um traveled down backward but I'm not a child so yes I I would give them that courtesy i'm just wondering why we waited until the last possible second is it because the council people you know
they themselves that aren't here um they mysteriously woke up this morning to tell the administration you know that that's where I'm going with it it just seems very mysterious that you're going to pull all three ordinances um and you're pulling them at the last minute because I think you knew that maybe you
didn't have the votes and and that's an answer and I like that answer and I would actually vote for you to table it um cuz right some of these I wouldn't be voting for sure so being an adult right i would give you the opportunity to have them here but I would just like an honest answer um if there's any way
possible of getting it or the honest answer was just those council people woke up this morning they called the administration and they said they'd really like to vote on it that that's I guess that is the answer i don't know when that took place but all I can tell you is that the the council members who aren't here did want to have an opportunity to vote all right thank you
counselor all right moving on to number eight review of the minutes any council comments seeing none um let's go to number nine Department of Finance A and B any comments or
questions all right seeing none number 10 Department of Health A through E questions comments okay uh number 11 Department of Planning and Engineering A and B questions comments yes um yes this is
um 11 the A which is the construction the road improvements does the this is for us to sign off because the project's been done for like two years correct um not quite we're just wrapping up the final payment correct it's final final
payment final payment not the maintenance bond which you're referring to okay separately okay does the public get the opportunity to get a list of the roads that were given the final payment on sure this is for 23 we can provide that to you we But I mean just can we
just put it on the website so the public can see it because you know why if the public looks at it and they say that there's um some deficiencies or whatever it is it'll make them aware so they could contact the administration and then it's not missed you know when the u
when the bond and that is up that would be it thank you thank you anyone else for 11 A or B number 12 from the Department of Public Works A through C uh Council President yes B and C
um the upgrades to the municipal building um and the rejecting of bids for HVAC you know infrastructure upgrades let me ask a question why are we rejecting the bids what was um what did you find that you didn't like in the
bids themselves so with regard to the rejection of the bids it's not anything that we didn't particularly like rather they were non-conforming they were non-responsive to the bid package so in the first one that we're rejecting the um the price
page which is required under the bid package wasn't included so that would make it non-responsive uh to the bid and the second one the second HVAC to the senior building um the price actually exceeds the amount that we've budgeted um so procedurally
we are required to come to council uh to reject the bid so that we can then go back uh rebid this and see what kind of responses we get okay and the reason why I asked this is you know this goes back
to I mean it's good that we're taking another look at it right get that um but we were talking about like a construction manager um and when we were talking about that those were people that were employed or brought on board
um to give you advice or give the engineers advice um into the direction of an HVAC system and and where I go with that is like your HVAC system here you could design an HVAC system for this entire building and you could design two
and one would be $2 million more um I don't know that the administration would know the difference between those two the one that was $2 million more and the one that was $2 million less and if they did they might choose to go with the the one that was less but uh under the same
token the the other one that's $2 million more maybe that would be something that the administration would want to spend the money on because they feel there's value but without that person to um kind of I'm going to call it drive the engineering or architectural aspect of it uh what
happens is you end up getting whatever the engineer is looking for which could be a Ferrari one maybe you don't need one of them for a lunchroom or something so I think it's a good idea for you to bring somebody on board that has that that knowledge um overall um I know that
my council colleague was proposing something for like $5 million but you can actually hire a firm that you could work with like you do an architect an engineer over the course of a year where they could help you during that design
stage before you go to the architect um you know they'll help you actually with your design um so I'm glad to see that's pulled i I would hope to see that maybe you go down that road before you just rebid it and come up with something else but that
would be it thank you Councilman Brusher anyone else on 12 okay on to 13 Department of Recreation A through D A through D right wait yep you didn't look long
enough i'm sorry go ahead um event services which one is that uh D okay the [Music] um we're not going to do events i guess we're going to do events still right we
just didn't like the pricing so again the rejection of these bids was due to um non-conforming paperwork that they were supposed to provide to us so we're required again under the law to reject it and then go back out okay all
right thank you okay and number 14 any questions or comments about a um yeah I actually think she's awesome um she's been here quite some time anything that you can ask for um she
jumps and gets um actually exceptional so I thank you for her service here thank you this is actually my favorite resolution on the whole the whole agenda i have to say council president yes yeah i think whenever she answers the phone she's always happy and whenever you give
her something she's always ecstatic of you to do it so I'm so happy that we have you in the township thank you Margaret you're here council person Councilman Patio I don't think I need to ask anything or say anything more than what my council colleague said but Marina
you're a wonderful person always helpful to all the council members you keep politics aside but always there when we reach out and you give the fair treatment a wonderful I would say that you are one of the best employee of Edison Township thank you thank you Councilman Piel um all right we move on
to the regular meeting uh so we start with uh the approval of the minutes can we get a motion to approve approve second okay all in favor i I
Okay thank you all right um so we do need uh we need a motion to table the ordinances 22 247 and table 2247 yeah didn't I just say that motion to
table motion to table on 227 oh 2247 individual right okay all right who's second second was Councilman Patio all right uh and you need a roll call for that mhm okay council member Brusher yes council
member Coyle yes council member Patel yes council member Patiel yes council President Harris yes okay tabled until and so this will be tabled until the meeting of April 30th um now on to the ordinance 2248 can we get a motion to
table okay second until April 30th until April 30th thank you yeah uh and was that you council Patel okay all right so we had motion to table from uh Councilman Patiel and second Councilman Patel uh
roll call please council member Presser yes council member Coyle yes council member Patel yes council member Patil yes council member Pointer council President Harris yes all right thank you council President yes can I just clarify i thought the the dates changed and
there was one meeting which was the 28th it was a combined meeting or is it no no we have two the regular Yeah the regular schedule okay thank you sure okay all right now we move to public comment on the resolutions this is on the resolutions only
yes sir i just want to uh make a comment on uh resolution 177 uh 042025 the reappointment of Marina i just want to I agree with everybody uh Marina's wonderful i've dealt with her
as a member of the public um when I filed my tour claim she was very helpful helping me fill out fill out the uh fill out the official form and um I just want to say that from what I can tell I think she does a great job and I uh I support
that thank you thank you joel Joel Bassoff 17 Beach Lane Edison uh regarding resolution 177 uh my experience has been whenever I've asked for anything or needed anything uh Miss McCrae has responded
cheerfully she's responded cheerfully uh promptly with courtesy and with professionalism so I hardly endorse the approval of resolution 177 my only quibble would be sometimes I get the sense that when I speak she speeds up the clock but some people might consider
that a public service now I have a question about resolution 170 that's $113,000 for custodial supplies and I'm just wondering like what time periods that cover like how often do we go
through that amount of custodial supplies is that a month's worth three months worth what would that cover all right um Sonia do you have an answer to that so that's u his his question is on on
170 about the uh custodial supplies for $113,000 what time period does that cover that would typically cover the year okay thank you all right thank you anyone else joyce okay joyce Freeman Edison New Jersey the
microphone joyce thank you taller people were before me the reappointment of Marlena McCrae and I you know I think it's great i think she's a good person but what I like about it is that the leadership they have in the office makes you better
because you learn from the people that have the job ahead of you so I think that's good i think it's very great that we're um applauding um Marlina McCrae and I think that she really deserves the deputy municipal clerk but I think that
her and the clerk together make the office that much better thank you thank you what else now we get up elizabeth Conway 20 Netherwood Circle uh I would be completely out of place if I didn't say
something about Marina just look at that face and the smile she's always there when we have a question uh she always gets back to you with an answer she always sends you in the right direction and she proves to be one of the most constant that we have in this
administration and I applaud you Marina the second thing was a little disturbing and I just want to bring it up um when the lawyer came up with excuses to Mr brasher regarding why the Excuse me the speaker is out of order yeah this is on the resolutions only you can do this in
public comment later no that was an or that was an ordinance uh that was based on an ordinance i'll be back okay all right anyone else from the public motion closure uh Anthony Damron um regarding that ordinance for Marina um yeah she's
pretty she's really good she's pretty good uh she is they're all good actually in there um so I uh I applaud applaud you this is a I hope it doesn't hurt hurt your chances here by me doing that endorsing so good luck and uh I'll see you I'll come back thank you all right
uh anyone else from the public okay we can get a motion to close motion to close the public portion second okay um so we go on to the proposed resolutions are there any resolutions that council members want to pull
council President yes 177 177 oh that one again all right okay anyone else okay all right so we are going to
vote on 161 through 176 uh so Councilman Coyle what are your remarks and comments about 177 i just want to pull for a separate vote on Oh okay oh I thought that that I thought we do the whatever is pulled
first okay oh that's right okay sorry agenda first okay all right can I get a motion to approve 161 through 176 motion to approve second okay i would roll call please council member Brasser yes council member Coyle yes council member
Patel yes council member Patiel yes council President Harris yes okay councilman Coyle what say you well uh I just can't help but to make a few comments not just not to use just one word like my fellow colleague awesome
and nothing else but um I call her a lot and uh like people have mentioned she always has the same attitude every time and if people are not aware at the clerk's office they are handling a lot of different calls they're act as a receptionist sometimes
i think about 15 years ago we had someone downstairs to answer the phones and they probably get most of the phone calls directing people to different departments but they also handle all the election stuffs at at different times of the year it is super busy and I call there during this super busy season so I
get a little bit of a quietness but she says "Absolutely Councilman I'll get back to you." And she has excellent follow-up skills i think she treats everybody neutral in that whoever calls same from the clerk and I am so happy to see that she wants to continue working here not retire in Florida do something
in Nevada or Arizona but thank you and I do appreciate the fact you were neutral when I call and uh and I know there could be a smirk behind your the phone there that I don't see but she always gets back to me and and I know it's for a lot of people on this council as well
so thank you um motion to approve mo uh motion wait I have something to say oh sorry okay i didn't know you made comments okay so yeah I just want to add um that Marina and during my entire three and a half years here on council
has been nothing but a pleasure to to work with and just even walking in and she brings a smile to your face just even saying saying hello um so I can't say enough about her and of course the entire the entire clerk department
especially under the very difficult circumstances with which they're working and being short-handed but they're getting it done and um I am I am I am thrilled to be a part of this reappoint for you so now we can get a motion to approve motion to approve Council
President seconded okay uh roll call please council member Brusher yes council member Quell yes council member Patel yes council member Patiel yes council President Harris yes okay um on to oral we don't have no communications
so on to oral petitions and remarks um anybody i didn't see yes ma'am state your name and address please uh my name is Samita Barry and uh address yes please 92 Pressbook Way Edison New
Jersey thank you good evening members of the council i'm Sumita Barry and I'm a freshman at JP Stevens High School here in Edison in the four minutes that I speak to you today you will hear my voice as one that speaks on behalf of an entire generation
that is terrified terrified of inheriting a planet where nature is further degraded and where we inhale plastic with every breath we urge the Edison Town Council to join Mitouchen Franklin Township Essex County and many
other towns to pass a resolution endorsing the ACR119 and STR 43 known as the New Jersey Green Amendment which has the following wording and another paragraph every person has a right to a clean and
healthy environment including pure water clean air a safe climate ecologically healthy habitats and to the preservation of the natural and scenic qualities of the environment the state shall not infringe upon these rights the state's natural resources among them its waters
air flora fauna climate and public lands are the common property of all people including both present and future generations the state shall serve as trustee of these resources and shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all people this is not a
radical idea it is the bare minimum the Green Amendment isn't about politics it's about ensuring that every person has the basic right to prevent pollution in their backyards a right not a luxury yes I know there are environmental
regulations out there that do protect us but the Green Amendment offers protection at the highest level the state constitution rules and regulations can be rolled back with nothing more than a signature think about that our trees our lungs gone with a stroke of a
pen prioritizing the environment is so important now microplastics from the air and water are already in our blood our organs and even in babies sperm counts are declining climate change is accelerating and biodiversity is plummeting are we really saying that we
have the right to bear arms but not the right to breathe fresh air growing up in Edison in the Garden State should reflect a childhood filled with hope health and peace of mind not disease inhalers and boil water advisories i'm here speaking on behalf
of fellow friends and students and others that are tired of being paralyzed watching protections being sacrificed the New Jersey Student Sustainability Coalition which I'm a member of it has been working to build support for the Green Amendment constantly for over 5
years this amendment will bring people out to vote and will be popular in New Jersey in New York their Green Amendment was passed by over 70% of voters let's allow our residents to vote on whether a healthy environment is a constitutional
right as well edison is cleaner thanks to the efforts of this council and many others but this is the time for you to show that you care about New Jersey's youth and wildlife ultimately we are the generation that is growing up with a constant fear of environmental
destruction we are the generation that learns about climate disasters in classrooms and walks out to find them at our doorstep show us that you will take bold action now when it matters most make this the moment where Edison leads by example where you choose to stand for
the people for the future and for the right to a healthy environment by endorsing the New Jersey Green Amendment thank you so much for listening [Applause] may Yes Councilman Brer go ahead yes um I I'd like to thank you uh for coming up
here i I actually find you a a breath of fresh air to be quite honest with you and and I'm going to tell you why um I've spoken up here numerous times i've spoken to the county i've written written letters to our
commissioners when they go to build the plastic fields that they allow you to play on so we build these turf fields now and the turf fields all they're doing is leeching that plastic back into the environment i mean the simple task
for us to do is to go back to regular grass fields um I argued at JP Stevens um about your baseball field you have a turf field i argued at Edison High for a turf field you can put drainage in and make a great field we're building all
plastic fields at the county now your voice you need to raise your voice because I think um very few of the council people up here have been vocal about the plastic fields um that have been going on but it's people like you it's you the young people you have to
speak up if you don't speak up the other elected officials won't listen i think if you guys were all here when we were approving the plastic field for the Jets and you would have explained it they probably would have had a grass field so you guys are doing a great job of
bringing awareness but do me a favor don't stop you have more energy than I do at your age so keep it up thank you Council President yes if we can get a copy of 119 perhaps we can have an opportunity to discuss that in committee
and have you review that this is a assembly resolution yes yeah yeah if there's a co I'm just to Councilman uh Coyle's point um I've seen this uh particular resolution in other municipalities and um if they would like to provide whatever copy they have to
the legal department we can have it on you know as soon as possible next meeting if you want yeah well I'm in support council president when you decide thank you very much council President Council Patel I'm in favor to support this and to Samita thank you for
coming and speaking for your generation i think we have these benefits through plastics that we take for and we take the cost of it for granted we all use the plastic bottles and we are all using plastics
every day in our lives but there is a cost to it and the future generation is going to pay for it even though we might not and I think it's important that we factor in that cost now and we take action now to ensure that we the future generation does not pay for it even
though it's going to cost a little bit in terms of everybody buying metal bottles hopefully but I I'm in full support and hope we can get this as soon as possible thank you thank you Councilman Pio council Person thank you for coming and speaking passionately i know this is issue is near and dear to
your heart and thank you for educating this council as well we learned quite a few things we all know the plastic is bad but no one is willing to recognize and act on it and the students like you you come
forward you educate people i'm pretty sure that's why we say there is a light at the end of the tunnel this is the reason again thank you and any any of those resolution that come here you know I will be in fully support of that thank you Council President just 30 seconds i
I thought your comments were well written well done i heard every word you said and what a great job i thought my colleague was going to say he wasn't as good as the speaker as you were at your age and your time and this was decades ago when he spoke here in the 60s but he
did a phenomenal job and a lot of courage to get to the microphone and speak uh clearly without uh being nervous so great job really wonderful thank you Serena i'm I'm just blown away by your maturity and the ability for you
to speak as eloquently and with such passion as you did and um you can see that you have the full and enthusiastic support of this council and I would say also in your advocacy for a brighter future for the humans on this earth I
think you're also ensuring a very bright future ahead for yourself so thank you so much for presenting as you did okay um All right um Yes Diana is this yours is this somebody's Diana Joffy 86 Laurel Hollow Court i
would like to address uh Councilman Patiel through the chair if I may yes you may uh Councilman Patil several months ago um uh Councilwoman uh Ship Freeman got up and congratulated you for
some award that you gave to somebody I'm not sure what it was uh concerning uh South Asian women who are victims of domestic violence um I was interested in that and I came up to speak to you uh you gave me a card you said to call you um I tried to
contact you at least twice with no communication back from you so I would have rather done this privately but since I haven't heard from you I have to come publicly uh so I would like to know uh what this uh group is who um deals
with women of domestic violence victims of domestic violence because you know we have a domestic violence uh team in Edison and they're the ones who vet these organizations uh before they send women or men to these uh places where
you can help them so I those are the questions I had to ask you i did not want to ask you publicly i'm asking that you contact me or speak with me privately or you can do it publicly but um I really would appreciate you telling me who this who these people are who are
sending these women to these places thank you councel person if I can mhm uh thank you miss Jaffy coming here i know you tried contacting me but I do not represent any organization any any official capacity that deals with uh
domestic violence uh if someone reach out to me specifically uh about this concern I do I I don't really participate in the per say the case but I do refer them to the people that I know around who can help them the whole
idea of uh you know the group or the people who we acknowledge for their commitment to resolve some of these issues are not really on domestic violence but about mitigating the the family related issues which could turn
into domestic violence so the whole idea of that group is more of soothening the relationship within a family by talking to the both the sides of the houses and all that and possibly if they want to go to the other extent then they do refer you to the the other organization if you'd like me to introduce to that group
I'll be happy to do that uh but I will have to reach out to those folks who are involved and especially this is more in the South Asian community to be very specific and to be very honest with you uh happy to connect with those guys but I need to talk to them before I can
connect with you okay i appreciate that you understand that there is a vetting Yes yes sorry that there is no back and forth the speaker Yes you're supposed to ask questions i have I have Are you going to g them down or excuse me out
yeah sir please um so council president and just so I'm aware of the rules the questions were asked the councilman responded now there's engaging in a back and forth what I recommend is that there is a time after the meeting it seems that the the speaker did want to have an off the off the record conversation
might be best served that they do that afterwards instead of having the back and forth publicly and that's all I wanted to know is that when I speak with him Yes about this i don't want to have Yeah so Diana you can you can do this certainly offline after the meeting that's what I need to know that's fine
thank you thank you thank you okay uh yes sir the the first thing I want to say is uh my name is Ball i'm Bong Holio also known as the social justice water pipe dave what you should have done is you should have said before that Mr patil
wait let the speaker finish or you should have asked the speaker are you done so that was incorrect what you did um and you know better come on Dave you know better than that um so I didn't like that that I didn't like to say um
it's been a couple weeks since we've uh had a meeting and um well I want to I want to mention a couple weeks ago um I was here at Burrow Hall to try to have uh an appointment
with the uh mayor and um it was a little upset it was a little discouraging what happened because you know rang the bell no one came uh somebody else came rang the bell uh finally the the police were sent out i
never got to speak with Mattie was there he was one of the guys and he's always respectful i was actually glad to see him out of you know he's he's always been good um but I couldn't even speak to anybody from like the office and I'm pretty sure that intercom you can speak through that intercom and just say I
mean if the mayor's busy the mayor's busy i understand uh but I couldn't even get anybody from the office to in fact when the internal affairs officer came out and the chief came out um they said oh he's not going to want to talk to you so can you at least ask you know I don't
know why they were even doing that that job but um it seemed like the atmosphere of the office was like nobody wanted to ask him you know I I don't know what that was all about um as I was making my way to
the mayor's office I walked past all of the pictures on the wall where there used to be artwork and is all This is a public hallway and it has all these pictures of uh the mayor uh I don't understand how
that happened did the council have any any sort of say over that um and I happen to notice that Councilman Richard Brer is not on any of those photos how come he doesn't have a fair fair
facetime i mean does anybody think that's okay that's a public hallway to remove artwork i mean we all you guys tried to ban my creative expression during the most national tragedy huge mistake banning
expression artistic expression now we take down the art to put up pictures of the mayor without one of the councilmen on it that's absurd that is so absurd i want to give
a shout out to Sanwaqen Valley Transparency for highlighting my uh a video where I had to restore order back to the meeting when Joe cut me off three times in a row um which he still never
apologized for right now there's only two members here who participated in that ban and and like I said last time Mr patel he at least apologized and I thanked him for doing that uh somebody said to me you know he Joe should really apologize for what you did i laughed it
was a resident who said this i laughed he hasn't even apologized to the residents for the mistake that he made never apologized and I'd like to give him an opportunity tonight to apologize to these residents because when you make a
mistake you're supposed to apologize i didn't expect an apology for that but I think I think the residents I think the residents deserve an apology so I'd like to know uh if Joe's willing to do that for the
residents thank you sir okay uh yes sir oh I'm sorry oh I'm You get to call no no i'm I'm going to let this gentleman I I did not see her but I'm I will get to her thank you sir okay thank you Pres president uh Harris uh hi I'm Aloc Su uh
good evening everyone uh I was here about a month ago uh on 312 uh regarding the bamboo ordinance and the multiple notices violations that I received and everyone here agreed that I shouldn't
have received those violations they do not apply to me even the the attorney confirmed that and it's all recorded it's all there and now today I received a certified mail uh saying that again it's saying failure to prevent the
spread of bamboo plants to adjoining property so I don't know I mean where all this is coming from at that point I was thinking I'm being targeted now I feel I'm being harassed and I mean where is it going after this i mean if this is going on I'm coming here a few times
next I think I may be retaliated against so I don't No I mean I I hope the council can help me with all this stuff and can take care of it all of us were here that day it's all recorded the the attorney said it uh Mr pointer also clarified everything and it was said
that it's all grandfather so I don't know why I'm being harassed now and again as a resident also I don't think it's a good use of resources and time right i mean I got multiple notice and the thing is the notices I received I received them even before the ordinance
was approved which is very efficient on downship's part because normally you call them and it takes time to get a response back and this time the ordinance hasn't even passed and there's someone I mean two people at my doorstep I mean giving me notices and violations even before it passed so I know last
time I was told it's not targeted but I don't know what it is now so I'll appreciate if you guys can help resolve this issue thank you thank you sir um as you know Mr sud I had sent this I forwarded this to the various people who
might be able to resolve this issue um do we do we know where this stands since I sent out those emails uh today sonia do you have any information uh council president I want to be mindful and respectful of any complaints that we do receive uh which we have in
this instance um the township did not make the complaint i can certainly say that but we did receive a complaint from the outside and I I can't really discuss further unless the attorney um thinks otherwise um now has to go through the
process so what and when I say processor if there's a code violation that means there was there's a pending complaint whether it be brought by the township i'm assuming in this case it's not by the township it's by an individual potentially a neighbor I'm guessing um we aren't a party to that
and we can't really speak on that because that's a pending litigated matter that has to play itself out in municipal court um so I'm certain that the individ as the speaker will have an opportunity to make your case to the judge um and that will be the appropriate forum to explain why you
aren't in violation of any local ordinances but this council can't help you the council said last time even the attorney said last time I'm not in violation it's recorded so why am I You should You should take that if you heard that from somebody you should take that to the judge and say judge I'm not
guilty but why do I have to waste my time on this thing when I'm not even in violation because we didn't bring the charges mr s if this was brought from from outside from a neighbor or whomever then this is this is going to have to go through its its process there's nothing
that we can do until it goes through the process i I understand but the process is back and forth i was council president i was just going to address that i mean if we're not going to allow back and forth for other other people in the room we we have to
at least take this offline i think the important the subject is important but we have to have one not follow the other thank you you're correct okay i guess if Mr so Mr i think in conclusion um unfortunately
it appears that this is going to have to go through the process and that this is not something that was done by the township to target you it sounds like it was done from a ne it was done uh at the best of a neighbor and uh so so this has
to then go through the the due process so um so you can certainly you can ask to have a further offline discussion with our counselor about this um but for now that's all that we can say about it i understand I'm sorry the neighbor but
I'm sorry I'm sorry sir your time is your time is up council person before you call I just want to make the comment that you know this gentleman did come to the last council meeting we had extensive discussion that he's not targeted this notice was incorrect what
was provided to him administration you know corrected that attorney on the d said hey you know you're not target and we all understand however now the someone say that this is a result of the notice that was sent which we all agreed
that it was not sent in uh in an a proper way so my question to attorney here is this is insane this is not a fair treatment to the resident before even the ordinance was passed you know we are talking about the uh summons here what I would say here is either we we
can't have uh the resident go to the court and prove that hey this is what the council and everybody discuss and now the judge has to give the you have to understand his mindset the stress level uh the I would I would not use the word
harassment but this is it's going that route what my ask there is in the question to attorneys if if I make a complaint about my neighbor will you send a summons to him straight that would trigger the war in the civil war
in the township we cannot afford to do that there has to be first notice second notice have them deal with the zoning department or the health department talk to them review the ordinance you know show to the restaurant there has to be some courtesy back and forth in fact the reason I'm talking about this matter is because this happened in the middle of
our ordinance passage yes we do have an old ordinance but again we we were trying to clarify there and now and and and you can probably know you Mr d also know that you know when there was a conversation saying hey zoning officer
didn't stop there and I said I have the video I can share and I did share with the all the council colleagues and that time we said hey you know let's let's not talk about this he's not targeted we have the set process he his his situation is grandfathered probably we
can discuss that more offline but hey he's getting the registered letter I don't know whether that communication did not go back to the health department what happened on this dis or that did not go to the zoning department i don't know who sent the summons that should have happened and the resident doesn't
have to come here and explain you know what he's going through so my ask here is very simple if I complain tomorrow about my neighbor will you send him a summon for something that probably he is not of guilty or there is something
there it's not even a legitimate reason that's my question to you i I don't know i don't I don't run the code department so I can't tell you what code would do in those circumstances okay then that question will be to the if I could clarify so I just want to correct your
statement um so we had the meeting and it was discussed between zoning and health and health um in fact addressed this particular issue after the meeting there was a new complaint and so it is addressing a new complaint uh again I
cannot go into the specifics of a complainant and what they're um saying but if our folks are receiving calls just I'm explaining to you the procedure we do go out and take a look if they're in violation yes a summon or a warning may be issued initially would be a
warning but that is the process now if they're not in violation there's nothing to issue okay i think you know again if if I keep talking about this I'll talk for an hours if the meeting happened and hopefully they all understood the ordinance that was passed by this body
if they would have listened to what attorney said about grandfathering I think he would have received the first warning after that rather than a summons because what he received the first warning was way before even we were talking about this ordinance the
process should have restarted rather than carrying from the prior one and I know where the issue land up about his particular property but this he's not just one you will see hundreds of those complaints and we will that word I use it's a civil war you know people will start complaining about each other and
then we'll say okay send them a summon and let the court decide it's not a way to administer councilman when when this body adopts a policy um it is our responsibility to um execute it and if we are not responsive to that then we
clearly aren't following our own ordinances and that simply what was the procedure that was followed okay if that's the case you know through council person I'm going to send you at least 100 of those complaints which are not grandfathered about the fences about the illegal
construction about many many things and let's see if if you want to send them a summon thank you council president council President um I wasn't a big fan of this ordinance when we were discussing it although I supported the council was in
favor but it's always been uh customary that if you have an issue with your property line whether it's a tree or um bamboo it would be a civil matter to discuss in court so in the fact that we're involved now it um I guess through
the council here as it grows case by case it may be an opportunity that we repeal the entire ordinance and just leave it in the civil uh matter so I mean just it's one more thing our zoning officer is going out there for i mean I don't uh I'm not I do agree with you but
then I don't know your neighbor either and how much they don't like the situation but either way if we weren't involved the civil court would be involved if your bamboo was growing across their backyard into their pool area and causing some type of infrastructure issue it' be a civil
matter so um case by case I hope we have a chance to look at this later but um you know this is one one right now we'll see how it grows thank you Council President all right thank you in the back yes
i'm here to just restate what my friend just said and I'm Tanishka and I'm also a freshman at JP Stevens and um first of all thank you so much for taking action towards endorsing the New Jersey green amendment we really appreciate it and this is really important because our
planet is in trouble and the science are everywhere climate change is speeding up more species are disappearing and toxic forever chemicals are showing up in our water and soil and that's why it's so important for our for us to take the lead and pass the green amendment if we
do we can help protect our environment and now and for our future generations people in 15 other states are also working to pass the green amendment and let's be the state to set the example and show the country what real environmental leadership looks like we
also emailed you the green amendment to um so you can take a look at it thank you so much thank you very much [Applause] okay time good evening Thomas Lucky Netherwood Circle
uh I I noticed a safety issue that at John Adams Middle School apparently you know I guess what you know uh board ad member here maybe you can also take this back uh I guess they put a new gas man it appears like a gas man right at the
curve of uh New Dover Road and uh with the curb not being that high it seemed it it appears it would be very easy for a car to jump the curb go right through it and take out the gas man
spectacular explosion uh kids will be off from school for a while if it happens during you know the school year so I think I think that somebody needs to go back and do a a sight assessment make and put some ballards around that to prevent it from being to from being
being hit by a car or a truck or a vehicle hopping a curb and on a snowy road or what have you i think that that needs to be uh needs to be addressed secondly uh there's a stop sign i don't know who has jurisdiction on Grove Avenue
uh between uh New Dover and Inman Avenue but about 100 ft I want to say to the south of McKinley Avenue for months there's an a mangled uh speed limit sign the post has bent over and it's just a
couple inches off the ground i don't I don't know who who replaces that is it the township's responsibility is it the Is it a county road who needs to take care of that because that stuff like that shouldn't I as a as a resident
shouldn't pick that up the police c uh cruising you know on their rounds uh the different different departments they should they should note that down bring it back and it should be addressed it should i've been know I've been holding
off speaking about this only because I wanted to see if it would get attention but apparently it doesn't [Music] lastly yesterday around 10:00 in the morning I was coming down Church Hill Road which is right across from the uh
Inman driving range car in front of me didn't even stop pulled right out onto Inman made a left on Inman across the traffic and all there was a police cruiser parked in the uh parking lot of
the uh Inman driving range facing toward in towards Inman Avenue nothing happened we we need to get a grasp on all these violations like I said many times before you know red lights are
just a suggestion uh I I've talked with you know the deputy uh chief he said "We can't be everywhere at every all the time." And I agreed with him but this was a this was a prime example there was a police cruiser there and the guy and
the person just all disregard pulled out in front of somebody just to be able to get get down Inman Avenue towards Grove which I eventually came out and I was behind him at the light so we we need to step up our police presence you know or
what we need to do is we need to say okay let's save some money on our municipal budget and only go and only drive around when we when we get calls because the and save some money on fuel costs being a little sarcastic but we need to start picking up our police
presence and making sure that offenders get taken you know held their hands feet to the fire thank you thank you uh with regard to the mangled traffic sign was that is that a department of transportation issue
oh we'll certainly take a look at that if that's um engineering or traffic division i would have to look at the actual intersection see what's going on there okay all right thank you okay um President yes uh I do agree with what the previous speakers just said that I
believe we should work as a cohesive unit to capture all these violations rather than individual departments saying hey this is not my responsibility this is not my responsibility I'm pretty sure someone has driven on that road and someone has seen that traffic sign or
whatever the violation may be and if we can all be vigilant and all say hey you know what if we all take little bit one there's There's a saying in India where if everyone picks up one rock you know the road will be cleaner so if there is something that each one of us can do
especially if we're doing our work throughout the town this is the town's work so I think that is something we should maybe implement as a policy i'm not sure where that would start but I do agree with what he said that maybe we should all work as a cohesive unit thank
you okay very good yes sir council President did we get the exact address of the stop sign that is down yes um and so we can just have DPW if you can provide if you can provide that i I have the intersection grove Inman and um New
Dover not that he not that he's not aware of it but our our system has the Q alert q alert correct over a thousand complaints last year i'd certainly recommend that if there are any uh infractions that are you know dealing
with public works for instance or roads uh using the Q alert it's in it's on the front face of the website um or email the administration certainly we want to make sure we take care of something like that thank you yes sir um I I don't I wanted to know why why
you had the high school girl give her a dress i mean there's kids here i don't think you know they should be able to you know they should have to give their address you know maybe he should say like "Oh you don't have to give your address but you guys always want it." Um
that's the same reason he doesn't like to give his name i don't like to give my address i have three kids at home uh people might retaliate people might want to follow her home who knows you know what I mean so I'm here tonight to call out the absolute going down in this council let's start off with the
disgraceful incident involving Cristo and the business administrator she didn't just file a false police report she lied under oath and what did the do you covered it up you dumped over $100,000 of taxpayer money to try and silence Kristo and keep him out of these
meetings all plan behind closed doors like a shady gutless like the shady gutless cowards you are thinking no one would find out but we did shame on you Harris just like Nish Patel you'll never be forgiven for betraying the very principles this
country has uh this country's built on and Brasher Patel you sat there in silence and uh didn't say anything while while the first amendment was getting dragged through the mud that makes you complicit you saw it you know what happened what's the saying see something
say something so here's your moment speak up you watched as your blue line gang was called to remove me multiple times for simply trying to play the meeting minutes or read a public report i tried to respect I tried to be
uh being respectful i reached out to Harriser and even Patel and guess what none of you guys none exactly crickets none of you guys reached out don't care about free speech when I was kicked out Margot you didn't even walk uh walk out the the
meeting like you usually do out the front door you you walked out the back with some escape route like a darn coward h the real kicker is your relentless uh pathetic war on free speech you ban the American flag and the
constitution from these meetings seriously Joe how the can you even say justify that that didn't happen people were dragged out for holding symbols of a democracy um and he sat there like spineless yes
littleman um are we getting that first amendment attorney joe you're going to apologize was the flag banned was the Constitution banned was masks banned was I banned from speaking was
I Was my First Amendment rights violated here in these chambers for talking about an incident that happened right over there i think so i think members of the public would agree to that as well but none of you guys can really seem to figure that
out it's okay to talk about things that happen [Music] here but I I'm not allowed so if I played the minutes of the meeting or read the minutes of the meeting I would be kicked out for that that's
crazy that's insane so the next meeting watch out joel council president yes like to comment sure um we've been doing this
for um oh I don't know 3 years now um I do believe rights have been violated in this council chamber over and over um unfortunately it's not what we're getting from legal is
that it's not okay um I tend to I I agree with the speakers okay I'm one person here i'm not allowed to speak when they go to bring you out i'm only allowed to speak at certain times
if you make a comment I can speak i can make a comment at the end of the meeting i can speak if there's a resolution I can speak otherwise I myself am out of order um I'm not council president so council president is ultimately the one
that decides who leaves and who goes and who stays and it's strictly up to her um I know that there have been um what do we call those torque claims um of which to be quite honest with you a
torque claim to me means that you're going to tell me that you are potentially going to sue me one day i'll be honest with you if my vi rights were violated like your rights were all violated and everybody was in here I personally would have sued
probably two years ago because I wouldn't just file a torque claim when when I was when I had colleagues that were trying to silence me i told them that I would sue them and you got understand it's not an animosity to sue someone it's just a disagreement
of ideas right to me like it's not a threat when you say you're going to sue someone you have a disagreement of ideas and it's the way that in the civil society you settle those things so you sue you go to court some judge um makes
a decision and if you don't like it you can appeal it um it's it's really a pretty good system overall i wish people would use it more instead of taking it as a threat because I I don't look at it as a threat and I myself have been sued and it's pain in the neck when I got to
hire an attorney um I prefer to go in myself and well I go in myself and I lose um sometimes because I'm not an attorney and don't know the right time to put evidence in but seeing Christo um someone that has no legal experience whatsoever
um he keeps on being successful so you know I guess there is opportunity for just a regular working man to uh you know be able to be a success at this um I'm sorry if you you were cut off i mean I apologize that on behalf of the
council um but like I said I'm just one person here um I think if you we had a different administration things would be different you can you can tell different towns treat things differently thank you yes sir good evening council members um myself
Thirupati i'm from Calvert Avenue F Calvert Avenue i'm representing Parag Amal and Abhishek so part um so we uh are representing one of the issues there first I would like to thank you u
Mr partil uh he's putting a lot of effort behind this to uh come to some resolution it is one of the uh I think agenda topics that he would like to present i just saw that thank you very much and um our concern is it is the uh
I'm talking about the grow Calvat Avenue there is a sjun junction there were multiple accidents which is a public safety issue uh which we would like to address at the same time also need to consider the neighbors so what's the
problems that we have so the there was a uh there was a traffic study was conducted in I think 2024 and what was the traffic study result and we nobody knows and then again the there was a re order of that
traffic study and why that new order is u submitted why what is the result of it don't know and is there any bias in the uh uh like the traffic study which was conducted four and so there were no
outcomes the especially the based on some understanding like based on gossip gossips or whatever it is came out understood that like there is leaning towards to the traffic signal that's causing some problem or maybe the
speeding signal so there are multiple issues so to address this we as a neighbors have some of the issues like if we install a traffic lights or some of the solution because of the cross junction there could be a driveway
blocks and how we are addressing those and there could be the JFK hospital is within just like a half a mile of it on the grow avenue is the first road that is addressing that uh
ambulances and if we put a traffic signal how much is the problem going to cause for the safety issues the people ambulance is not reaching on the time what kind of problem it has and so these these kind of issues are these considered as part of the traffic report
or not and if you see I think the recent traffic report says about the accident during the school hours but there were none in recent because the during a school hours there is a traffic like crossguard um like deputed there and she's taking
care of that and there were no accident but like the most of the accident happens non like you know the school hours so how those are addressed so again I really thank uh Mr uh Adil um
about taking care of this uh issue and addressing and we would really wanted to consider all our inputs also the neighbors inputs on this like what is the resolution and how this is impacting and what kind of the solutions that we
are providing example like our opposite house uh she's like almost like a 95 year old and husband is also like if there is some emergency situation and ambulance has to come and take it and if the like roads are blocked with the
signals and all how those will be addressed so these are the things that I would like to bring into topic once again thank you very much for this opportunity to speak thank you sir council president yes
Councilman Brer is is there a way that you could um form a committee right this has been an area Council Patil's been talking about this forever i mean it's just amazing i I don't know how many more times we can talk about it to be quite honest with
you i read the traffic study okay there are options but if there was a committee and the committee also had residents on that committee that they could look at that traffic study and then make a recommendation overall for what the
community there is is looking for because it's going to affect your property if you put a light right they're going to encroach they're going to make it bigger you're going to lose property you're going to feel like you live in a commercial industrial zone if you're one of the people right around it um but there were other options in that
traffic study um there you you could always close off the one part of Calvert if you closed off the one I don't know if it's east or west um the one going towards Stevenville if you close that off those people are just using that as a cut through okay to avoid going down
Oak Tree Road or coming back around the back way but they could then that traffic would be diverted and they could make a left or right and it's a safe junction right so so I believe that was even one of the um options in that traffic study so by having the residents
put into I mean we'd all like it safer i know council tier would just like it safer overall for all of us but you're taking into account the residents that work with them also um do you think you could form a committee and then they could make a recommendation and say to
the administration you know we don't want a light we want a closed road or or whatever that outcome might be is there not already a process in place going forward with this in in the aftermath of this traffic study yes I didn't want to
interrupt uh Councilman Brusher so um I did receive the emails and I explained to the residents and uh having received their petition that our engineering department is putting together a letter that's going to go going to go out to the residents we'll get their input um so that is the formal process that we're
going to be uh that is in place and we're implementing and so we're just in in those moments of drafting a letter to the res to the affected residents okay okay thank you i mean I I I guess it works i I it scares me when we say
we're going to send it to the engineer because an engineer overall I haven't met an engineer yet that wouldn't recommend a traffic light um but there were other alternatives that was in that traffic study um that to me were probably more viable and something that
the community would prefer so that that's my only concern that will but those alternatives will also be addressed with the residents that it would be involved am I correct yes okay okay president very good yes i I think I
I I support the councilman and his committee ideas however I think he could take a praw poll without having to have a committee meeting and it would still be brought to the administration's attention and it would still have to go through the
public safety process so it's unavoidable that even if this chamber had a committee and we sat down as residents and electeds not public safety officials or engineers we could agree some yes someday and it would still have
to go through this process so I'm not uh trying to avoid or not support the councilman's idea but it's just another layer of meetings that just are unnecessary i think they're looks like they're getting on it right now and I'm quite certain that council members will put pressure on them is is what our job
is and uh we'll see what happens from there thank you Council President council President hey I'd like to just comment on that um the difference between myself and my council colleague let's just get that i would meet with you i would find out what you were
looking for i would then take that to the administration ask them to do it that's not what happens here in Edison pay attention we had Jackson Avenue the people were complaining the administration came up and said "We're going to make the road wider we're going to move the tractor
trailers closer to your home so they could drive faster down your street." It was almost passed in this body except that I stood up and I asked how many council people went down there and talked to the residents so we held it off for a little bit i went down and
talked to 20 residents there's only like 23 95% of them didn't want to do the plan of the administration okay and when the administration got that back then they did stop but that we should never have went that far you know that's what I'm
saying you should be part of the solution it is not just government doing what government wants and that's where myself and my colleague differ you know he would just allow the administration to do whatever they please and at the end of the day you're going to come up
here complaining um like we heard about the bamboo you know I mean and and that's later on let's nip it in the bud do it now and and that's where myself my council colleague differ but um thank you Council President okay i I applaud
his efforts but if he needs an excuse to have a committee to meet with a resident then he can have one and I'll help you with that after the meeting and as far as the Jackson Avenue we didn't have the votes to pass it four of us were against it from the get-go so it's a poor
example but if he wants to you know talk he's welcome to he has great opinion one of the smartest guys some people know and um hey I can meet with you tomorrow if you'd like i don't need a committee feel free to reach out to the clerk's office and we'll make an appointment council yes i just want to say through
if you can wait after the meeting I would like to speak to you oh fine thank you all right thank you let's moving on uh Joel you're going to get yelled i didn't say the mayor's here joel Bassoff 17 Beach Lane have a question about Edison's
affordable housing obligation can you go into the microphone again Joel please i have a question about Ed Edison's affordable housing obligation and how we're planning to meet it and maybe I can get some answers without uh provoking any insults from anyone uh so I I'd like to know
I'd like to know what Edison is doing uh so the Department of Community Affairs assigned to Edison a prospective obligation of 727 units which means at a 20% set aside uh we're looking at at least
3,635 new units now on the January agenda there was a resolution where Edison calculated its prospective obligation at 682 units it was a reduction of 45 units but that
resolution was never adopted so now it looks like Edison just is not responding to the obligations of the amendments to the Fair Housing Act so I I'd like to know what if anything Edison is doing to
reduce its Fair Housing obligation to a reasonable number if the answer is we're not doing anything we're just going to see what happens when there's a Builder's Remedy lawsuit okay that's the answer i think it's unacceptable to the public uh if we are doing something uh
the public has a right to know just what it is that Edison is doing to deal with this fair housing obligation such as other municipalities have done i'd also note that the amendment to the Fair Housing Act set a deadline of the end of
June for municipalities to adjust their zoning ordinances to provide for the locations for the affordable housing where does Edison stand with that okay i have a another question uh regarding the
mayor's trip to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention uh we were told that he acknowledged that that was not an official use of uh police personnel he brought four police officers with him uh that that was not
proper and he pledged to reimburse the the township uh ostensibly the money was coming from campaign funds so clearly it looks like the the trip was a a a political trip and that the presence of the police was not a legitimate security
detail so will the council be uh well first of all has the council received verification that reimbursement in full has been made has documentation been presented to the council on that and will the council be
investigating our public safety director's misuse of police resources for what are personal or political trips i also have to ask
about the Edison Illuminator uh the last illuminator uh well the question is really can anyone think that this is not a political brochure that was sent out at public expense this does not glorify the township of Edison this just
glorifies the mayor uh so that he can have a photo op with political celebrities uh I don't think anyone and I hope no one on the council would consider this a legitimate use of taxpayers money this does not promote anything about the township of Edison or
what's happening in Edison and finally uh my question uh is pertaining to the conservation easement for 110 uh Clive Street uh is it the intention of the council for to approve
the ordinance for the township to acquire that easement are we just delaying it or is the township now backing off on acquiring a conservation easement for what's known as the pond house thank you uh let's start with the affordable housing status counselor can
you Yeah um I'm you know the last time I I addressed this issue of Mr ass off um you know I was accused of being rude to you sir um because I said that you were
lying and and the reason why I said that you were lying and I'm sorry if this offends you is that you and I like I took time to meet with you so that we could go through this 15 seconds on a buffet line sir okay sir you're out of order okay
all right are you done okay i just want to Are you Are you done accusing me of lying sir you need to sit down you need to sit down please sit down okay but please sit down no please sit down thank you thank you Council President so yes
um I was accused of being rude because I said that you had lied Joel um because I had met with you and we were at the mayor's uh state of the state of the township you had asked me about the issue i had detailed the
uh the strategy that we were using to uh fight uh the affordable housing number that had been set by DCA um it's the as I said to you then as I said at the last meeting as I'll say again the administration believes that the number
that was put out with DCA is far exceeds what is possible with regards to developable land and the affordable housing number that was set by DCA it is not a reasonable number it is not a realistic number and we believe that the
best way to to challenge that number is through the the prior process uh we have immunities through June um and then we will file a instead of filing a number and then a plan we will file a comprehensive action to continue to have
uh the immunity that we have currently so you know this because we talked about it and I mentioned it the last meeting i I'm surprised because it sounded as if you hadn't heard what I said last time when you got up today maybe maybe you missed it i I'll hold out to hold the possibility
that's the case but uh we do have immunity we are not subject to a builder's remedy lawsuit and this administration will continue to challenge the numbers set by DCA as being unreasonable um and that's the position of the township when it comes to the affordable housing number set by DCA the administration does not want to
be dictated to by the state when it comes to an affordable housing obligation we want something that makes sense that's what I said last meeting that's what I'll say again thank you thank you Council President can I ask the attorney a question about this sure lou just confusing so so the state originally said that we had 700 units
right something to that effect and then I was told by your firm that we were going in at like 640 or whatever it was it was less um and it's 600 so I know it was it was less and then we ended up pulling it um is the intention
to make it a lot less a little bit less or let me ask you this and here's my question um right now we can't get sued by a builder for builder's remedy that would be correct right correct yes but if we passed that Mhm then we
could like if we would have passed it that night yes then the builders could come in at this point then and then sue us they could challenge our number right yes right so what I'm looking at is
there's an election let's push it off till June and then in June you're going to find out where the administration is going to be building these 600 or 700 units um which might be conglomeration of the um who knows golf course we don't
know yet um but let's not bring it up during the election time just simply the timeline how it lays out you just have to see how it's played out but that is your answer thank you he also asked about the mayor's trip to Chicago
um with regard to legitimate security detail is there a proof of the reimbursement uh and uh is this a misuse of resources can somebody speak to this is anyone No one from the administration was I'll tell you I mean I'll tell you
I've spoken to people throughout the state um everybody thought it was wrong i spoke to judges they all thought it was wrong um his election fund doesn't show him paying it back to the town which has to now question whether we got
legitimate documents from the administration um without the attorney general looking into something like this and having them come in to actually do it um on the onset yes it looks like it's a cover up and the funds weren't paid back um not
unless somebody that's neutral can come in there in fact I would ask that the GIF come in and look because the GIF would probably be part and parcel of a lawsuit moving forward so our attorney should probably ask the GIF to actually look into all the evidence that would be it council
President Um and then 110 Clive I I think I think Mr bass off that that is uh self-explanatory that it that we are looking this this is about the whole
conservation aspect of things and we and we just so this this this is going forward but we just need to get all the all these um all these uh issues with the conservation aspect in place so this
is going forward it's not I've been wondering I originally had that on my discussion points i've been wondering too as you know you and I both are like blocks just a block away from there and this this uh it seemed like this was two years ago I believe that uh that this
was approved to go to this developer and uh it continues to grow and overgrow and uh have litter and all of that so I'm as anxious as you are to see this move forward so thank you um next Liz
council president just a point of order um would would our counselor be coming back cuz some of us might need to take a break and that would break up the quorum i believe he is I I believe he's in he's been back there for quite some time okay well he came out and left again he came
out and left he left m then can we take a break in the meeting so we so we can go to the restroom can one two if he can't get if he can't get him back I I I I understand
sir I I understand um Marina can you can you do me a favor and just check to see if he's in there and coming back thank you thank you very much yes Liz uh Elizabeth Conway 20 Netherwood circle um I know the weather
has been uh not very cooperative this spring but I was wondering uh if there's an update on the pavement at the North Edison baseball and softball parking lot i haven't had a chance to go in there yet but I did bring it up last year and
was hoping that it would have been done this year but I don't know what the status was so that's the first item the second item is uh I've been hearing really great things about the Mr fix it program in town and somebody had asked
um they knew Mr to fix it wouldn't do it but they wanted to know if there was any kind of programs in town for seniors that need help with sidewalk repair and I didn't have an answer so I figured I would ask
tonight and the third one is uh made me sit down before but I just wanted to bring it up and I thank you for making me sit down because I was a little upset when I got up the first time so uh now I'm a little more calm and my concern was
uh when the lawyer had responded to Mr brusher regarding why the two council people weren't here they had asked that they couldn't make this meeting could uh those items be postponed and it was agreed upon but I
think back to a time not too long ago when there was another item on the dis where you personally had asked if something could be postponed because you had a prior uh engagement now you know I
don't care if it's you or Mr patil or anyone at that point but if it's not allowed for one person that being an excuse I don't think it should be for anyone the agenda should have been
adjusted before it was um put on paper so um just understanding that I guess that was what got me one time it was okay to postpone and another time it wasn't so I if that's the case then just
uh rearrange your agenda accordingly and if I could just get uh the answer and he's smiling um I'd rather see a smile than a smirk okay any more questions no okay all right so I can tell you that the North Edison baseball parking lot that has the
the parking lot it's not repaid but it's been patched it has been patched over it has been that all the the all of the potholes have been have been repaired all right i don't know do you know um Sonia where it stands in terms of uh
being on the list for repaving um I believe that may be a next year item okay yeah i I was there for the opening on April 9th I think it was and it's it's much better than it had been um the what was your second item i the
second item oh oh yeah oh the the M yes the Mr uh is there a Mr fix It kind of thing for side for sidewalk repair uh there is not but I can certainly take
that idea to the administration okay all right very good um and I don't know if it was a qu I'm not sure if it was a question with regard to uh postpone postponing or or tableabling uh one thing not a question just a comment okay
thank you all right uh anyone else on this side joe joe Romano Edison New Jersey i'm also a board of ed member so proud of the young ladies that were here uh they actually heard something about
it's we the people it's not you the people it's not us the people it's all of us the people they really care about the environment number two uh Councilman is missing but uh I'm
quite sure he'll hear about it uh the plastic fields I 100% agree with them in fact we got a red baseball field and a couple other
fields fact of the matter is I actually in 2007 if you wanted to go back and check when the county wanted to take the fields over uh but they would get to use it and I
said no they said we would you know put they would actually put plastic fields in and we said no uh but when I when I wasn't on the board they put plastic fields in it's all
right uh number two uh you know I've heard a lot about traffic and stuff and uh I wish people would learn how to drive i mean that's basically what it is and you know those those signs that are
octagon I mean you know that's that's stop sign you didn't know uh number two like you know like when there's two lines in the road that means you can't pass that means that you can't pass on the right
on the curb but you can't pass on the other side either so uh I I don't know what I really honest I don't know what the police department can do about that you know i really I really don't know
because if you if you knew about the yellow lines and the octagon sign and the triangle side I mean but you you can drive a lease car and wreck it I guess
uh I I also heard people talk about uh Honestly I think we just have to remember something it's we the people and to be perfectly honest at the end of the
day we all have to talk together now sir I promise you I will find out what happened in front of John Adams school i will promise you that you You see I wish we can just
talk that's our problem just be able to talk to one another and the plastic fields you could actually plant grass and it would be a nicer
process but guess what we have people on the other side too they want this or they want that or want the other all of you remember this it's we the
people it's the people from the board of ed that give their time up to make sure that it's run well it's people that work in the township or sit on a deis you give up
your time people don't realize that it's we the people it's us it's just not this or that or the other thank you thank you thank you okay joyce Jury Ship Freeman Edison New
Jersey um some of these people was complaining about getting thrown out of the meeting because they brought a flag or they talk i got thrown out for less i asked for clarification i got thrown out so y'all take it as an honor to be thrown out for at least doing something
now um I was thinking about it you know our greatest generation Red Ellis and other people who fought hard for us to have freedom of speech not to have our time taken away not to be destroyed not
to always cut short i you know I never wanted to be an authoritarian government never wanted to be in that because I think that that doesn't give people true democracy is very is very sinful and as I spoke as I I listened to the young
women back there from JP Stevens it makes me think of Jane Townsman see everybody up here gets paid top dollar when I came to council meetings they might have made $600 or whatever but they were great citizens
and great council people and they they weren't bobbleheads you had an opportunity to talk to them and change their mind they just didn't come out and say "Oh oh okay we're all going to go with this we're all going to go with this." All right you had a a lot of lot
of lot of good things you had with them all right and then very sadly but I think that with bonding with putting us in this huge debt huge debt okay because maybe everybody else is okay because
maybe they got the extra money to play and I know the township people y'all you make great money so maybe you're okay with that okay and the problem that bothers me is that some of them have processing problems because because I'm
saying something about something in particular why you taking it personal okay why you taking it personal you're making extra money you're making overtime but guess what we not we're not making all the extra money and that's why I say at all that they should put a
law in the state of New Jersey that before you can get cool gobs of money in your town and take care of y'all little bosses and stuff you should have to put it through a referendum like the school does if you had to put stuff through a referendum we would have had the water
by now we would have had the water first instead of all the little party stuff if we would have had it first because everybody in this town would have voted for that so we need to change government so that we can do it the right way because people sitting up spending other
people's money eh it's not a good it's not a good look for us okay because we you supposed to be the shepherds of the money every time I turn around I'm looking at the paper oh my god they're getting ready to raise some more taxes on us they're going to the state and say "Come on let's spend let's spend let's
spend." Okay because we make a good a lot of money okay you can do a thousand senior grants but you can't stay here if you can't afford the um you can't afford the uh taxes you can't stay here so do all the grants you want everybody got to leave
because they won't be able to enjoy anything and number three I would just like to know that on the third floor I think it's disgusting that our young people are not their their art is not being displayed
and last but not least I wanted to ask a question is our administrative assistant who makes over $100,000 being uh getting her college tuition paid you know and then I wonder is the mayor getting his college tuition paid like who's paying all these
people's tuition i'm just curious all right and I'm very involved with the state the commission so if you want to tell me a story what I learned back in the day and Bob deal to tell you you know the answer to the question before you answer it thank you before you ask
it thank you okay anyone else anthony Anthony Damron um wy a um first of all the these meetings um the the no back and forth is these are like these are radical policies they really are and
what I'll say is over the last three and a half years this council has lost patriots of this town that have been coming to these meetings for years decades some of them that don't come here anymore so it's it's not because
they disagree with you it's because of the way the council meetings are run these we're going we're coming to a point where pretty soon this podium you don't need them anymore you're just going to have to write your questions down submit it and you guys will answer it so it's to me it's we're going the we're going the opposite way and um it's
it's really quite sad uh let me move on you know I was I drove I drove down i happened to be uh in the area i I went past the Jetsfield i don't know if any of you guys have been down there but I don't know how the mayor could sit and tell parents and tell the tell
residents of this town that this facility is going to be ready by August have you It is It is nowhere near completion this the the side of it is not It's not even fully The sides are not even fully connected i'm not I'm not a construction expert i am not but there
is no way that this project all right first of all he originally said it was going to be $5 million i was just looking at the article when I was sitting down the original article uh when he was when it first uh came out that they were going to do the new Jets field $5 million you think I mean I I
don't know where that number came from there is no way that that number was a legitimate number it's it almost kind of seems like he just threw the number out there just to build some support and then threw a bunch of change orders later on that's where we're at but this this this facility is no way
going to be completed in August or by the fall and if it is it'll be a damn miracle it looks like it was just started in December that's that's what it looks like if you told me it was started in December I would say "Hey you guys are in good shape right now." But it is it's it's sad and you know what then
I look at Stelton now Stelton if you want to make a compare just for comparison reasons all right um Cranford did the same thing for their rec center all right their rec center which you could play baseball lacrosse
uh softball uh tennis all these different sports they renovated theirs for $3.2 million that's it and it was done in relatively I think a short amount of time i think it was about a year they it took them to do that 3.2 $.2 million they had one change order
one change order so I don't know what the problem here is i I don't I I just I think there's and and speaking of liars I think honestly if there's any liar in in this whole this whole conversation it'd be the mayor to be quite honest
with you because he's he's deceiving parents and the poor and regarding the Jets field back to the Jetsfield he promised parents that it will be ready by I believe 2020 uh22 whatever it was 22 that's what he thought it was those parents their children are not even going to be able to use the
facility it's that's it's just it's it's quite amazing and and you know I hear all this back and forth all this other stuff the these are real problems did you drive to that Jets field there was I think three people working when I when I was there and the parking the parking where are these people going to if you once you build the facility and if you
want all this the facility to generate revenue where are you putting everybody where are they going to fit the parking the parking the parking lot there is a disaster i'm sure they're going to be repaved but it's it's it's tiny it's not going to host you're not going to be able to hold that type of volume for the type of events that you probably want to
have there so um that's all I have but uh I do want to wish everybody a happy Easter on on a light note so enjoy your Easter and uh thank you Council President thank you and Passover yes happy Passover as well thank you all right anyone else from the
public okay can I get a motion to Oh sorry Russ russ Azerella Skyler Drive Edison uh pertaining to uh safety concerns and safety issues uh Councilman Brusher had made a good point about having uh
volunteers or Edison residents in in certain areas that are affected with high traffic and high accidents to be involved and to offer their input and their suggestions we do live in certain towns or certain parts of the town we do
work in parts of the town or the whole town so who's better qualified than the residents that live there that work there that could add positive input and suggestions so that also pertains to uh
with traffic that pertains to accidents that pertains to uh uh and anything pertaining to what's in that area that people could bring bring up to a council member that could then bring it to the council meeting so number uh the second
thing I like to say is we need to go back from four minutes to six minutes edison is growing the high traffic high high population we're encouraging businesses we're encouraging multi-units there's a lot going on four minutes is
is not enough time to speak you know not everybody's going to use the six minutes they're going to use three four five but they should have that option uh I I also the last meeting I brought up several questions towards the end of the meeting uh I don't need the answer now you can
give it to me later after my four minutes is up uh pertaining to Stelton Community Center Stelton building on uh Planefield Avenue which uh I'm curious why would you pave and fix the the driveway and parking lot and also the
sidewalk before you do anything to the building my op in my free opinion it would have been cheaper to knock the building down and start start over and and work work out fix the building inside and out then the parking lot than the sidewalk unless the sidewalk was a
safety hazard uh the Edison Jets um all four of the kids uh I've coached four sons in Edison boys baseball popcorn football uh when I moved here I we played on whatever field whatever the condition of the field was which was
pretty good because of the uh volunteer hours and whatever the township also contributed but uh you know I'm I'm all I'm all in favor but when you go from five $6 million budget and and you're
exceeding it by another five six million that there's something wrong we we need oversight and and there needs to be somebody held accountable for this for the uh extra expense uh what when is the uh the facility or central avenue
facility going to be completed what about the toe building the toe facility on ID road uh there's there's there's a a lot of lot of uh other projects that have haven't been completed or haven't even been started yet uh when will you
know I I did uh question uh about so the uh tote building the the senior center the uh uh central avenue you know if they if I could get some answers after my speaking time also the uh the
veterans uh uh memorial on on Stony Road and Route 27 i believe there was a a matching grant to uh fix up that that center the uh the veteran center and this this uh May we're going to have a Memorial Day celebration at the at the
at that location that that you do have every year when is the project going to be started will it be completed by uh by Memorial Day uh that's about it thank you thank you Russ um all right let's see if we can get to the questions
um the question was about the Stelton building why was a sidewalk repair parking lot before rehabbing the building i don't know anything about construction so uh do you have any insight on this uh I think you mentioned safety concerns and exactly what they
were we were addressing any safety concerns okay all right uh and then grouped together here to senior center and vet memorial the veterans memorial grant um asking about uh essentially
when these will be uh these will be done or these will be implemented so we just received the final report for the toast center so we're are our engineers reviewing it for next steps okay uh and the vet the veterans
memorial grant do you know anything about that if you could just clarify that um I I I think I think Thank you you So Russ I think you'll have to just ask that uh offline when the meeting ends okay all right thank you sir all right any other
questions from the or comments motion to close the public portion second second okay um all is that's an all in favor right all in favor all right okay very good um from the
council member to the planning board uh is that's you yeah John oh oh it's Wait John is back oh that's that's right i'm sorry um all right moving to the uh council committee reports um starting
with you Councilman Coyle thank you Council President um we have a finance committee meeting coming up shortly and a public safety meeting uh we're report uh when they're completed thank you okay yeah yeah yeah excuse me gentlemen
joe Tom Joe and Tom thank you um okay moving to Councilman Patel um we had a open space meeting on April 3rd at the council chambers uh we discussed Stevenville Parkway uh in the next steps
to get the bike paths and hopefully once we have a preliminary we would like to set up a meeting with the local residents to see their take their inputs uh another topic of discussion was Fairmont and Oak Tree Road uh there's a plot of land that the open space is
discussing as to what to do with it couple ideas being thrown around are Batman chest tables uh which could also be used for carum uh and benches and again once we have a fixed date we're hoping to have a a meet and greet with
the residents and I was hoping I'll discuss this during the discussion items to have the administration send out communications to the local residents to get set up that meeting so that we can have a a brainstorm to figure out exactly what the residents are looking
for to be built in that area and that was that be it for me thank you thank you councilman Patiel thank you councelor President you know I will be brief but let me start with the first one the calver grow traffic study report the next steps this almost like two plus
years and I'm still counting I know the the first step was the traffic unit did the study uh the recommendations were implemented like the bigger stop sign uh zebra crossing many things were done you know small small things and as also
this council supported 25 mph uh speed restriction that side then that didn't really help it did help but not it didn't resolve the the situation then we did the third party traffic study which took close to 6 months uh there are
several recommendations you know there are various residents are discussing internally what best fits for them and I think it was a good idea uh by the council colleague to have some sort of a committee that will encompass council as
well as the residents in that neighborhood that would really drive the discussion and come back with the recommendation what I hate to see this is again going back to engineering department again they already the study clearly recommends putting the
uh lights there which is not preferable for you know many residents there so again we are going through the same hub there sending the information or maybe letter to the residents you know I don't know how many of them will really read it how many of them will really respond it it would have been a nice if we can
had that subcommittee who would reach out to the residents in that neighborhood neighborhood take their feedback and bring that report back to the administration and take the further steps but again I will let the administration drive the way you want uh but hopefully we will have some sort of
a I would say the output from your effort in a month or so so that would uh help because we can't keep waiting for another 6 months for more accidents to happen there uh my next thing was on the sage architect i think you know we we
went to the closed door session i'm not going to talk about the litigation but we were supposed to come back with some sort of information is this a committee comm these are committee reports oh there's no committee reporting okay all right all
right um All right um as for myself uh animal shelter report this was from March there were 11 dog adoptions 20 cat adoptions four dog redemptions one cat redemption current cats uh this was
again as of March 16 current dog 17 there was a love by the pound event done I think it was last Friday through last Monday so that the people who wanted to adopt would pay the the amount that the the animal weighed uh and there were
several adoptions i think there were at least two dog adoptions and might have been two somewhere between two and four all the puppies are are now adopted and um there was at least one cat adoption so that was a a very successful event cultural Arts Commission um was on April
8th last week and um so we are looking for the reappointment appointment or reappointment for terms that are ending that ended on um March 13th um and uh let's see looking at Oak Tree and
Planefield Road and Tomage Road and Route 27 and Wood Avenue and Evergreen and Roosevelt Park for mural these are addresses that we're looking at to put some murals uh we need the specific address for the mayor to contact the businesses and more places to present to
the mayor as soon as possible for art on PSEG boxes uh Kathleen Carluchi spoke to Michelle Sudakar who's on the committee and commission and uh they Pat Coyle directed this to I think directed this
to you Sonia um and did Sonia did you get a call uh about the PSEG boxes about the uh about the trying to secure them for painting uh I don't believe I got a call but I can certainly check my emails okay all
right yeah then then we need to we need to get that going um the jazz event the jazz festival which we had agreed finally on September 6 and it's a firm date i just found out today that whereas it was supposed to be held at the senior
center and that would have been a really good location for it it's not available on September 6 so I believe we're still on for September 6 we now have to find an alternative venue so that just kind of puts a crimp in things um let's see
um finally uh f oh so Edison Arts Society I had proposed to the commission about the possibility of using the gallery which is not always used there are not always uh people who are applying for it and for the time being
since they are no longer allowed to display on the third floor if we could maybe have them use the gallery for a a period of time some discussion went on back and forth about um how the the gallery is supposed to be used and we do
only want Edison residents Edison residents uh to be to be displaying there um there was some discussion about do would we have would we have art exhibits that would that would have to do with Edison or can they just be
Edison residents who are submitting the art and so that's to be continued i I I do have to say that I I agree with those who have commented about the way the third floor is being used um and the
mayor has the purview to decide what goes there for myself I think it's really a shame that the Edison Arts Society was so unceremoniously taken out of of there it was a great space for them and I'm hoping that there's some
reconsideration the the other places if not the gallery would be li the the libraries i need to speak to Alan Klyman about that the director of the library but um but uh I I think right now the Edison art the Edison Arts Society is
homeless and that should not be and I would really like to see something go forward so that they have a home again preferably back preferably back on the third floor um the uh there's also some talk about uh meeting with the Edison
the East Brunswick Symposium jp Stevens music teachers are involved with them so we will ask them to be a part of ours um I I think um this uh woman Cheryl from the May will be invited to our next
meeting which is May 6 uh June's ex ex the June exhibit in the gallery will be in interactive EMS display um we're also looking to see if we can get a 501c3s and in order to be able to apply
for a raffle license for fundraising um and so as I said the next meeting is May 6th um Councilman Brusher did you have any any committee reports um yes we had the
um the library I didn't make it to um I don't know what's going on there they've changed the logo doing a couple things I guess but had a veterans meeting but we're waiting on the administration uh we met with the um we met with Sonia and
um Bob Deal um we had a bunch of items we were looking to get done for the memorial um they were going to review it and get back to us um we really haven't heard
anything i know that that Sonia just emailed back saying that she would check with DPW i would I would hope that well before the next meeting right that we would have a full report
um because I don't want to go through whatever the items are and then explain to the veterans how it's been a couple weeks kind of thing so if we can just get that report maybe within the next well before the next meeting by midweek next week um
DPW should be able to tell you what he can do and what he can't um so if we can just get that I'd appreciate it thank you very good moving on to points of light anyone have points of light um I would like to wish everybody a
happy Passover um a happy Easter and uh for those who celebrated Eid I hope you had a blessed Eid um so now discussion items all right Council Oh he's not now he's not here i was going to let him continue uh Councilman Brer the
discussion items um okay i'll I I know it's like 400 items here but I'm going to I'll try and get through some of them um oh okay the COA I I'm going to come back to that at a separate time
um because I received these documents i was looking at them i just don't understand how somebody can afford afford this and it's going to go into our core requirements um the the the low income where we end up giving money to help
people purchase homes um seeing what we're allowed to give is just I I have some questions i'll I'll send that over to uh Sonia and you get me those answers but I just got that so thank you um veterans right we talked about that
um oh Grove and Newover uh we have a a sign um from one of our veterans uh Mr rick and the sign was run over and people told me they called to have the
sign put back up um but it's been down there for I don't know at least over a week I'd say um but with that sign I think the location is a bad location and and I'll tell you
why it looks like the truck that hit it also hit the telephone pole so it might be better maybe to move the sign on the other side of the telephone pole so that they'll hit the pole and the sign will at least still be
up or move it to the other side of the street uh yes uh one of our residents said we got our glossy flyer from the uh from the mayor um and the glossy flyer in there i believe he stated um that he improved all of our
parks and I don't know if that's a lie or the truth but I'll tell you what there's a park it's called Palansky Park we named it after a astronaut that grew went to our um high school and um down in that park
the administration did put a new sign in which was kind of amazing um you nice new shiny sign you put in but we still look at the same old basketball hoop that's crooked was probably put up in the
60s um our county commissioners said that they would pay for half of all of this the past mayor had a design to redo everything sonia herself said it was on her list to do and yet our children have nothing so while our our mayor might put
that out it doesn't mean that our mayor doesn't lie and and that's something that I've noticed with him is that he lies about a lot um oh I noticed that we have some gazeos over here by the splash
park do what are those for um so what those pavilions are again continued to uh with regard to our park improvements they could can they're to be used by residents okay so they're just out there in the field right now and that's where they're
going to be that's so like you can rent them kind of like where we have the senior center correct yes okay um Oh okay yes here is a good one um
this is a statement going back to I believe it was 2023 um I had a resident ask me if I was actually defunding the police and I I said that would be a joke the the one that was going to defund the police was the mayor back in 2023 when they were
going to transfer a million dollars out of the police department's budget and I went to see Sonia and I told Sonia "You can't defund the police crime is on the rise." So what they did was they left the money in the budget for the police department which sounded like a good
thing but at the end of the year they never expended that money so while crime was on the rise we didn't use all the funds available to protect the residents and and those actually are facts so when we talk about who defunded the police the mayor and his administration
defunded the police that's why we're not safe i'll leave that one there um that would be a council president thank you thank you Councilman Patel all right uh the engineer is not here but Brian told me that he was going to
be able to get me a bike path map for the whole town um can you follow up on for me i think this was supposed to be delivered on December uh this has been I think forgotten about so if you can get back on it get that done
uh the second thing we at the open space we had a discussion of the Stevensville Parkway and the property on Oak Tree uh we were discussing to how to get in touch with the residents is that something the township can help us uh send out communication so if we have a
date where we can all meet okay i think we will have a date set for May how long of a leave lane do you need for to send out the communication that's totally up to you i mean we can
it's pretty instant when we send one out so it depending how much notice you want to give folks i would say about a week or two should be okay sure just send it over to to to me and Pat Coyle perfect um and then the last thing project
manager construction manager i think the last thing we left off was there was uh documentation provided with the policy uh but the request was I wanted this some central person to be responsible for the whole project and that we never
move forward i I'm not sure what project are you referring to Councilman for the project manager um construction manager uh there was a policy that was drafted by Brian and on the feedback I gave back was that you know I I like the policy the way it's written sure but I would like a
central person to be responsible for the project so it the way the policy was written it was still vague as to who will be that central person that can point to be like hey you are responsible for this so they can take it from A through Z rather than A through B and
then pass it to somebody else and then B through C kind of like that sure so um I I know there was a back and forth and exchange of ideas uh we have very recently um added two engineers to to
alongside with Brian to assist with project management and even overlooking some of the construction inspection so um I we we have people on staff right now unless it's project specific um then
that would be separate of course but we have since then hired two people that we feel uh would be adequate right now to oversee generally whatever uh project we have in place that's separate from the major things we're working on now I'm
glad we have extra help but my point being that if we had a specific project that was a specific amount in this case I chose arbitrarily 5 million it wasn't a specific number but we can change that but the idea that if we have a specific project I want one person to be
responsible it could be one of those three engineers that we have uh but maybe they might not have the skill set for it or if we need to hire someone but against I need that in a policy that hey that says the township if we have a $5 million project going out to bid we will
have a central person call it a construction manager or project manager that shall be responsible to take it from A through Z if there's any issue that will be the cont point of contact for the council for the administration for everybody to see exactly where it is
that person will start out as a project manager initially through the design phase and the architecture phase once that project takes construction phase when it starts beginning construction they will take on the role of the construction manager and they will see the day-to-day to ensure that you know if there's any permits that are needed
if there's any values to be added through the engineering process uh essentially one person responsible especially for a big project that that's my ask yes and uh we'll certainly implement that internally okay thank you thank you
Councilman Patiel you can continue I'll continue on that I'm looking forward for the report or the any the next step on the sage architect know what was we are supposed to come back with the plan how long it is going to take for somebody else to do
it and what that means again hopefully I can get some information by next council meeting clar Martin Avenue in a road uh linear mileage uh Sonia you know you did respond to my email but it says you know refer to this ordinance I'm asking the
linear mileage uh the utility company damage our roads if you can please take a look at that flooding remediation this is six plus years and counting I know uh Mr deal also knows about this particular area st1 will culvert summer street JP
Steven and more those things do we have any plan my question is do we have any plan to include in 2025 budget any of the work yes uh part of the budget is inclusive or capital bond ordinance as well is inclusive addressing these issues
perfect happy to hear that status of various project we heard from the the resident as well as you know my from my council colleague but a quick glance toad center are we ready to start the work or it is still uh as as I just mentioned I just
received the final report from D we're going to take a look at it and then next steps okay how about the sports building are we still track I know last time you said it's October November time frame September September September yes and we're also track on that uh yes yes sir
how about the Stelton Community Center uh did we get the report on the what that asbesttos or some sort of a so um I believe that's there's a scheduled meeting to discuss the environmental walkthrough okay thank you
uh New Brunswick Stton Planefield update you know that's an intersection i you know last time when I asked I was told that there is a 60,000 ft² warehouse that is being built next to job carb but I do see some construction activities
right at that intersection on closer to I think it's a wildberry court or blueberry court there are two parcels there you know trees are removed uh if you can help to understand uh what is happening there I would skip the next two road
opening around GR Avenue several roads they're dug up uh I don't know you know we don't have engineering department here it's probably by water i I believe I sent the full report of all of the different road opening permits and councilman brusher may have received it
as well yeah but I'm what I'm looking is how much escrow deposit we received in lie of that again I'm talking about grow it's a whole separate I think it's a water so you're now asking about the escrow yes okay yeah mhm
not about the Clarabatan because that's more you know uh that's a whole different uh situation there is some work going going on on the Baltic street i don't know uh that road was supposed to be paved it's very small couple of
100 linear foot road uh but I do see during the daytime the traffic is stopped that turn is not allowed and this is happening last 3 4 days do we have the budget hearing date
that's yes um so we have the workshop May 12th and then the meeting on May 14th that's uh when the township is planning to present that to the council for adoption and as you all know we have um scheduled meetings with each council
member uh so I look forward to all of your questions or concerns right thank you and the last one for the budget you know I'm going to send a separate email rather than going back and forth on this from 2022 to 2025 actually there is a
typo on that thank you Council President um following up on the budget uh the the budget situation I I I see that that this will be covered at the work session of the 12th and the 14th of May when is the mayor's presentation of this to the
public i'd have to check with the mayor that is something that he schedules okay um as soon as as soon as you have word on that it would be helpful to know that thank you um real quick um any news on starting
working in on the Ferrante house uh council president we mentioned uh before it begin this summer uh it's beginning this summer beginning this summer yes ma'am all right all right and one last thing I'm noticing that the the EV charging station outside
of town hall is uh is out of order and it's really been out of order for a long time there's just actually a sign that says out of order but this has been long-standing wondering what the status of that is and will there be more charging stations added to the complex
here uh that is our intent i will follow up with um our um interim DPW director with regard to the one in the front i know the overall plan is actually to repave the entire lot and there was some work done to the conduit there um
throughout the entire parking lot so I want to understand what is the general plan there but um I do understand the overall having done the conduit uh it was last year actually our internal electricians did it and the plan is to
add more okay yeah but that that one that's been there for a long time has been out of order for as long as I can remember um all right that's all I have uh can I get a motion to adjurnn motion to adjourn
you get a second second item thank you this motion this meeting is adjourned 8:38 p.m see you on April 28th for the work session thank you night everyone