so I'm not going to call um so it's 7 PM I'm now going to call the budget Workshop meeting on February 25th 2025 to order at 7M uh do you have a flag yansy yep so we can please stand for the Pledge of
Allegiance I pledge pled allegiance to the flag of the United stat States of America and to the Republic indivisible okay all right Yancy can you please read the uh statement regarding the open open public meetings
act this budget Workshop meeting was called pursuant to the provisions of the open public meetings law notice of this meeting was published in the record on February 11th 2025 in addition a copy of the notice was posted on the city's website the bulletin board in the municipal building and filed in the office of the municipal clerk on a
forementioned date notice on the bulletin board has remained continuously posted please take notice that in accordance with the open public meetings act and JSA 10 colon 4-6 and seek and local Finance notice 2020-21 establishing standard protocols the city council of the city of Englewood adopted
resolution number 083 A- 02-05 d25 authorizing the city of balwood schedule of Council budget Workshop meetings for 2025 to be held remotely via Zoom members of the public who wish participate in the meeting May do so by calling or clicking on the link
below at 700 p.m. or by dialing 6465588656 please see link on our website webinar ID is 942 2597 5407 and the passcode is 27465 n individuals will be able to
fully participate in the meeting including providing public comment public comments may be submitted by 3 pm. on the date of the meeting either through Written Letter or email the meeting at cityofinglewood.org all written comments shall be read during the public forum portion of the meeting and shall be subject to the same time
limitations for public speaking duplicative comments shall be noted for the record and summarized the agenda for the meeting may be found on the city's website at www.cityofinglewood.org a separate meeting will be used if closed session is required proper notice haven't been
given the municipal clerk is directed to include the statements of this meeting uh council president if I May uh we're not going to be able to uh live stream to YouTube we're having some issues with our Zoom account uh we're looking for a different Zoom account to be able to
live stream to YouTube but we will be able to post this to YouTube tomorrow okay thank you and and I guess at the end of the meeting we can make make mention of that again okay and it looks like some people and people can sign in now yes oh yeah the zoom is a
public link so anyone can sign into the zoom yep can I have a roll call please yany sure councilwoman David present councilman Rosen Swip here councilman toer here councilman
Wilson president council president wiski here also present is Mayor Michael Wilds city manager Robert S Hoffman uh Deputy city manager John Berkner and CFO Michael cman I do see
the city engineer in the attendees column he's here thank you and uh Bob before uh Mr Hoffman before we get started do you want to say a few words yes uh thank you council president uh just tonight begins the review of the
Department's budget requests the department meeting dates and times are as follows and they have been posted uh tonight which is Tuesday February 25th the council will be hearing um hearing about the police department budget the
oam budget the health department budget and Recreation budget next Monday March 3rd will be a review of the fire department DPW clerk uh the administration budgets which includes HR and finance as well as the city manager
then on Monday March 10th it will be the court Library building and subcode engineering and then wrapup so no votes are scheduled on the department budget um meeting nights the dates so there's no vote that will be taken tonight uh
this is the opportunity for the governing body to review each department budget request and ask questions in preparation for the overall City budget introduction which is scheduled for March 18th the governing body will sent the budgets um for the scheduled reviews
for tonight they were sent that on Thursday February 20th and by February Friday February 28th the governing body will have a complete budget document uh the staff has been conducting analysis and obtaining updates on different estimates for items that are listed uh
in that were listed in the February 22nd email and then we've had a we had a couple of bid openings so they're they're going to be included and the council will vote on the budget introduction at the March 18th meeting and the public hearing and vote on the adoption of the budget is scheduled for
April 22nd so thank you council president thank you um now we're ready to start with the police department Mr calman do you want to say a few words before uh starts sure uh just that the uh
police uh budget the salary and wages is actually going down $73,000 which is a negative 5.52% and the other expenses is going up 22,000 which is an increase of 3.44% why did the salaries go down uh
retirements uh and then we have lower people taking over and and and what what went up can you just repeat that please just the other expenses uh $22,500 a total from $676,000
from 653,000 okay thank you uh Chief reallyy are you ready I am council president thank you um I just want to put on the record I'd rather be wherever councilman Wilson is right now he looks like he has the best backup I was gonna say that and I you
are not gonna say that I was going to can we mute Mr caufman um all right thank you for having me everybody I appreciate your your time and attention with this I'm gonna go ahead and just jump into this I'm G to share my screen with you just give me one second please okay so um I'm just GNA again
just jumping into this uh I'm going to start off by giving you an overview of the uh of the plea department so as of today we've got 85 sworn officers 19 full-time civilian employees and 11 per DM
dispatchers we have two of the 85 officers are currently attending the Bergen County Police Academy up in Mawa and we expect them to graduate in July uh in 2024 we hired a total of seven new officers and then we also had four
officers retire so this year uh we have two retirements coming the first half of 2025 and at least one more by September um you know we're going to have to keep this in mind as we look at our hiring this year um I think you've all seen this
before this is our updated Personnel data sheet which can be found on the PD website um again you're familiar with it it breaks down our stor Personnel by demographic as well as by rank uh as you can see our our city is approximately 70% minority our PD is just under 50%
minority um I'm I'm proud our department is is reflective of this um and you know as I look around other similar departments um you know it makes even more proud and that you know we we reflect our our community in this way it's something we should all be very proud of uh our our
numbers for 2024 um we documented 61,500 assistance response to accidents traffic enforcement crime reporting anything and everything we do criminal investigations Community engagement it's reflected in this and as you can see it was an 18% increase from our 2023
numbers uh for comparison I included numbers from the past five years obviously you can see 2020 uh just because you know covid was our numbers were down but since then we've been steadily increasing and that the bom I also wanted to to point out you know the way the numbers are trending year to
date as of today we're almost at 11,000 calls at this time last year we're closing at 9,000 so again we're we're trending in in an upward direction as far as activity uh this slide provides a breakdown of our activity by Ward so this is taken directly from our CAD
system where all call to service locations activities are recorded uh you'll notice their columns on the right hand side for uh Sector 5 and oot is out of town these just to make the information more complete um and just so
everyone's aware um what I refer to as Sector 5 it's an area in city which extends um from the railroad tracks along West palate Avenue to the monument East West and then from Demorest Avenue down to McKay Park so it's a a centrally located sector in our city um you'll see
the overall uh number of calls by each for each Ward it's broken down by Ward and then along with our 911 calls our disturbance calls domestic violence fights noise complaints things of that nature our extra attention checks this includes when we check our schools our
houses of worship our business checks uh we also have the breakdown of accidents we've responded to along with motor vehicle stops and then below that you'll see our parking enforcement activities which includes any officer self-initiate enforcement summonses warnings things like that tires marked and then below
that are parking complaints uh which represents calls the ECC May coming into our residence complaints that came in so so that just kind of breaks down the activity by Ward on this slide I took the data from the previous slide and just did a comparison between our 2023 numbers and
our 2024 numbers it looks like a lot um you know I I will make this available to you but uh just as you peruse it you'll see you know the wards up at the top same um anything in green uh indicates a percent increase increase anything in red represents a decrease some of these
uh you know changes can be attributed to offer activity more motor vehicle stops as offer activity other things it may be harder to find the root cause you know as far as motor vehicle accidents may require a little further um research to find out why there may have been a change there so you know as I went
through the numbers I noticed a few things up in in the First Ward you know there was a you know 36% drop in 911 calls in the second ward you know there is there was over 50% increase in motor vehicle accid that's something that you I'm going to have my traffic I a look at
and see if we can dig into that a little bit more in the Third Ward you know we we experienced a drop in 911 calls and M vehicle ACC since and the fourth ward kind of the same drop in 911 calls you know slight drop in disturbance calls slight drop in motor vlexin and also in
parking enforcement uh I think the parking enforcement is is connected to the efforts that we put in last year on Armor street because our numbers went up a little bit um but this paints a little bit of a picture as far as the change year to year this slide I wanted to highlight the
proactive work our officers are doing to increase Traffic Safety around the city so again broken down there's an increase in almost every category since 2021 broken down by motor vehicle stops our moving violation moving total so this includes summonses
that are issued as well as warnings we issue we can issue written warnings same thing with parking and then parking enforcement uh we did have some Personnel changes with our parking enforcement officers that may every resulted in that slight decrease that decrease in our 2024 parking totals and
I think it's also impacted by just overall uh call volume increase it's going to detract from other things our uh 2024 by the numbers um this slide highlights the proactive traffic Works traffic officers
done year to date so again slight decline in the parking enforcement you know we did lose one of our Park Enforcement Officers he end up going to the academy so that counts for a little bit but just kind of shows again goes along with our year to-day Trend that everything is is going up as as it is
so in 20124 that the total number of criminal cases we took in was down 5% while our arrest went up so we made a number of really great arrests over the year uh we had several officers acknowledge at various award Ceremonies for their great work several of them
involved shootings that took place in our city um we had 11 gun arrests and you know one of those the suspect was found in possession of a significant amount amount of ammunition so we we made some really good arrest um and you'll see we made you know 70 uh the uh driving on the influence
arrest so that was up 66% from the from the previous year this slide shows the data that we compile in our crime index so whenever crime comes in gets reported to us we categorize it based on the underlying crime or event it allows us to track information track Trends and whatnot so
here you'll see the date on some of our more significant things we deal with again the green and red show any increases or decreases respectively I noticed that our reported bias incidence and crimes went up um unfortunately you know we know this is just common across the country not just here in New Jersey
um it also could be attributed to a more of a willingness of people to report these types of things feeling comfortable coming forward um you'll know notice our narcotics arrests went up um the tricky thing here too is just to notice the number of the change um from 2023 to 2024 the percentages can
get a little skewed just based upon the total number of events so for example the shots fired category it went up 50% but we went from six to nine and a big part of that was our participation in the shot spotter system um thanks to the Sheriff's Department to help us out with
that system so we did get we did have some activity there that may not have been picked up in previous years uh to continue talking about our 2024 highlights just want to talk about a couple things so the arriv together program you know it's it's still going really well in our city we're we're
lucky to have a great partner in Care Plus um as well as an amazing in-house screener it's definitely changed How We Serve and Protect our residents um the services that we're offering now through this it's you know something I wouldn't have imagined when I started here we've had a lot of success stories and we've
actually become like a point of contact around the county for some of these towns are starting to look um they're starting to look to start this program um both tck and Fort Le have been been in contact with us as they plan to start their own programs our hiring initiative
we're in the middle of another hiring process um and our officers did a really great job doing Outreach leading up to this um you know we ended up with 183 people signing up for our test um you know as I talk to my colleagues in the towns they're not getting these types of numbers I think it's really a testament
us reaching out and and opening up and getting people that to come take our tests and getting the word out um at the end of 2024 we're able to get our certifications completed to start our drone unit so as you may or may not be aware this Technology's really exploded in in our line of work in law
enforcement there's there's so many things that could be done with this um but as our our unit just gets off the ground um NOP no pun intended um we're going to we're going to start using it for searches missing persons we can use it for foot chases we can use it for condu conducting checks of different
areas of town um we're really just scratching the surface with this technology so I'm excited to see where where we go with that uh we also have plans to assist the other City departments with it so uh we can work with the fire department code enforcement will be able to get aerial of views of buildings that we never
would been able to get before and we also have some plans to work with the city engineer to start looking at some of our streams and to help them track erosion and blockages and things like that um our training in 2024 we attended over 75 different classes totaling 4,400
hours of training over that averages up to about 56 hours per officer uh the classes include uh you know things like CR Crisis Intervention team training field field training officer search and seizure updates bias crime investigation crash investigation interview
interrogation you know we we sent officers to multiple command executive leadership and supervision classes um and that list does not even include include our mandated firearms training our mandated active shooter training and our CPR training for each officer and then finally I was going to touch upon
our community fairs um Outreach community fairs unit um you know this is just something that we're really proud of that we've uh really you know made a commitment to over the past couple years uh this are just some of the things we attended read Across America mental
health Wellness state in theay park our pride event our health department Fair um we work deal with Interfaith Council again the night market you know just a lot of really good things that we're able to participate and and we're proud of that uh as far as the challenges we
faced in 2024 many of them revolved around Manpower shortages you know this includes officers out injured or suspended as well as hiring shortages you know being due to the time that takes onboard employees trained new
officers filling those positions um filling positions in the Communication Center you know it's just a reminder again of that correlation between Manpower shortage and overtime expenses so along with this we've seen exponential increases in the administrative duties we're responsible
for uh specifically Firearms investigations expungements and oper requests um more so now than ever we have the need to assign more Personnel to these duties um and it's uh it's not just us it's it's across the line of work it's it's the way things are going
and that for for each law enforcement agency that I'm aware of uh we've been lucky enough to to be able to have officers that are returning from injury to work on light duty to help out in these areas um but we still have statutory responsibilities as they apply
to firearms and Oprah this is going to be a huge priority for us to make sure we we keep on top of this for our 2025 goals um you know over the past couple years we've really been working hard to focus on our citizen issues uh especially those that affect
quality life whether whether it's um you know neighborhood issues traffic issues traffic of planes parking issues um includes work updating our ordinances you know we have the several ordinances passed recently our new no left turn at the parking stalls we're going to be out there you know educating our drivers
getting ready to enforce that we did a lot of work uh you know trying to get our parking lots and meter enforcement to get that moving um so I think we' we've shown that we're responsive to needs of our residents and it's absolutely going to continue to be a priority um you know like I said before Community
engag has been a focus of the PD for the past four years and they'll absolutely continue to be some you know we'll continue that way um we'll continue our annual programs junior Police Academy movie night in the park and then obviously we hope to add some new stuff um the SRO I'm hopeful this year
we can revisit our conversations with the public school district about bringing the school resource resource officer position back to the schools it's been many years since we had a full-time R um I've really been pushing for this um since I came into my role I have a you know there's a lot of
supporters around the city I know that think it's an important role for us important position for the officers to have and especially I I've always said I think it feeds into us you know creating a pipeline for kids that may want to come and serve our city and come get
into this line of work you know having good interactions with with officers younger so I think it's uh something that's very important and then obviously I'm always going to advocate for additional hiring and promotions when needed as far as the changes to our 2025
budget uh this year's operating budget is relatively similar similar to our 2024 budget but we did make some minor changes uh we increased our line associated with the Fulfillment of our Opa requests administrative fees Etc which continue to increase there was
request to increase our training budget um which is obviously impacted by increased training costs but also the hope of having more officers attend CL pass es uh we increased the line for uniform accessories you know we've seen the prices here uh increase in this area as well and also we're doing so an
anticipation of bringing on new hires and then just uh office equipment had had had an increase you know over the years again with our administrative duties just seeing increases in copier of fees shredding services Etc um that that was in there uh finally I was asked to identify
or project potential challenges or considerations for future years just things we need to have on our radar as we move forward so as you may recall you know we're waiting on the results of a grant request that we submitted last year that would allow us to upgrade our Communications infrastructure and our
emergency Communication Center uh hopefully in the next month we may hear more about this and then we'll be able to move on this project that'll be a big big thing for us moving forward um technology we're going to continue to see advancing technology in in law enforcement and I think we'll see more and more things we can use in our daily
policing um I AI is is uh exploding um it's going to be used more and more in security systems facial recognitions license plate readers things like that um as well as using AI technology to enhance you can use it to enhance a Reda body
War camage foot footage they even it can even be used now to generate reports from captured video clips it's really amazing what what's out there um there's already being steps taken in you know other parts of Jersey countywide to use AI to create datadriven policing models to
kind of predict and help guide our our Focus where we're looking at so it's an important thing we keep an eye on this as well uh and then finally for our challenges Beyond five years Beyond you know I firmly believe we need to really uh start developing a plan to to increase the PD
Staffing uh during my time in the PD we we fluctuated our Manpower from you know say the mid the low 70s to the mid 80s where we are now uh the city continues to change and we've got to recognize that Manpower that served us through the last century may need to be adjusted as
we continue to change and continue to grow as you look at other departments across the county you know fortly has over 100 officers I think they're at 108 now tck has 93 slightly larger than us Hackensack has over 100 104 and I think
their maximum is 113 so it's just something we really need to think about obviously those are big steps um in many ways for the city but something we need to consider moving forward so um with that uh just want to thank you for your time and attention and um I'll be happy
to answer any questions you might have okay thank you very much that was really a great presentation very comprehensive um could we take the slideshow down good if anyone on the council has any questions or the mayor
just please put your okay I see Ken Rosen swag will you start please or I just adjusting the volume I'll let other people start can can I uh okay all right I was going to let other people start uh thank you very much Chief I just have two uh quick
questions uh one is you know uh um you uh the overtime budget has decreased significantly do you think you'll be able to achieve that with the increased Manpower versus what we had
last year um it's it's going to be it's going to be difficult you know as we hire more officers as as we've spoken about and you're aware you know there's always a lag time between hiring the officers which is great and I appreciate the support of the city manager and the count and the governing body as we do
this but you know uh the officers we hired uh you know last last year are in training now you know they they went to the academ they we hired them earlier in the year they finish the academy in December and they're in training now and they won't be on their own till till April so that's going to help us out
with our Manpower overtime always um but it's you know between that and then losing officers it's always going to be a difficult battle um obviously I'm going to do my best to to maintain and coming within my budget that's my obligation um but it's it's difficult
while continuing to maintain our services and I the other question I I think it's too it's too multifactor T tonight so maybe we'll discuss it another time but the increase in calls is astonishing you
know 15% year-over-year is just I don't understand that and the uh it seemed the big part of it was the secondary checks so I think that that'll be a conversation for another time uh what what's what's driving that uh but
that's something I'm I think we need to delve into more than in the constraints of this budget meeting yeah we talk about that later absolutely he councilman TOA hi thank you chief for that
presentation one quick question I didn't understand if you can review you had it broken down into WS one two three and four and then I think it was section five can you uh Define that for me again please sure so yeah obviously the the
four ws and then sector five is is it's effectively uh a little you know a bit of the southern part of the Third Ward and a bit of the northern part of the fourth ward so it takes our downtown area effectively from the railroad tracks uh West to the monument So that's
its East West border and then north south from demerest Avenue down to McKay park it covers that area like a like that that circular area right in there um that was put in place I I've known about Sector 5 since I've been here so I don't know how they created what the
thought process was behind it uh but it's maintained in our CAD so it does account for call volume so I I had to include that in there not to confuse things or mix things up but that's uh it's just in in in you know in transparency to have all the correct information in there okay and is there a
reason why oh so I guess you don't know that answer but it was more of is there more action specifically to those that those Linings or is it just it was just put in before your time and it was just it's been there for as long as I can remember so that's unfortunately I have
a better answer for you than that okay thank you sure councilwoman David hi um great presentation um Chief gy um with the up with the significant increase in the
calls um the dispatchers um do you need more are you going to have a separate call center are you going to expand um could you please elaborate or you you think you have enough um dispatchers there no uh well thank you for that um no it's
a good question we we still are are short dispatchers it's you know something Mr uh Mr Hoffman and Mr line are well aware of and they've been really supportive as far as getting applicants to come in to um you know to apply for the job and and you know not not a lot of people are familiar with
that with that job of a dispatcher the public safety telecommunicator and um you know I've seen a lot of people especially over recent years as the job has become more and more uh it's it's a very difficult job it's it's juggling you know it's juggling a lot of
different things it's being calm under pressure and not certainly not everybody can do it and um you know there's a lot of people I know that that are very very smart people but they had difficulties in there so you know we do our best to get good applicants in there not
everyone is able to uh you know make it all the way through so you know we're not we haven't been able to maintain a full staff recently but we do have a good group of prms are able to kind of help fill in where we need to um but part of our plan as I mentioned too as far as um and you know as far as the
Communication Center it's just you know it's a plan that that you know we're hoping to put in place to you know re uh you know to redo our our infrastructure our communication system to get everything really where it needs to be you know our system is is good now but you know there's been a lot of uh
changes and there's some upgrades that need to be done so part of that is uh you know it's going to be helpful to have this grant that's going to allow us to do it but at at the end of the day we still need to to fill those positions as dispatchers and and like I said you know the city's been very supportive of you know us getting the word out to hire
dispatchers on a contining basis so hopefully I'm I'm sure we'll be able to continue that into this year okay and part two of it the question also I know that could be draining psychologically for these dispatchers like you said um are we um anything in place working with
the Department of Health for mental or anything or you going to implement something so they don't get turned out easily or you know yeah you know that's that's a good question because I know there were some plans to um work that because we over the years we have done things for the
officers and has been extended to the dispatchers when we've had some critical calls but um that is something that that you know we could continue to work on and we probably could reach out to the Department of Health and we have other resources that helped us out with different uh resiliency resources um so
they're definitely ones in need I I I know from spending my own time in there I can think of one or two calls that are you know I still vividly remember that I probably probably should talk to someone about you know just even though you're on the other side of a phone it doesn't mean that you're not affected by you know some critical instance so um it's
definitely something where we can look into thank you and again great presentation thank you councilman Wilson do you have any questions yes good evening all thank you council president uh good evening chief
he you sir um and it's something to be said about what you ended up with about some of the counseling that we may have missed during our service um sometimes it's overlooked by our employees that something that they see or or or
participate in or is a on ongoing thing during their career so 100% there's no shame in getting help um I just missed a couple numbers how many total numbers do we have right now of PD
we have uh 85 sword officers 85 and how many retired in 2024 four four retired and we hired seven right yes sir so um that's three
up than before and what are we looking for for retirement this year's so far I'm aware of three three officers three okay and if it was left up to you Chief how many would you recommend that we hire I mean I'd love to get us up we're
we're in by the ordinance we can have up to 90 officers total um in a perfect world I'd love to get us to that and then talk about going further but that's you know obviously that's a that's a bigger discussion to have no I'm I'm just trying to get a synopsis of where
you think we should go as a department and how far back we are from your reality so you're saying 90 in a perfect world yes sir yep okay all right thank you sir um so you know I I I'll talk a little
bit but I want to talk again offline um I surely would like to see some of the charts that you provided with us they're very colorful and I would hope that some of them aren't accurate um I I looked at the the the ones for the calls and it was
22,000 in the fourth ward and that's astonishing to me it doubles and triples um from other Wards am I am I looking at something wrong because I have to take my glasses on and off no you're you're accurate yep the the overall overall
calls was those 22 22,000 yes sir all right um this is a budget hearing but I I gotta State because you you put those numbers out there that um we need to talk what we can do to decrease those numbers not just across the city but
especially in the fourth Woods because absolutely I think yeah we could definitely sit down and you get a chance to really take a look at it I I'll give you a few things so 100% um and so if if we move on to your your organization chart uh there appears to be eight
vacancies uh I believe so I apologize it's one it's one for patrol Bureau uh platoon a one for patrol Bureau platoon B uh Lieutenant Administration division vacant records Bureau vacant
captains investigation division vacant uh juvenile bureau there's two spots there and detective Bureau Squad B vacant yes so I I know there's a particular
training to go along with those particular spots um we're not particularly holding those spots because we don't have Personnel or is it the training why is it that we have eight slots
open it's it's right now it's more about with our shortages it's my my my focus is always we we have to fill our bread and butter we have to have the patrol unit filled in as best as possible so you'll see we have a couple vacancies in Patrol so once once I get Patrol filled
up then I can start moving them to those other specialized units okay I I bring that up um because I want to tackle the thing of overtime uh I heard earlier that someone said that our overtime is significantly
down um unless I'm once again looking at something different it seems to be $80,000 less than the previous year um and and so and what I'm also looking at is overtime is how do we negate or
adjust the fact that during these overtime periods we have officers that can fill those overtime slots but they also have the slots and then they have Patrol as officers so we're doing sometimes two as opposed to
one overtime because the person that's in on overtime needs to be supervised is that how that works Chief I'm sorry I'm not I'm not really following um like like our overtime um my concern is the overtime um and
obviously we vote it that way to have give you the tools that you needed as far as more personnel and right now we're up three um you know three is good it's not a lot but three is great in my estimate and so I would look forward
to the over overtime budget to be going down as the ass being I think 1.3 and we're at 1 Point 1.18 or something of that sort so I'm my My Hope Is if in fact we do maintain these three and we
add a compliment sometime this year or near the end of the year we do not see the forecast of the overtime you know just from this particular snapshot going down I I guess I guess I could say maybe in a perfect world but the issue is that
you know we have often have you know last year I had uh two supervisors out for one was out for half the year one was out for two months uh between officer out injured we have officers out on different assignments so um you know and you know right now I have 85
officers that's with two in the academy and four of them are in training so 85 actually becomes you know 79 so I think there's always it's not as I'd love it to be as simple as these your numbers and your overtime should go down but I think there's always a little
bit more behind it that that you know impacts our bottom line okay and and I would like the opportunity to talk talk about this as well offline because I I I I think how our overtime is structured with being uh
heavy with uh lieutenants and sergeants and captains that it increases our overtime not just for the salary but for the for the Manpower so some of those jobs can be done in my estimation Maybe
by one officer but that officer that comes in on overtime we're having them slotted in um a supervisory capacity and then a officer that they're supervising for that particular overtime we we could definitely talk offline
about it but just to that point though you know we we do have a we do have a two supervisor um you know on two supervisor on the road for the majority of the day so um you know it it ensures that there's an officer on the road a supervisor on the road watching the guys which I know you can appreciate no I get
that and so that that's that may is that kind of what you're referring to as far as fating or I mean I don't want to keep talking about this if you want to talk online but that's just one thing I know it's impacted it it was it was directly related to the overtime budget and you know to dig into details we can discuss
this a little bit offline and I was just looking at some other numbers um and because this is the budgetary thing uh when when we have an increase maybe um I don't think Ash is
here but if we have an increase um of 2.3% for uniform police officers at 77,000 96623 that that increase of
$1,759 that's way more than the 2.3 and so I would imagine there's some other entities involved for a increase of 12 $1,759 yeah it might be something that Mr cofman I I uh I I wasn't provided
with that uh form so it might be something Michael can can help us out with okay it was something in our packet that was sent out and it was uh it was line item and I I don't want to call out any particular officers because that's not what this is about um but it's 28 29
and maybe that's just their um next salary bump you know what what I'm going to do um councilman Wilson and chief I'm gonna I'm going to schedule this to be in a closed session so we can get into further detail in a closed session which
is where it belongs okay okay I I apologize council president but the fact that we're we we're talking about a budget and these numbers are before me it' be no way I could not address that yeah I'm going to put you want to do that in a close
session I'm I'm going to put it in I think this this next Tuesday's close session is full I'll put it in the following close session does that make sense Bob yes okay and and and and and thank you Chief um it got a little bit
more technical than I thought but um this information is important and I'm glad that our city manager said that we are not voting on this tonight so I'll try to keep my comments to to a minimum thank you Chief okay thank you U
mayor do you have any comments yeah Chief I I wanted to ask and I don't know if this came up in your presentation first congratulations to you on running a very fine department and doing a wonderful job um i' I'd venture to say
as I see uh the department that the the uh turn of leadership in the different um stations um and ranks are also improving over time that you're filling those ranks out well and capably
um so that leadership is assured despite the passage of time and the onerous uh needs that that seem to be coming um with with one of those Nuance there isn't a week that goes by for the last hundred years that I've been mayor where
I don't get inquiries on gun permits and there seems to be a lone soldier that is adjudicating these have things improved at all in in those adjudications are we still down in Manpower and Records in that
division uh we are we are down I did have an officer assigned to that on light duty helping Sergeant milor out with that um and she's gonna stay in that position for a little while longer to assist with that um so I'm I'm hopeful that that'll that'll alleviate some of the issues but it's been an
ongoing uh battle back and forth for a little while now yeah we haven't been sued and obviously I'm not a big fan of rushing uh these matters I just want to make sure that you're addressing it and and that you're satisfied that we're doing what we're supposed to do for all the different
values there safety entitlement and so forth yeah I'm work I'm working to get more help in there absolutely but uh you know we're doing the best we can with h with what we have right now terrific and I hope as we have enjoyed a very strong relationship that you'll
seek me offline if there's anything that we can do uh for the department and the leadership um really you are to be loaded for running a very strong department and the sheer nobility with how they serve as well thank you I
appreciate that pleasure okay thank you I just have a few questions um again I too want to congratulate you and running a wonderful Department um I'm going to ask if you could send the slides over to yansy so she can forward them to the mayor and to the council um I already
sent it over okay well you're ahead of ahead of me okay um I'll just be I'll try to be quick I have a few questions um one the demographics 11% women uh I don't know if that's increased decreased the same as as it's been I know I've
been asking this for the last two years are we are we working on recruiting women and how is that number trending uh it's been consistent over the last couple years that been at 11 11% you know plus or minus a couple actual officers right now we're at nine
officers of R 85 um and obviously of course we're always trying to recruit you know a diverse group including female officers so um absolutely we are second is um the um motor vehicle accidents like you mentioned at 723 for
the second ward it was very very high really an outlier comp compared to the other Ward I mean I I would imagine that it may be attribut attributable to the um to the highway entrance exits and the work that's being done with the root for
Jones Road I would like to go back to that number and um and I would also like to go back to to um the call volume I'd like to schedule you know at another council meeting um I'd like to
understand those numbers uh so because even last year if you remember I asked last year last year we had a 15% increase in the calls and I asked last year what attributed to that 15% I did get a response and now this year we're
18% above and and so we really need to understand why we're getting more calls and we need to understand what's going on in the second ward with the motor vehicle accidents so I want to Circle back to that um at another council meeting or offline or but but that and
the the thing is you know you mentioned about the police department staffings wanting to increase it as the city continues to grow as a five-year plan but with listening to you know the increase in calls year over over year
over year you know I just wonder if that's really realistically A Five-Year Plan out or whether that's something we may have to consider sooner um given the increased call volume so that's just my thought yeah no it's definitely a discussion to have either way it's
something we have to think about and it has serious implications financially for the city but um it's it's uh it's something to consider sooner possibly but we can talk about that yeah and that that's that's going to be for a deeper dive offline because it's not it's not
just the call volume it's the types of calls in the call volume and what's what what types of calls seem to be trending and we have to be we have to be cognizant that a lot of you know there there are a lot of calls that are that are medical but you know it's it's this
this requires a deeper analysis right and and we should probably schedule that I think at another council meeting because it's not really you know right now budget related but we should understand some of the data that you presented to us but again I want to congratulate you that was a great presentation and um I'd like to move on
now to the next presentation which which is the OEM and that would be um Joseph sanelli I think YY to let him on okay good night thank you good night hello everyone can you hear me yes
yes y yes um for those who don't know me my name is Jose forelli I'm a lifelong resident of Anglewood I've worked for Anglewood fire for 36 years over the last 10 years I've been englewood's Emergency Management
coordinator um for those who areen familiar with Emergency Management we uh uh prepare for emergencies we try and prevent emergencies uh mitigate them respond to them and then assist with re
recovery um some highlights of Emergency Management for 2024 is uh for our 10th year in a row we've had an uh approved emergency plan which is approved by the county and the state police we conducted a
Citywide um drill with all um City agencies participating um the city engineer myself met with uh County and federal agencies to try and secure funding to help prevent emergencies I've we worked with the
health department to to try and reboot our C team um Emergency Management completes the right to no surveys for the city of Anglewood and also reviews the emergency plans for um businesses and uh employers
around town we made agreements with the Red Cross to help with our heating cooling and holding centers and uh Red Cross responded to some emergencies with uh providing residents with uh gift
cards grants and emergency cleanup kits um looking forward to to 2025 we're uh preparing to have a tabletop drill and hopefully in the fall we'll be able to get a trainer car from
CSX to have a um Railroad disaster drill that would include all City agencies um OEM uh is requesting a a deputy coordinator and also um from
responded to emergencies in 202 before and before um it would be OEM is requesting a emergency Operation Center outside of fire headquarters and we think it would be uh best interest to be housed with the um
telecommunicators and in some of our emergencies um communication was an issue we've had uh um in flooding we've had where dispatch was dispatching from PD they were dispatching from fire and also dispatching from uh emergency
command Vehicles so if possible it would make sense to have a larger dedicated um dispatch space and OEM to have space with with them um that's what I have for OEM and I'd be glad to answer any any questions
you may or may not have thank you so much if anyone uh in the governing body has any questions please raise your hand okay there are H I got uh councilman Wilson thank you council president
um good good evening uh Captain how are you today evening good thank you thank you for your presentation um I I just want to say OEM it it it it's a very tricky
situation um people don't realize what goes into it the planning and what you guys do and two they need the emergency um so I applaud you for making it seem seamless when people need help that you're right there um and what do you
think uh you you said you you're looking for assistant what was the title uh a deputy coordinator all right and where do you believe that should come from um from from Emergency
Services okay okay um all right I'll keep it brief I would like to talk to you offline as well um thank you for coming in at the same budget and um just let us know if we can be of any further assistance we appreciate you cat thank you
sir okay anyone else from the governing body yeah quick question if I may um Captain thank you for your service and just since the pandemic we got kneed deep in uh OEM Acquisitions and the
storage of equipment are we up to speed on storage uh in the event of an emergency for the city of bwood if you can just kind of give us a brief summary of that that's an excellent question Mr Mayor um so in my opinion emergency
management needs its own operation uh Center and its own dedicated storage and if that's a possibility um to have with the plans of the city um that would that would be greatly appreciated so right
now uh Emergency Management has some stuff stored at DPW some stuff stored at fire some stuff stored at the health department and that's not the uh best practice to have okay and there's an inventory
that's available um for the city manager to know this in case it has to be deployed so so Anglewood has uh a small inventory and the county uh Emergency Management does a lot of shared services the county
has a mass inventory that's ready ready to be deployed to us thank you you're welcome sir okay so um Mr hoffen uh thank you council president I
I'd like to emphasize just what the uh what um our OEM coordinator um emphasized that um when the when the Dispatch Center is upgraded it's important that that OEM um have have
space there because during an emergency it's it's critical that whatever's whatever's coming in they have they have access to and that the uh you know that the key the key um the key Annex holders
also have have space there so that um so that things can be done in in a very very quick fashion so that was just you know that that's that's an important recommendation from our OEM coordinator okay thank you I want to thank you Captain for that wonderful
presentation and um wish you good night and now we're going to move over to the Department of Health um yansy I see a few people from the health department I see Alisa Smith Elisa Solomon Deborah's
iPad Jim Fedor Julia green Stephanie Davis who's gonna be doing the presentation I am who who said that oh okay hi Mr fedco you want me to go quick
uh yeah I'd like Mr calman to start um just quickly the salaries and wages went down 124 ,000 uh from uh 327,000 to
203,000 and the uh other operations went down 1.18% from oh sorry I'm looking at went down 12,840 which is going down almost 13.99% from uh
91,000 800 to 78960 so the the decreases in other expenses are we're are going to be using grants more than we did previous year and
the salary and wages I don't know if you want me to talk about that or um you know what I'll let I'll let Mr Fedor do the present I think presentation okay it's all yours uh Jim hello everyone I I
go by Jim and I was the health officer for Englewood for about 9 years and Deborah Baldwin is Here Deborah Baldwin was also a full-time employee now she's part-time I work for Mid Bergen Regional Health commission
which is a an organization that helps the smaller towns with public health and and public health Contracting also here is Alisa Smith I worked with Alisa Smith Alisa Smith here I I don't see her on it on here but she is she's on she's on so
I also work with her and she's she's help um helped out with the budget so myself Deborah Baldwin and Alisa Smith helped out with the budget for 2025 and also on on here is uh um Stephanie Davis she's the board
president and also is Dr Alisa Solomon and I've worked with both of those um folks in the past and I think uh Dr Solomon she helped out a lot during covid so uh that's just the background of who I am and and where I'm coming
from so you're right uh this is a budget meeting and we we're going to talk about the budget and salaries and one of the reasons we're able to decrease uh that celery line item is because um we're not
uh right now Inglewood is not hiring a a health officer or director they're Contracting with mid midb and Regional Health commission so that's one of the big savings right there and we also have Deborah Baldwin who's uh working part-time and with those
two uh folks in in place there there's a lot of cost savings for the city uh so that's the advantage the ADV Advantage is savings and the also the advantage is Deborah and I both worked for Englewood Health Department for many
years and we know the Department inside out we know a lot of the players we we worked um you know with Tom Green and and all those folks so that's an an advantage that we have one of the disadvantages I see is now we have part-time
managers and um so so nobody's uh there full-time with the employees so that that's a disadvantage for using mid Bergen which is myself and and having Deborah Baldwin in
part-time uh I I like that uh U Bob Hoffman noticed and also Lisa wasoski notic that hey our revenue's gone down with the health department because the health department does bring in Revenue we we uh our revenues are are retail
food establishment licenses uh penalties for folks who who don't uh abide by our our retail food Li licensing and we also have a big contributor is the hospital with birth and death certificates so that generates
about i' like to say you know roughly 220,00 000 and so anyway getting back to it uh Bob Hoffman Lisa wasoski noce hey the the revenue's gone down $88,000 and so one of the things the managers do is they like where did this
why was there a decrease uh Deborah and I looked into it and um I think there's several factors one is we noticed the births and uh have gone down at the hospital and also our retail food establishments have come down some as
well but going also back is why that decrease in revenue is um that after covid you saw an increase so when you see an increase and then now we're reverting more to the mean where
the food establishments and the birth seem to be leveling off to a mean so you look back like hey last year they were making this amount now it's 8,000 less well it's we're just like reverting back to to the mean so um so a big picture
now is that our Revenue income from the health department is uh this year is about $230,000 and our expenses are around I'm just generalizing $700,000 so you could kind of estimate
how much it cost to to run the health department with that in mind our Revenue about 230 our um our um expenditure is about $700,000 and again we're very fortunate
in 2024 and in 2025 we have a lot of uh we're doing well with our grant funding so in 2025 we look very good and and Michael you thanks for bringing up those numbers all those numbers coming down and we're looking we're looking really good but
2026 will be more challenging for sure when the grant money finally starts to drop dry up unless things change so um I think I've covered the the major parts of the the health department there in our budget in a
nutshell that's what you see so thank you there any questions and Jim do you want to just mention uh to the council about uh your Grant funded positions and when those grants are going to um uh expire correct
so so we have uh two employees Grant funded positions and those are fully covered by the grant not only their salaries but also The Fringe and uh those grand positions will end on March 31st
2026 2026 thank you um I see that councilwoman David has her hand up councilwoman David hi um Mr fedara how are you um my question to you um I'm confused did you say that the you have
no supervisors here they're they're self-managing themselves at the health department if I'm not mistaken or would you have part times so we have uh Deborah Baldwin and myself who I'm the health officer and Deborah Baldwin would
be the director uh we have uh two we have a supervising health inspector so there that's their title and we also have the registar who's their full-time so self and Deborah would be considered part-time and then
Pro uh excuse me the uh supervising RS and the registar are fulltime okay thank you any other questions uh Dr Rosen thank you Mr Fedor for that presentation so for some of these
programs that are funded by grants um how many of them have been you know valuable enough to bring them into the normal operating procedure or are are any of them eligible for a new
Grant uh to um to continue the funding of it I heard the best one was the senior water aerobics and so that would be one to consider going full-time um and I would fund the program through the age friendly
Englewood there's also the Community Development block grant those those grants aren't um they're not uh a lot of money involved but there's something and so
that's what I would do I would continue those program using those that funding source councilman councilman Wilson thank you thank you for the presentation sir we appreciate it um and
that was part of my my question uh which U my colleague took but about the grants that will continue to loop back um that have proven to be successful in our program what's our what what's our rate on on continuing grants that
improve um the status for the health department like you you mentioned something about age friendly and that's a big thing for me when I when I worked a full-time with Englewood we used age friendly Inglewood
often I liked working with age friendly Inglewood and they seem to have a a continual funding stream and also with the Community Development block grant that one though oh man there's so many string strings attached to that
Grant um but the money is there and so those those two sources are are are good they're they're readily available there are other funding sources as well so the community block rant you you
you kind of hesitated because it's so stringed so so much to fill out what I didn't like about that one was um for example one year we had a a program and we had people from tac who
signed up which are right on the border I mean there's like the neighbor over there and and she couldn't come to the program because her address said tenen and so when I when we put our list of who are participating it had tck we had uh two people from Tek and they made us
take they're like what is this you can't have people from T this is an Englewood program and it was foolish come on and and Contin and my last question is um on your organizational chart there appears
to be three vacancies um do we have plans for the near future on filling those gaps and if so will they be shared responsibility and who's doing double duty now that that we have some vacancies or does that
apply so the the vacancies I would have uh two Health Inspectors for the city of Inglewood and I would have one one Health educator and then the other vacancy I believe is the youth Health educator so it would that is
correct that's correct I'm sorry so that that's that's the way I would I would operate I think that's what works best for Inwood I think you have five people working in the vital stats and and that's important
because it got a lot of birth and death certificates coming in through the department due to the hospital I two Health Inspectors is is is good and then definitely one full-time Health educator is good too Smith was going to say something
Alisa oh yeah as far as continuing um other our grants um and continuation of grants that we currently have those have been um successfully continued I believe that they were awarded in 2022 um 2023 so as Whenever there are
chances for um increases in the budget for um or a awarding for those grants we do apply um and we do kind of keep an eye out for increases for those those two grants as well whenever they're
available okay and and the last question um thank and thank you uh good evening Mrs Smith um with the vacancies are we particularly leaving money on the table um with those vacancies or not so much we are I'm sorry I I don't think so um
okay Michael Kaufman would that's that I don't think they're budgeted in there thank you mrman Mr Hoffman did you want to say something your hand was raised yes thank you council president
um I appreciate it um Jim just a a couple things in for Alisa as well the um the SE I'm going to call it the senior swimming aerobics that was started last year that just seemed to be a um well well received and it it looked
full on the the three times that I was over there um you know are there plans to expand that um this this coming year and then the other thing I wanted to let the council know is that um the health department is basically a 7-Day a week
operation because when there's fairs and things like that on the weekends and there's Food Trucks and Things um there there are inspections that have to be that have to be done on the on the weekends so um you know the Staffing for the health department has to cover seven days a week but um you know why don't
you talk about the SE the senior swimming or the senior arobics in the water yes so the aquaerobics uh we are actually our health Educators spoke with the director of the recck uh this week and we were looking into expanding it to
two times a week um hopefully one in the morning and one in the evening depending on the the Rex schedule so we will be expanding that program because it was very successful and a lot of people really enjoyed it um
so that's part of our um and it'll be for eight weeks um so that'll be increasing the amount of um sessions that we end up having for that um so that's just part of our uh seasonal fitness program that we have here at the department it had
started out with walking um and now we're working with gym guys to do the aqua aerobics they also do um like a fitness kind of Zuma Zumba or yoga kind of class during the spring so it it varies throughout the season but we'll
be doing that as well uh how old do you have to be to to join that program um we've been taking people who were over 18 but I know that we've been in talks with um direct that have younger um kids do like a um like a swim
dance kind of uh like something that would be more attractive to the youth so we're looking into having like uh working with the wreck for that thank you when I saw when I saw it everybody had hair that looked like Jim fedco that was in the
water or Bob Hoffman I I would like to add uh just my personal compliments on all the wellness program your support for my coffee with the Mayor literally every week for the last five years um the availability of shots
and the policing of restaurants on a 7day week basis and we wouldn't be anywhere if we didn't continue the love and the support of marriages with the wonderful work that you guys do always available for weird requests um Through
the Ages thank you for your leadership Jim and to everybody body thank you mayor thank you very much for that wonderful presentation and have a good night and um with that I'd like to bring on the
recreation department good night good night thank you good night Yancy I'm still going to listen in could you just uh make me disappear or do I to close
down po I I'll just go out I'll come back in you're on mute yansy you left okay uh before we start the recreation department Mr calman do you want to say a few words yes um the recreation salaries
went up 69,000 from 898 th000 to 9 67,000 mainly due uh that's uh 7.68% that's mainly due to two new uh Park Rangers that we have in the
budget for this year last year we only budgeted two this year we have four uh other expenses are down I'm sorry uh are down 51,6 from 79 uh from 799,000
to 747 ,600 which is a decrease of 51,6 and to Sean will probably talk more about that what page are you on Michael when you read
that uh the the percentages I don't that's for my spreadsheet that you're going to get on uh Friday but the numbers are on on the budget worksheet those numbers are still there you'll see you should see on the last on the last page I don't know if it
does the percentage but it has those uh the numbers of that I was I was just trying to keep up and every time you read for each department I can't find that information so it's because I don't have it okay thank you okay um Mr Warren do you want to begin please yes council president let
me just make sure you can see my screen did you click on share screen there we go you seeing that no there we are yeah now we can see it to Sean Perfect all right good evening ladies
and gentlemen um as Michael stated my name is Tashan I'm the direct director I joined the city of Englewood in July um it has been an interesting journey and I want to talk to you about a couple of things tonight but let's go ahead and get into the presentation so this picture right now
is very important because what's currently happening is the the rebuilding of the gate house um the process started about a couple of weeks ago and we're looking to have a rebuilt Gate House by Spring 2025 um if anything changes obviously
we'll let you know but that's the goal so you want to get back to this version of the gate house not the one that uh we've been sitting with for a couple of months almost a year actually to Sean just as just um as a friendly reminder to the governing body um the
gate house was hit by a large piece of equipment and um of had to had to be basically inspected by Engineers because it was partially structurally un sound so it's now being restored because it is
a historic building but um that's that's what Desa was was referring to that we haven't had use of it for close to a year so go ahead yes Bob there actually is a part of the building that we're not allowed to go into um so it's a little stressful because we have a lot of storage space
that we can't utilize um but moving forward right just want to let you know what our expectations are for the Department uh we want to make sure that we provide the best type of recreation opportunities for our residents right of all ages we don't discriminate over here so when we deliver that above average
service we want to make sure we do it through our programming and one of our big biggest things over the next five years are making sure that our programs become cost neutral including Recreation programs offsetting other Recreation
programs and in addition to that we really want to focus on customer satisfaction and building stronger more connected communities one of the communities that were built over this summer was the senior community with the aerobics program so I thank the health department because those seniors that
showed up every morning Lov that activity uh and as it was was stated before we are going to expand the senior aerobics class I had spoken with Julie this morning and one of the things that we agreed to was making it eight weeks twice a week it was an activity that was
filled and the seniors loved it so we're looking at is possibly one day in the morning one day in the evening uh we're still going over the logistics of it but definitely the expansion of the program is in the works so I want to let you guys know our
department as you know I'm tasa uh we have Avery operations manager Ken Kats our amazing rink manager Gabe Diaz who joined us about a month ago as our assistant rink manager we have Felipe who's our facility supervisor and our three Park Rangers we currently have two
vacancies but we did offer two people and they are going through the process and that is to replace our program supervisor which was Molly who joined yansy over in the clerk's Department as the deputy clerk um so I do want to say congratulations to her again uh our park
ranger position was offered and went to get everybody through the application process the important thing about the park ranges though because Michael definitely explained that our budget went up in regards to salaries so with our Park ranges there are some things that we really want to make sure we
cover as soon as we're fully staffed which is one managing more in-house projects and assisting the DPW with maintenance and repairs of the park there's a broken fence there's a chain link uh that needs to be repl place we can work on that same thing with the Turing vandalisms our Parkers are
patrolling as much as they possibly can to make sure there isn't a lot of bad activity going on in the parks in addition to all of that they will be providing additional support at our wreck programs so every Rec program that we offer there's a park ranger there just in case we want to make sure
that our parents feel safe all of the time uh we have programming starting at 6: in the schools and a lot of them end at 9:00 so today was a track day track started at 6:30 ended at I think 7:45 one of the other responsibilities
of the park ranges are once we have Park permits we want to make sure that they check in as well as anybody using the tennis courts the pickle ball courts we want to make sure nobody's hogging the courts a lot of times we have these outside companies that decide to set up shop and charge for their own Clinic
their own purpose um so we want to make sure that we're providing a service to the community as well as letting everybody know that There are rules you have to follow there are ordinances set ordinances set for these specific Parks I want to get into the the really
important part of the presentation and this is our busing issue we we spent a lot of money on busing and one of the things that we really wanted to work on was pretty much cutting back on that expense and there are two recommendations that I put before you
today Council um at the top you have bus company a which is any bus company that we charge we have football games there's about five away games so my example to you was to Tenna flat football field for four hours a bus compy to charges
$400 we have had conversations with the Board of Education where they're open to allowing us to use their buses with that we could possibly hire a PDM bus driver or we can equi one of our Park Rangers
with a CDL to drive a bus doing so that would save us about $300 a trip now to our right are two vehicles that we own the only issue is in order to drive kids you have to have your CDL so that would be another thing that could help us ease that that price off of
busing moving into one of our successes the johy I the johy Right Ice Arena has a amazing success rate per season we see in and out at least
20,000 residents this ice shrink is a Melting Pot for the community and the interesting part is that we get people who travel all the way from New York um some of the groups that use our ice rink on North Park the bombers tenly Yeshiva
PA hockey frish and one of our favorites are the blind hockey group and yes it's exactly what it sounds like in addition to all these amazing people using the rink we even have our city manager who stops live once in their water skate so it's a great opportunity and it does
bring in Revenue which is amazing uh what we have at the bottom is the rental cost per hour that all renters pay and they give us no push back because they really want that ice time our Arena manager Ken Cass is an amazing job at
scheduling all of them fairly and in a way that allows everybody to utilize the ice our public sessions on the weekends are jam-packed we literally have to turn people away so that's an amazing thing I learned to skate it's such a wellth thought out program
because we really see the kids go from falling on the ice to skating in the public session on their own it's amazing opportunity one of our other programs are our Englewood Junior track and field program we have about 90 participants
ages 7 to 15 it starts in March goes to June and every meat we have at least 10 kids that come home with a metal now we want to work towards that cost neutral so one of the things that we decided to do was
increase the fee to help cover the cost of track track is one of the programs that require two buses for the meets for the 2025 season there are five away meets track program typically requires
two buses I bring you back to the point of possibly hir a perdm bus driver or equipped one of the park rangers with a CDL that would definitely help cut down costs the track meets are on Sundays and they usually last anywhere from five to
eight hours it's an all day event our junior football program is also another program that is very very important in our community because it's the pipeline to high school sports now what's very important about this picture right here is that you have a kid that
starts junior football then you have him grow up to go to Dwight Marl football and then that same player possibly gets a scholarship to college football and it moves on to the NFL Now ladies and gentlemen the counsil these are real pitchers the junior football is one of our junior coaches coaching through a
championship game Dwight Marl football pitcher is our quarterback deanii Williams who's going to play D1 football at Central Connecticut he went through that Junior program our College photo is Jordan Moore who went through the high school program as well as the junior
football program and on the NFL side is Jaan Winfrey and as you can see he had a picture with our our Mayo Wilds um who went through every single step of this program so it's amazing this program actually has the most volunteer coaches
for recreation as did it before one of the things we decided to do was up the fee to help cover the cost because we want to get closer to bridging that Gap additionally like track football has a non-residence fee which is 50%
more before I go to Camp I just wanted to note for football we also have away away games same thing we need two buses and for this season we're gonna have five away games and if the children make it to the playoffs and championships that would be
two more away games the other part of football is that every couple of years more specifically 10 because that's the shelf life of the helmet that we put on our kids have to be replaced as well as shoulder pads right now we all our helmets are
set to be discontinued by the year of 2027 with few exceptions so that's something that we working on with replacing the helmets as well as the shoulder pads I want to move on to our camp McKay so this year our camp m is going to be
nine weeks 8:30 to 5:30 p.m. we have ages 6 to 14 residents 180 non-residents 270 we're going to do things a little different this year one of the major things are there's no trips the first week of camp and there's no trips the last week of Camp the first week of Camp
is everybody going to know each other counselors building that relationship with the children the last week we go to war right one of the biggest things is the color Wars that we do at the end of the week which is the camaraderie that's built all throughout summer camp as kids go back and forth between the sport
events that we have planned uh in-house entertainment includes the health department coming by because Julie also stated that gym guys will come down and and work with the kids which is amazing um for inter departmental competition I was able to challenge the police chief
to a basketball game so it's going to be the police officers where versus the camp counselors he's excited I'm excited the second thing is I'm gonna speak to the fire chief whom I haven't had a chance speak to yet we are going to uh
also compete uh sorry forgive me one second we also got to compete in the swimming contest so it's going to be the counselors versus the firefighters these are great ways to entertain the kids during the camp in addition to all that one of the
things that we also wanted to change for the weeks that we do go on trips is we want to go on a lot more local trips because we want want to maximize the camper experience by moving away from trips that are are are deep uh we want to give them the opportunity to have the most amount of fun in a little bit of
time while the campers are way though there are a couple of things that will be happening at the pool as it was stated earlier our senior Su arobics is an amazing program that we're expanding in addition to our senior aerobics program I've been speaking with
the Englewood Public School District's athletic director to create another program called athletes on the water where all of the sports teams get a day at the pool with instruction from the gym guys to get a water workout as well as just some leisure time because they
spend all season working towards a better end in addition to both those programs we're looking to get some private groups to come and also use the pool where applicable now moving in 2025 there are some programs that we're very
excited to get off the ground we haven't had basketball in a very long time so we're going to bring back in town basketball as well as travel basketball the chess program is SK is slated to start next month and the River Keeper program was a pilot program that we
started in 2024 and the kids loved it so we definitely want to continue that in 2025 one of the other things that we definitely want to offer our CPR classes for the public because in today's day and age that's very important for every person to know CPR you'll never know
when you'll need it but at least if that time comes hopefully it doesn't you have the knowledge you need councel I just also want to thank you for your willingness to to help make Englewood a better place and these are some of the capital projects that we
were able to complete some of them were before my time and some of them was when I was here with this with your your unwavering support you're giving the recreation department the ability to provide all types of services to all ages infants to
seniors this is a great opportunity for the public this is a great opportunity for the recreation department we're moving in a different direction and I feel that in a couple of years we will have a recreation department that is thriving one that is is in competition with the surrounding town to provide
services that are definitely above average Council if you have any questions now um I will take them okay thank thank you for your presentation can you could you please close down the slides yes ma'am thank you and
if anyone in the council or governing body has any questions please raise your hand nobody has it okay councilman Wilson good evening sir thank you for your presentation very comprehensive I just got one quick question doesn't have to
do with the budget at this particular time we'll talk offline in regards to that but I noticed you had something up there um colors Wars um just curious uh is it possible for another name color Wars yeah we could change the
name can I can I explain to you councilman what color Wars is so so you can but do you do you know the connotation for that as well when you get outside of the school Dynamics I could understand I could understand where you're coming from so
we could definitely work on changing the name okay yeah because we don't want that to flow out into the public you know what I mean we have enough we have enough of that nonsense yes sir thank you for what you do um for our seniors for our citizens
we appreciate your work thank you thank you Council okay councilman toer thank you thank you Tian uh quick question when you said you wanted to raise rates were those the new rates that you were showing or are those uh the rates that you're interested in
raising those are the new rates sir all right wonderful thank you anyone else have any questions from the governing body councilman Rosen s thank you and again thank you for a
great presentation um how do our rates for the ice ring compared to neighboring counties is is there additional Revenue opportunities there one of the things that we are looking at councilman are raising the prices in the year 2027 which we
definitely can uh our prices are better than the surrounding communities but we definitely can raise them so again we're going to revisit that in 2027 I'm definitely going to have a conversation with Ken Catz closer to that
time all right thank you 2027 not 2026 yes ma'am because I believe we Rose the we Rose the prices uh a year or two ago so we try not to do it every year you want to keep that two to three window two to three year window all
right um anyone else have any comments from the from the governing body yeah just um a quick suggestion only because I've been working some Wellness programs toan with the health department I'd love to see some of those go through the wreck
department if only to bring the the you know the wellness programs down to um teenagers and to the kids maybe something you want to speak to Susie about um there are Grant uh funds and the mayor's uh program um and so forth
where it comes with its own funding so it won't impact your your uh budget um and I'd like to see some of the effort for wellness to go to younger people and I have the impression that you'll bring that home so maybe you want to speak to Susie and see if that's something that
you can work on in the new year that is a great suggestion mayor wilds and I've actually been speaking to him about that trying to figure out how to utilize gym guys for the Youth as well so yeah gym guys will touch a base with pretty much every walk of of life here at Recreation
so we just still setting it up right now and then I can approach some of the private gyms and the vendors that are Wellness oriented to see if they want to do something and maybe they host the different departments in their place of business or come up with a special
arrangement for people that are active in any of your programs and anything give it some uh thought and move if you think it's appropriate uh and bring me in if I can be helpful thank you may pleas Mr
hoffen yeah thank thank you council president um wanted to wanted to mention that the um that the health department has grant funding that's available and uh for for use to help um help pay for
some of our camp counselors that are um that that will be that are are are basically um help helping to make make sure that actually that their tit their title is Health directors just to just to make sure that the campers are safe
and those that are that are at at the uh the McKay Park area are safe and I wanted to I wanted to commend to Sean for um some of the new programs that he's developing in also for U just help helping to make sure that the
infrastructure in all of our Parks is is improving but um just to dismantle um some some of the some of the old chilling machines so that we we will have we will be able to make better use of space at the at the ice rink so so
that was it so thank you council president hey thank you I just have a few questions um how far are the meats in track you said there are five meats where are they would you like to know all five right now council president um
sure okay so we have MAA Rutherford hackinson East Rutherford sorry East Rutherford and where's the fifth planfield okay and then um in the track and the 90
participants what percentage uh how many of them are are residents and how many are non-residents for the track in 2024 14 of those participants were non-residents and so is your expectation
this year would be similar yes uh after covid the numbers dwindled but they came back up so going backwards 24 was 90 23 was about 84 22 was 74 so there's clearly a up Tren upward Trend okay and
Junior Football of the 90 participants how many are non-residents please three of them are non-residents those are from Anglewood Cliffs right yes ma'am and that is for the 2024 season okay and
[Music] um and in the in the camp um on average you know each week how many how many campers are there so for our camp we have a capacity of 120 campers per
week and how many of them are are residents and how many are non-residents on an average we have about 20 campers per week that are non-residents and why are we taking in non-residents into our camp most camps usually do entertain an opportunity one
because it is more income again every program is 50% more and that's kind of just something that I've always seen done in our in Recreation communities okay so of our 120 campers per week 20 are non-residents and 100
are residents yes ma'am roughly okay all right well I want to thank you for that comprehensive and wonderful presentation and uh what I just want to say great job
but you forgot one thing that finances in the basketball also we're playing basketball with also with you everyone wants to see me play oh yeah we definitely gonna see Michael play basketball he's actually gonna join the police team you know actually just I
just had one other question that uh you just reminded me U there's a new program um that I saw on the budget which was a b baseball program that wasn't previously on the budget can you just tell me what that program is please so
the baseball line is for any baseball activity that we have outside of the season so right now we currently have a program up uh participants are still signing into it but that's just for indoor workouts right it we used to call it rag ball but it's just baseball workouts it's getting them ready for the
actual season and that program is run uh by Steve baros okay all right well again thank you for that wonderful presentation and uh with that we can say good night and we can now um and I am now going to open the
meeting to the public any member of the public wishing to speak is asked to raise your hand to be placed in the queue to be called upon to speak speakers are requested to give their name and you have three minutes to speak um yansy do you want to call in the
speakers um sure uh we have one hand raised Diane Johansson please unmute Dian uh the transparency has actually gone to now where you don't see the people so now are we not only in
person during the budget workshops but now you don't even want to see us shame on you shame name this is not being broadcast on our equipment that we've
paid a lot of money for for the City Council meetings to be broadcast on YouTube shame shame how can a little town like Leonia do these things have in-person budget
meetings broadcast on their YouTube how can towns like hackin do things and have uh interactive both in person and not in
person I was not able to watch this tonight except to see the tail end and the beginning end and there's no video I can turn to now without an oay request shame shameful
I will Oprah this and I will report this on Anglewood news this is really something beyond belief now getting to what I did hear seniors really should be allowed to
go to the pool any time of any day that it's open it's a socialization process also they do this in other towns where are we Anglewood now we want to rent out to other groups
instead I'm a taxpayer I want to get my money's worth and it's not from other towns or other people or renting out to other groups in addition
I'm watching police for instance on Madison Avenue there were two police cars and two police they were pleasantly chatting with each other the other early Saturday morning when I was on my way to
tck to get bagels are we paying them or is the town paying them and if we are paying them and not getting reimbursed why aren't we putting police at every
single house of worship no matter where they are and if we are they are reimbursing us has every house of worship been asked
whether they would like the same kind of coverage thank you okay um you're welcome thank you for coming um it um yany is there anyone else iPhone number
two iPhone number two please unmute all of your favorite devices in Asian-American culture we've learn to endure in silence no one should face hardship alone at the Korean American Family Service Center I
think your future together we're stronger and we stand with you every step of the away your journey to Hope starts cut them offy please take them off that's a commercial there was no name no um Yancy is there anyone else with their
hand up no all right um before you shut down Lisa council president broadcasted on YouTube won't it no Michael let me just do what I need to do and then we'll discuss it once we're at a uh public session thank you
uh so I'm now going to close the public session hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on in regards to before you close there is a constituents that said he had his hand raised and he hasn't been heard Ray
Diaz okay all right his hands not up but that's fine yany do you want to just um right now his hand is up okay please unmute hello y go ahead we can hear you
thank you first I want to thank everybody who the presenters that did an excellent job particularly were they in instances where they uh mentioned about U decreases in in their or and
savings uh in their departments uh I want to suggest something about the uh Recreation uh do they consider flag football which is another sport that's
upcoming both for youth the boys and the girls seems like that's a big thing that they would like to do especially when the physical the actual football is out or can be done separately um how about soccer I think
we only mentioned at one time that was a private per people who were running the so ER so I don't know if you want to they want to start that type of program within the city um and then going back to the police department I was always
interested in a couple of questions how many sectors do we have that they Patrol out of the city uh and then how many officers are assigned to each sector and I believe we
we have do we have three shifts I don't know just like to know how much coverage we have per sector and um are there two officers per car or one officer per car
and can we have one or two police officers on foot patrol on Palisades Avenue I don't know if if that ever was discussed uh if they can't if they can have either a a daily presence or every
other day or perhaps four hours where you're rotating people around they could also help in giving the tickets that we're trying to enforce when people are doing u-turns but I don't know if the code enforcement offices are there all the
time uh I mean I think it's all about presence in Palisades Avenue you know I think it's valuable that's about it and I thank you for your time okay thank you uh now
so so was iPhone iPhone 2 was the person who didn't identify themselves correct they were the ones who did the commercial and everyone's only allowed one turn to speak okay so then that being said um I'm going to close the
public session um I'm just going to ask um in terms um yansy do you want to uh reiterate what you said in in the beginning of the meeting about that the fact that this is recorded and it's
going to be um online tomorrow do you want to explain that again right as I explained at the beginning of the meeting uh when I was doing a practice run for uh YouTube to to broadcast live
to YouTube uh we came across an upgrade to the zoom uh program that we have or the the I guess Channel or what I'm not even sure the word to use um so in order for us to
broadcast live to YouTube Zoom Wanted full control of our YouTube channel they wanted to be able to add delete uh videos comments pretty much have full control of our YouTube channel which is
not acceptable on any level uh so we're working to change the um account that we have with zoom to something else where they will not be able to do that if we can't do that with zoom we will be switching to a completely different vendor so this is something that came in
the last two days that we uh actually since Frid late Friday afternoon we came across this so we were working on it with our it and other people to figure this out this meeting is being recorded and will be broadcast on our YouTube channel tomorrow uh only tomorrow
because I I really don't know how to load upload things to our website um I need the help of someone tomorrow morning to do that for me um but yeah this will be broadcast tomorrow and the
the links are on our web page and anyone who wish to sit through the meeting is able to do so through the zoom Channel okay we and and I think the other part of the question was why do we do the webinar version and not the meeting version It's to prevent hackers who wish
to display inappro rate matter life to the public okay thank you for explaining that I'd like a motion to adjourn adjourn the meeting please move can I have a second please
second okay everybody in favor hi good night everyone night everybody good night all have a good night night everyone night see you tomorrow see you tomorrow