e e e e welcome everybody if I could ask everyone to please stand for a moment of silence and salute to the flag I pledge to the of the United States of America and to the repic for
which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the Union County Hawk and advertised on December 26 2024 notification was sent to the local
Source Union County and is posted on the municipal website the municipal public bulletin board and filed in the office of the municipal clerk informing the public of the time and place according to the provisions of the open public meeting Law chapter 241 pl1 1975 roll call please Miss Perry mayor boomman
stock here councilwoman Bodo here councilman Foley here councilman Carney here councilman pusc here council president NY here John Arthur here um Mr
abenson here Chief stoer here okay and councilman Lazaro is excused tonight um Chief are we ready uh officer have everyone here okay um we are beginning tonight with uh a little special
ceremony we have a brand new police officer to our Force officer Yaya kabali uh and I will be swearing him in tonight uh Yaya kabali is a dedicated law enfor enforcement officer with four
years of experience in policing he began his career in March 2021 as a correctional police officer with Essex County before transitioning to the township of Irvington as a patrolman throughout his career officer kulali has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to
Public Safety and proactive police he has earned multiple accolades for his outstanding performance including recognition for arresting armed suspects excelling in traffic enforcement and going above and beyond helping community members originally from Mali which West
Africa a former French Co he is originally from Ali uh from West Africa a former French colony and so he is fluent in French Bambara malinki and I hope I'm saying that right and English officer kabali is joined uh tonight by
his fiance as well as family and friends he is the proud father of an 11-year-old daughter and he looks to lead by example and promote Community engagement here in Garwood officer we are honored to have you join the police department and we
welcome you to the Garwood team if you'll repeat after me I Yaya kabali do solemnly affirm that I will uphold the Constitution of the United States uned states and the constitution
of the state of New Jersey that I will will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in
this state under the authority of the people that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of police officer police offer for the borrow of Garwood
according to the best of my ability to congratulations you mind taking a picture and then we'll get your family [Music] you want to pictures and then dton you want me to take
ah Neil Okay g to get right back up actually because we have another fun portion of our night where we are honoring some students from Lincoln School uh and I of course would like to honor their art
teacher who is here miss planer it is youth art month and so uh Miss planer has selected some art from students in Lincoln School and as you can see they're amazing we have some of them up here at Burrow hall there's also art up
at the library uh and I just want to say you guys did a great job and you guys are brought a lot of color to B Hall so thank you I really appreciate that uh councilwoman ndi is the uh chair of the Garwood partnership for the arts and
culture committee who worked with Miss planer to celebrate youth art month and help put up all of the uh art here and in the library and so she's going to join me down here and we'll give you guys some certificates to take home I'm just so that we don't mispronounce
anybody could make it so okay that's fine so they're in order as your read off so you want to speak into the awesome all right my kindergarten student Zachary protic I can hold on
perfect um kindergarten Willow teski all right Lennox Clark in first grade no it's okay Nina nnick in first grade um Elizabeth Mesa in second grade right Michael sasj in second
grade janon carova in third grade ryson Lee in third grade Nicholas watts in fourth grade lilan gon in fourth grade Cameron Ortiz in fifth grade Arya Perez in fifth grade Cheyenne Harris in sixth
grade Luna De La Cruz sixth grade Abby Jimenez in seventh grade Von zaleski in seventh grade we have a lot of students out for the play so just if you're wondering where they are yes Lily Pana in eighth
grade Violet Figaroa in eighth grade Nora aano is here eighth grade congrats and Elizabeth Byron in eth grade come on this we'll get a nice should have green
thank you I can take those certificates if you want and give them to the students do you want me to hand them out next week that' be perfect no problem at all thank you for honoring everybody I will of course no problem this was so much fun
you got artsy girls here Che the library mom and dad take pictures there thank you Mom what was that yes that's it they just they just put us [Music] okay okay we will move to our report
from our B attorney Mr Abramson uh nothing new to report uh Mr Arthur report from our bar administrator yes thank you so we open bids today for cleaning services and for concessions at the athletic field and we still have to go through everything
check some references and stuff but I say there looks like there's some good good potential options for both so um we'll have more about that once we gather everything together uh the shade structure at the Athletic Field Complex is complete the concrete has been poured uh the grass around it has been reced
you'll probably see some if you drive by you'll see some hay everywhere um so hopefully it's going to be you know that grass will come back up and it'll look pretty nice soon um obviously you know we want it to be functional for spring and summer so we're on Pace for that uh the new gar wood. org website is live uh
special thanks especially to our public information officer um some pages are still being updated so please you know uh note that if you see some things changing or you know things that need to be changed they they will be changed over the next couple weeks again thank you to our public
information officer and if you look at um ordinance number 25-11 just wanted to clarify something a little bit that was included uh because we need to reflect the date that the ordinance was adopted not when it was later amended so it's really just changing that date back to
when it was originally adopted um and that's it for my report tonight okay thank you um and yes the the website look great I think it's such an improvement obviously the community calendar is going to be so helpful for
residents and yes thank I hope you know please everybody have a little patience a couple more days or weeks just to get all of the data onto all the pages that may not that may have gotten lost in the shift but we will get it there and it works a lot better on phones than the
previous website it does it does so um thank you Mr Arthur and to miss lysc for that okay so I have um some a number of things tonight actually um before I get
to some Council comment some some actual Council work um I just want to address something that has been put out there um by a resident I normally wouldn't I don't like to give air to these sort of things but I don't want people in this
age of misinformation online people see things and they just assume it's true and I want to make sure people know and it's kind of it's almost a little ridiculous that I have to clarify this but um there is no volunteer Blacklist or anything
like that I assure residents if you would like to volunteer I've never said no to a volunteer we need volunteers and so that's why it bothers me when things like that sort of get out there and and made as if some piece of Gossip is the
truth um it it it's been online it's been in letters and it's just it it's it it sounds ridiculous to say out loud doesn't it I mean and I don't want to give any more ear to it than that but I please
encourage people just you know there's a lot of important things going on and um things like this yeah they're they're interesting and they you know cuz conflict is interesting you know these topics up here are pretty dry but um
I assure anybody who would like to volunteer you do not have to have the same political views as me you do not have to agree with me um many of my council members don't always agree with me either um I encourage you to sign up
for things I I have certainly worked with people who um we don't have the same political views or or anything like that as long as you're a respectful you know person and want to work together with everybody we welcome
you okay I'm going to move on um I want well actually what I would like to do is commend the council um for taking your job so seriously they've put the ordinance for
the sore program on the agenda um and they've done a lot of work and research and discussion leading up to this so quite frankly agree or disagree with it it's we know it's not something that's politically
beneficial nothing involving additional money ever is um and though it's been discussed many times over the years going back to the early 2000s um and councils have kicked the can on this issue they really have uh despite other surrounding towns having
seen the increased costs and aging infrastructure and bitten the bullet so to speak um but it wasn't initiated here in Garwood and for various reasons I'm sure but also because we know it's a topic that can be controversial um but
this Council felt the responsibility of their positions as stores of the residents tax dollars and they moved forward despite the possible perceived political implication so I just think that says something about your character
and the way you um really take you really value responsibility and take your jobs very seriously and so I just wanted to to put that out there so thank you moving on to some business um there are some big congratulations in order
for our police department they were officially accredited today it is a huge accomplishment for chief stoer Captain Rocco and all of our officers it is an extremely long and difficult process to to do this in a
small town is even more challenging so congrats to you you met that challenge and then and then some and so I look forward to having an official celebration at a council meeting in the near future I have asked Council woman Bodo
to head up a committee looking into the possible replacement of the tree in the burrow Hall Parking Lot that serves as the Christmas tree during the Christmas season as you can see I'm sure that it has begun to die and is lean over um so
some of the citizens advisory panel members will join her in researching options and coming up with ideas to replace it at some point in the future obviously this might not happen by the next season but I just think it's good to put a plan into place so that we can
start planning for any possible cost speaking of citizens advisory councilwoman Bodo and I met with the committee on Tuesday evening to discuss the various Capital items finance will soon be discussing uh as well as some other items of interest that um I believe will be discussed by council
members tonight so I'll advise on their feedback with those discussions uh I also provided citizens advisory with an update on the affordable housing process as well as the paperboard Redevelopment so I just wanted to provide one here as well uh in terms of paperboard they have
provided a very rough draft of a new Redevelopment plan to our affordable housing planner however it did not have some of the items we would need before we could move forward with a disc discussion so our planner has asked them at this point to provide more documentation um and as you know our new
affordable housing number was provided by the DCA and our affordable housing planner and attorney have been working to create some recommendations for the plan that needs to be adopted in June um this was discussed last night at the planning board meeting and executive session um but at this point we're
looking for some decisions on recommendations to be made uh by the planning board within the coming weeks and it will be presented for a public hearing uh at a planning board meeting hopefully in April um following that it will come back to the council for
discussion uh in May for possible revisions and adoption by the deadline in June um it is a very crunched timetable and so these are estimated dates that may change as things progress um but I think we will be able to come
up with the solid plan uh for for Garwood uh for housing in Garwood I want to thank superintendent Kenny for inviting me to Washington School to read to the prek classro classrooms for read Across America month it is obviously one of the best parts of this job uh we
enjoyed some Dr Seuss of course and had some great conversations I also had a chance this month to meet with Miss L's class in second grade to discuss what a mayor does so they had some very tough questions for me but um I'm not sure I convinced them to go into local
government when they grew up but maybe they'll be presid you know live at the White House that was a big deal uh lastly I just want to say good luck to the Lincoln School students involved in the school play this year it's Mean Girls Jr and it is tomorrow Friday night
and Saturday night at 700 pm and tickets are available at the door so to CCE and other students break a leg okay comments from the council councilwoman Bodo thank you mayor um just a uh
congratulations and welcome to Garwood to officer kibali thank you to our young artists for sharing their work and uh that's it for me thank you thank you councilman Foley thank you mayor council garw I just wanted to
highlight our sewer ordinance for up for introduction tonight this sewer fee has been discussed as an option starting at the beginning of 2024 due to the amount of work associated with its implementation and the fact that we were transitioning to a
new bur administrator the decision was made to start preparation for imple um for implementation in 2024 this preparation also allowed the finance committee to presented with different options including charging a flat fee versus
charging us usage fee given the size of our town and the operational capacity available to implement this fee a flat $100 fee for each residential unit was agreed upon this fee is sign signicantly less than most of our neighboring towns
this would escalate $5 every year for the next 5 years and would help fund preventive preventive super Ms as mentioned in previous Council meetings bya engineer we have many areas many in our Su system that will need repair work
to maintain Super Service to all of our residents in addition because super fees are a utility all residents including the verela appointments will contribute to this fee which allows everyone in town to share equitably in the cost of
keeping our infrastructure reliable in addition the finance committee has been meeting weekly and one of the items that has resulted in intense discussion was a request by Chief soer for adding an 18 police officer to the gar Police Squad starting
on July 1st adding additional employees is always a very challenging proposition as we need to be mindful the additional costs incurred with of our departments to fully ensure that our town is safe and compliant with all state local
statutes therefore we wanted to bring idea of adding an 18th officer to the full Council and public for feedback to make a final decision some of the factors that we have considered include the fact that one of our current officers is on a long-term medical leave
of options leing Department right now with 16 officers for the past year and potentially for the foreseeable future adding another officer while the officer St medical leave would bring the department back to 17 active officers
the additional requirements for discovering request one of the major responsibilities of our officers has required a steep steep increase and Manpower and hours from our department this additional officer there is a potential bring back a Traffic Unit to
specifically focus on speed enforcement engineering as well safety in addition with the upcoming re retirement of chief stoer chief will have more flexibility in Staffing to decrease or keep those cost
stable sums issued by our dep when comping to 2022 to 2023 and 2024 has increased for the Chiefs might will be able to elaborate on these increases that has not only helped keep garbage safer but brought in Revenue that has
helped comat some of significant State mandates for updated equipment and protocols finally Chief has expressed a desire to also be more proactive as we anticipate seeing pment complex as
finally great ground in the very near future and nowc in residents will require increased demands and however couple years so case to next year's budget again rather than just discussing
this in finance making the recommendation I thought such an important decision should be put out in our public meeting GA feedback before the budget process continues I'm thankful we can hear from all council members
here thoughts in this potential okay thank you um before do you have anything else or should we I'd like to discuss this if you yeah I have something else we could we discuss it first and come back up yeah um uh before I open it up I just wanted
to let everybody know that um I did speak uh about this topic to the citizens advisory panel with councilwoman Bodo it was a very lengthy discussion um and it went back and forth uh there was a a lot of I you know it
wasn't a clearcut yes right away in the end um weighing uh a lot of the different factors that you you've spoken about um the end result was that they were in favor um so I just want to put that out to you that the citizens advisory panel
has reviewed what we've spoke reviewed what you spoken about a little bit and and you know responded that in the positive for it so um I will open it up to council members and maybe we can hear from the chief after that Chief do you want to go first maybe
yeah okay thanks for having having me up tonight um just to pick it back off what councilman Foley was saying is that uh the trends are increasing I mean there's no doubt about that population's increasing um costs services are
increasing but um the 18th man as a number I think is a little bit it's a scary thing but in the reality of how our table of organization what we've been dealing with over the
last four years um since my in my tenure we I think we've had actually 17 officers actively on the roster maybe three months so even though our table organization right now is 17 T you know with officer uh kabali
coming on when we're now at 17 um but we still have one officer on long term workers comp and we still have one officer on long-term um illness so effectively we're at 15 right now um it
it's always been like a slinky and you take one step forward two steps backs whatever it is people transfer people not don't like the job whatever it is um our our number goes up and down
um coming into the chief spot I I thought we could do a lot without having just to throw bodies out a problem and uh we're concentrating on really trying to get as efficient as possible and uh We've made huge
strides not just technology but just the way that we do things to be able get guys and girls back on the road to do the job however um there's been a lot of asks and the asks keep on coming and we
sometimes feel like in order to take care of some of the ask were sacrificing other things um this additional officer would help round out our entire structure and kind of kind of fulfill what we we had had
really wanted to set up to make the entire just the the department more effective and more efficient um couple of things you know naturally it's it's the overtime overtime is the big thing which we've
done we've done quite a few changes to reain that in and to keep that uh steady but not only that um the 18th guy will help us be able to manage just any vacancies like one of the things that
people don't realize is that one if one person takes off on patrol shift we're already at our shift minimum so there's not there's not a lot of wiggle room that 18th officer position allows us to to utilize a more of a cascading not to necessarily fill the
shift but to have extra hands and boots on the street like if we have something scheduled something at the school whatever whatever the fun should may be a lot of times like oh we're short we'll still try to figure it out so the car is
not patrolling you know this we're able to pull a couple more pieces to keep to keep the process going um back to the trends that I started with pre-co numbers we're we were averaging about 16,000 177,000 case uh
calls um for service a year 2022 coming out of covid 15,000 and then 23 was 18,24 is 22,500 and now 25 we on Pace to top that
um and with that we're becoming a much more proactive um motor vehicle stops 23 I'm just going to use 23 numbers during my tenure uh 12,46
1,683 and this year so far we're already at uh just under 700 so you see which way the pendulum's swinging right um arrest same thing 2332 2024 45 and we're already at
12 like we're the the guys and girls are out there working and um we're doing it again with a with a shorter staff than than we normally do um and where that sometimes you feel
that is not not the patrol we're handling that and we always will but it's the special enforcement details the wanting to spend more time on a back street with Speeders that's where we really that 18th officer really help
um in addition to that the another big theme was just trying to get the officers in the department as much training as possible this allows us to send more officers to training on Duty versus off duty which
also helps the overtime budget and the strain on the budget um like it it's always been a difficult thing especially with with how we've been you know down a few guys that all right we have so and
so in school this week we're short we can't do XY or Z simple stuff housekeeping stuff special details getting cones out uh moving speed signs that type of thing this will allow us to be more effective consistently which I
think we we really need as a barel um another big thing that often often isn't spoken about you know in the next couple of months and I don't know if it's all out but the Department's going to be losing over 50 years of police experience with my my retirement and
Captain Rocco's retirement so the need for backfilling that open Lieutenant spots really important and that again that additional guy helps fill that out so that when we now have a department of more than half of it very young
Department the more supervision we could have available on shift it's really important um as as time goes by um you know might be able to flex that a little bit but for right now that would be huge for just the
day-to-day operation I know Council McCarney understands you know just having that supervision there more of often than having ships being run by oic's and nobody else around like it's having being in that spot it's an uneasy feeling and if we could help out guide
train and bring those Future Leaders up it'll just be that much easier and that much quicker um moving forward and then the 18th spot also just helps maintain the expectations of the of the residents um the safety and the
presence I mean again a lot of asks coming up um just with development I'm not I don't want it to sound like oh development you know like it's a totally bad thing like not all the calls are bad calls with the
increased development but they're calls nonetheless that we go to um and again just that little bit more flexibility I know the last couple years you see it in the faces of of a lot of the officers they're tired they're we're we're asking
them a lot and they're delivering it would just be nice to be able to give them a little bit extra help um and then just the ability with the to expand and that's one of my regrets is in my tenure as Chief is that I didn't
be I wasn't able to fully get as many Community engagement projects going and um crime prevention projects going this will allow the next chief that ability to to be able to do that because you
won't be feeling the shortages all the time um traffic enforcement too just those those trouble areas we all know where they are that we could really we're we're we're hitting it hard now but to really make a a visible impact for
everybody to see not just the numbers and then um finally it also gives us the opportunity to collaborate with outside agencies loan guys out for investigations where bring back forfeit your money from arrest and investigations like that so I think um
the timing is perfect um I think you'll see the results immediately and I think just for the overall like I I'm paying the taxes too but I I really think for the town it
would be a uh it' be a great thing to do now and I think the longer you wait the more on the back foot we end up um just to to give an idea again with that 18 number
like since I've been Chief um just going average by quarters in 2023 we averaged 16 officers 15 16 15 14 16 which we had an officer one of the
16s we had an officer either in the academy were out on workers comp 14 and then October and December we had one offic on workers comp one officer on light duty one officer retired one officer separated and one officer in
training it's tough it's tough to do a lot more but we were still doing it um we'll be able to do a lot more with that extra body and I think it' be good overall so any questions I'd be more than happy to thank you I I appreciate
you you sitting and going through it uh obviously it is a big decision so it's not something to be taken lightly so I appreciate you going through and giving us your take especially given that it in essence won't benefit you so it's it says something that you're looking to uh
to the the department and what's best for the department so um councilman thank you Mar and uh as you've entrusted me now for uh the second year to be the police commissioner um uh in addition to you
know agreeing with everything councilman fully presented um I also want make clear that this was under discussion in the police committee um in 2023 2024 and also this year and most of the council members sitting up here have either sat on that committee or been involved in
one of these discussions before the police committee strongly recommended this to the finance committee uh and in fact I had several um animated discussions with uh councilman Foley specifically about this and why I felt it was so important and
um to touch on a few of the things that the chief said um I made a change in my own career about 10 years ago I left the agency I was with and I went to the Union County Sheriff's Office and one of the reasons that I took that opportunity
there was uh the uh Sheriff at the time was uh sheriff cryan and they were opening a new courthouse and a whole family Justice Facility uh which is still uh relatively unique in New Jersey and they had done an expansion where they were hir
uh somewhere between 30 to 35 Sheriff's officers at once um and the department there was also very young and like anywhere else you know supervisors get spreaded thin um they take days off to
so uh one of the things that attracted me to it was the ability to bring a certain level of experience there and you know now with almost 10 years on there um I I'm involved in a lot of things that with uh with training and one of the areas I touch on is
background investigations recruitment retention retirements um and I could tell you that since the date I was hired uh there have been almost 200 officers that have gone through the place since I started so turnover and Recruitment and Retention is not a Garwood issue it's a
Law Enforcement issue it is getting increasingly challenging by the year um we're civil service and we'll certify 100 50 names to get five people hired and it's not people bouncing off the background checks there's a little bit
of that a lot of it is people turning us down and we've all we've also had people take the job and quit two or three days into the academy um so this is the environment that Chief stoer has been operating in trying to recruit and
retain Quality Personnel and also we have asked for a lot of additional programs and there's ones he quite frankly hasn't been able to get to because he just can't commit the the hours to it because of all the other demands of both increased calls for service and everything that's going on
from the state level with mandates for licensing uh and all the things that come along with that like when officers are relicensed it requires a complete background check again so the same 30 40 hour process we put into hiring the person has to be repeated every three
years and you know I've complained often in this room about unfunded mandates from Trenton this is a process that I strongly supported in my profession to professionalize it and make sure that we're putting the best people out there to do the work but they didn't provide
any support for us actually doing it and it's a challenge where I work too even with I don't know five six times the amount of sworn personnel because the chief might be backgrounding three or four guys a year we're backgrounding
120 so uh do the math on the amount of hours that takes so this wasn't something that was just bandied about and also with the changes coming in the department and you know we have two retirements pending
right now and you have you had another senior officer retire last year and you have guys that are getting close um we do need some flexibility and our ability to appoint both officers and maybe Shuffle those supervisor ranks a little bit until we get to where we need to be
um and look ultimately if the numbers and the statistics back it up I mean I I wouldn't call 18 the ceiling it's something that future councils will have to deal with basically every year as the town continues to grow so I do want to
appreciate I do want to say I appreciate councilman Foley coming out so strong for this and it coming out of the finance committee that strong because we felt very strongly about it in the police committee and from all of our conversations with the chief again I want to thank you for that thank
you I just want to add as Finance chair it's really important that the people of G know um you know the hard work of the Gard police department and chief stoer is shown in our budget uh the amount of money being saved through overtime uh
cost being down I mean I don't have the exact number but is it it has has been significantly reduced thanks to the work of the police officers and chief stoer um we also have seen increase in Revenue I believe it's jobs for new Chief ster
um that we've seen so we see it in our numbers and we also as as Finance chair and in finance commit we also have to look at the the consequences of maybe not adding this other police officer where we may lose Revenue we have an increase in overtime cost so these are
things we have to look at also but I do just want to add that the numbers are there if you look at the budget and you see the work uh in terms of the suances um the red reduction overtime um the increase in revenue from job for blue
they are doing the work that's necessary to increase safety uh physically and even economically so I do want everyone to know that that is part of the discussion too it's not that you're just adding an officer and the money is being spent we are also at risk of not adding
an officer increasing overtime costs reducing revenue from jobs from B so this is something that we Al also have to add in addition thank you there any other council members that want to sort of weigh in because um I
think Finance like I guess everybody here is either on finance or police right so um I guess you kind of know what what your recom recommendations are for Finance in in finance was it sort of
um unanimous or we wanted to let the public talk to the public first and we're gonna have a meeting today uh this week I should say to to to you know make a recommendation recommendation for okay did you are
you I can't tell if you're saying yes or no um we've discussed this at lengtha finance and you know we I personally respect Chief stofer's recommendations um from a financial point it makes sense now because we'll
be in July um so I think the reservations are that the financials because you know we're looking at the residence how is it going to affect everybody but on the same token how is it going to affect everybody if we don't um from the
citizens advisory panel like you said everybody was very supportive um so once we gathered everybody's thoughts and feedback um we should be able to you make a recommendation at the end of the week
okay so um I was on the police committee um during 2023 and 2024 um and I was part of conversations about this very issue for during that period And I Have No Reservations recommending the 18th
officer okay okay um Chief thank you again um obviously I'm sure we'll get some feedback from residents tonight and over the next couple of weeks and as we move into budget it will be a further
discussion so thank you thank you I'm sorry I have one more thing okay I know it's a lot of all right finally um I just I want to speak on one last thing and I want to speak on an issue that concerns all of us regardless of a party affiliation uh the Integrity of
our elections recently the New Jersey legislature passed a bill to change the way our Balan and reform other aspects of our elections I believe however that this bill has the opposite effect on free and fair elections these changes redesigning
the primary ballot and dramatically increasing the number of signatures required for candidates to get on the ballot are not about strengthening democracy they will restrict voter choice and make it harder for grassroot candidates to compete for years New
Jersey's counter lineb system unfairly benefits party back candidates giving them a major advantage by clustering together in a way that influences Ro of perception that system has finally been eliminated and on the surface that sounds like a victory for firmness what
we got instead is another system that still allows for candidates to be grouped together by shared slogans and endorsements this might seem like a small detail valid design influences B of behavior allowing candid to be
bracketed together still gives an unfair advantage to those with hard backing weing independent and Grassroots Challengers at a disadvantage if we want a fair ballot we should adopt the standard office block format used in nearly every state in this country where
every candidate for a given office is listed cues that steer voters toward one over another as concerning as the B design is the new signature requirements are even another another concern the threshold for candidates to even the
about has now doubled and tripled in some cases these changes make it significantly harder for regular people our neighbors Community leaders in public servants to step up and R for office which forces candidates to spend more time resources just to get on the
ballot raising the bar for bot access is not a way to make election stronger it's a way to limit competition and protect those already in office individual and sit comtable your seats year after year there can become a
disc the people they're supposed to represent at risk encouraging a mindset of entitlement service us may become less responsive to the needs of their constituents one the problems we're facing in New Jersey is that two offices
are filled by incumbents don't face meaningful competition this is not just a matter of Elections it's a matter of good governance this is just the state that harms the people here in Garwood free and fair elections are the
foundation of our democracy will depend on Open Access Fair competition and a Level Playing Field where voters get to decide who represents them these recent changes under those principles I a resolution on the next agenda to propose
these changes and call our state leaders to repeal them however if the majority of council members are red I'd like to single resolution to clerk to distribute to council members for edits and feedback thank you thank you councilman um well look
I've been vocal on this issue off the de um I that bill I was disappointed in the bill I think the the um court judgment last year was a big win um and while the
bill that was recently passed last week was a step it C certainly um wasn't ideal and um I know a lot of groups have come out against it our Senator Kim has come out and said that um he's
disappointed in it um that so my opinion is I I I wish the legislature would take another look at it and um fix some of the issues that you mentioned so um that's my opinion but it is up for our Council to decide
if they want to move forward and take a look at it I'll go first um I I'm certainly willing to look at uh whatever you've got councilman fulley but um what I will say is were I sitting in the legislature I would have voted for those bills so we
can leave it at that we'll see what you bring forth and we can discuss in the next meeting sounds good okay anybody else sure I'll I'll I'll review definitely everybody interested
okay all right so councilman if you could send that along to our Clerk and Miss Perry if you could distribute it and uh everybody can provide their feedback to councilman Foley um okay councilman Carney that was it
right Council mney are we actually still in Council com I can't I don't I know I know got some good stuff done I I apologize uh thank you mayor and good evening everyone and I'm apologizing in advance cuz we have a lot going on tonight and I have a a bunch to get
through in my comments um but I begin tonight with a statement about uh Duty family and loss uh tomorrow detective Joseph Asana of the newk police department will be laid to rest after being struck down in the line of duty
one week ago uh his partner remains hospitalized with serious injuries uh in law enforcement we experien the loss of any fellow officer as if it were a family member's loss uh uh however this type of loss Cuts even
deeper uh we all know on any given day that that could have been any one of us who just came to work to do our job and didn't get to go home uh well most cops thankfully rarely experience a deadly force incident in our 25 plus year careers uh we all think about them daily
and every time that we train we all worry about the one that we won't see coming detective asona was only 26 years old and barely starting in his life he was already a beloved partner and brother to his fellow officers and he
never even had the chance to step out of his car that night he made detective early on in this job but we won't get to see where his career or life would have taken him because he made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us last week so rest easy sir hundreds of thousands of
your sisters and brothers in Blue retired and working right now will carry on and be advocates for justice in your name uh I also want to acknowledge the recent loss of Fanwood officer Carlos Gonzalez
jior to cancer he was also Chi young with a wife and baby daughter left behind I worked with his father for many years at the K University Police Department and I remember Carlos as a student there from his freshman year to the day he received his degree he was a
stand-up guy and a hell of a cop and he's gone far too soon um reflecting on these losses I urge everyone to put Family First and live well and just do the next right thing every time we never know when our time
here is up and the world is lesser every time good people like these two officers are taken from it excuse me um I also have a bunch of council business so I apologize for following I didn't know what order to do this and so I had a i needed to be able
to say this first um I'd like to congratulate our newest Garwood officer who we just saw sworn in um we've been very fortunate to recruit so many quality candidates over the last few years especially as many of our veteran officers and supervisors are reaching
well- earned retirements uh I know this is a great job and a great town to do the job in but this is also a tough job so uh officer kab k kab kab um I hope he's out somewhere C celebrating right now but uh please
serve with honor do right be safe uh also echoing the mayor I want to congratulate the entire Garwood Police Department which is now officially accredited by the New Jersey State Chiefs of Police Association uh this is the result of a
tremendous effort by all of our police Personnel uh LED for nearly two years by Chief Doug stoer and Captain Sam Roco uh and uh Chief I cannot overstate how proud I am uh for officers and for all
of Garwood to see all that hard work payoff thank you uh we have an ordinance we have a lot of ordinances up tonight but uh ordinance 25-10 is on for an intro tonight uh this ordinance was unanimously recommended from the police
committee and will make changes to the code recommended by the chief of police to update the language that prohibits several specific turns out of parking lots on North Avenue uh the original language in the code refers to businesses that are no longer present so the updated language will use the street
addresses uh I look forward to unanimous support from the council to move on this change as it will help address uh recent constituent concerns that were voiced to me the mayor and several other council members up here uh regarding unsafe terms across North
Avenue uh the police committee has also completed our work on two items I've previously reported on uh and is ready to make another ordinance recommendation uh and also introduce a new Council Le initiative uh and both are meant to enhance safety in various
ways uh we will be providing markup for for the uh Chapter 58 of the burough code uh for review by the full Council and the burrow attorney um and this will have changes to our dog licensing program that will
include licenses that match the period of valid rabies vaccinations and also the ability to present a uh certificate if uh a vaccination is not recommended uh our code doesn't do either of those things right now uh additionally uh for the first
time we will be including cats in the licensing program uh the addition of cats into this chapter was the subject of uh extensive committee discussion that was me um however we finally reached consensus on this uh due to the public
health applications uh especially with the increasing reports of cats in this area being infected with the bir flu uh so I hope to have this ready for introduction for our first April meeting um I will supply the markup to the clerk
for distribution to the council and the attorney that's that I think the chief elbow went on it our live stream or it just all right we should be good uh almost done uh I am uh I'm also thrilled to announce
that the police committee is ready to proceed with uh councilman Foley's Safe Streets initiative uh after discussing and refining this concept over several committee meetings dating back to last year I fully support this initiative and with your permission mayor I'd like to
tag uh councilman folian to go over some of the details as he's been the driving force it's me again so um real quick one of the biggest concerns I heard from residents over the last two years was the speeding in our town and I want to mention that
right now our bur is working hard to make our streets safer our police are doing an excellent job uh giving record numbers of summonses to speeders in their neighborhood so thank you vard Police Department um the finance committee currently has recommended
getting a traffic study completed that will help us strategize and execute a way to improve traffic flow in our area which I hope my colleagues here on Council will unanimously support we are also investing in bike Lanes bump outs to slow down cars on wide streets and
working to build sidewalks throughout T town when there are none to the residents of Garwood we hear you and we are working to keep you and your children and your family safe but as we work to make progress I mentioned I believe it's important that we look at every Avenue in every corner to make our
street safer and I believe we need to do something now as of most things I mentioned above will take time and we want to keep our burrow safe today not till next year so the gwood Safe Streets initiative is a Grassroots no cost effort led by the council that combines
safety Community connections and volunteerism it's designed to have black ambassadors who will rep Place behavioral signs back yard signs with an eye symbol and a slogan gar drive safe slow down this has improving to slow drivers
down in various studies and applications in parts of the country and parts of Europe can report or signed up to receive a free sign through a web page the police Comm will receive this information and relay it regularly to the chief police to help our officers
Focus enforcement where it's needed most this is a simple effective and cost to burrow nothing I to make our street safer and the days ahead I'll be doing that walking in and looking to get our community involed in this initiative as I go door
to door thank you so much yeah looking forward to it um that okay I know it's still um that's all I have for tonight other than I just wanted to thank everyone up here for joining me and wearing green in honor of St Patrick's Day happy St Patrick's Day uh and I want
to remind everyone but mainly councilman Foley to celebrate the holiday responsibly and safely thank you got a seven Monon at old man diapers okay councilman pusc uh thank you m I will I will be
brief uh I want to Echo the congratulations uh and say especially it was a pleasure to get to put uh up the students artwork I was here on Monday with Council man oldi my wife and several other people I think it looks great so really happy to have that uh I just want to highlight that we have a
couple of ordinances up for introduction tonight these are changes to usage and zoning uh this is 25-8 and 25-9 uh we're really just hoping to make G more welcoming for different kinds of business rationalize and simplify the
zoning code uh specifically removing a form of zoning that isn't currently in use uh and essentially allowing a few more types of business the codes it exists um it doesn't name the exclusions it kind of doesn't reverse we're changing it that what's named is what's
being excluded to make it kind of simpler and and um the other thing we're doing is uh basically a change to better protect residents in the environment from potential flooding and water logging issues brought about through the construction of impervious coverage areas um so this is something that was
discussed at some length in in the planning board and uh it comes all these come with the planning board's full recommendation as well as the Community Development committee's full recommendation so uh yeah and just a little update on the film ready Journey
that we've been going through uh briefly the mayor and I will be attending the New Jersey motion picture and television commission's Workshop that starts the firm ready process on March 26th this is the official beginning but uh I've been meeting with owners of businesses and
potential places for shooting in town see a kind of gauge interest in their participation more to come on that thank you very much thank you I know you are working hard on that um council president ndi I just just a couple of thank yous
um I'd like to thank uh Christine gerero for helping um set up the um the connections with the superintendent Kenny and Miss planer to create this beautiful exhibit and if anyone um uh sees what we have here there's also um
um a nice display in the library as well so don't miss that and um I would also like to thank my gpac members for helping with the with the project thank you thank you okay we can move along to the minutes Miss Perry minutes of the
regular and executive session meeting of the mayor and Council held February 27th 2025 do I have a motion to accept the regular and executive meeting second all in favor opposed okay Communications Miss Perry
one town of Westfield General ordinance 20 25-3 an ordinance amending the land use ordinance of the town of Westfield relating to the installation of solar energy systems item two town of Westfield General ordinance
2012-04 an ordinance amending the land use ordinance of the town of Westfield in the gb-2 general business Zone District number three town of Westfield General ordinance received and filed we will move along to our adoption uh and public hearing of
our ordinances uh Miss Perry can you read ordinance 25-06 by title only an ordinance to amend chapter 19 entitled Emergency Services section 19-3 entitled criteria for participation do we have any cons uh correspondence no does
anyone present here wish to be heard concerning this ordinance okay can I have a motion to close public hearing on this ordinance moved second any discussion among councel okay can I have a motion to
adopt this ordinance so moved second uh roll call please councilwoman Bodo I councilman Foley hi councilman Carney I councilman pusc hi council president noi hi uh Miss per can you
read ordinance 25- 07 by title only an ordinance amending the burrow code of the burrow of Garwood by creating new chapter 134 entitled sewers article X charges to residential users do we have any correspondence concerning this
ordinance you want me to read it now yes please okay to Garwood municipal clerk from Michelle capoano dated today read my comments for tonight's public hearing on ordinance 25-7 charges to residential
sewer uses please read my questions SL comments below into the record at tonight's council meeting for public hearing and Adoption of ordinance 25-7 charges to residential so your is one will all the residential sewer fees collected by the Barrow be used only for
sewer related items two what exactly will the residential SE fees be used for three is there any possibility that the new residential SE fees charged to verilla will reduce the amount of pilot fees the burrow receives four how did the burrow arrive at a flat on a flat
$100 residential SE fee for all users that has no relation with actual water soore usage what data was used five since the already existing industrial sore user fees imposed are usage based fees that are calculated and build by the Barrow
why can't the residential sore fees also be usage based and build the same way since it's only a yearly fee calculation SL billing based on an electronic file of water usage from the water company it will not an everyday full-time function
Duty for a burrow employee six what were all the options that were considered for calculating and building residential sewer fees seven why are the res residential seore fee rates being specifically set in this ordinance now increasing each year through 2029 rather
than being established each year as the buau has no idea today what future year sewer costs will be I am opposed to ordinance 25-7 the way Council intends to implement residential seore fees in this ordinance as a flat fee that's the
same for all and not as a usage based fee a flat usage fee will have zero impact on encourage encouraging water conservation and households of one person pay exactly the same as a household of eight which is neither Fair nor Equitable without a usage based
sewer fee and place in Garwood the rvsa sewer costs will continue to be higher than they should be as there is zero incentive for any residential seore user to conserve water to help lower the over overall rvsa seore urage costs which
should have and always will be the main priority for everyone thank you Michelle of Capa biano 404 Myrtle Avenue okay thank you um does anyone present wish to be heard concerning this ordinance please step to the microphone
state your name and address and please limit your comments to 5 minutes good evening mayor ladies and gentlemen of the uh Council I apologize for being late I was at another meeting but uh I'm glad I made it for the please state your name and Bruce Patterson 325 Willow
Avenue Garwood New Jersey anyway to the to the fees uh Michelle C biano obviously Hit Upon a important issue about conserv ation I mean does this actually enhance any conservation at all which appears it doesn't but I'm sure
you'll answer her question so and uh yeah I actually have to I have to wonder how the vote is going to go when the sewer fee sign was already put up in the hallway for the last two weeks and and do the public really they think the
Public's going to change your mind U I'm just wondering how is this going to be handled in the budget in collecting it it sounds like it's a dedicated fund anything and also just moving forward I guess a suggestion is
any Financial agreements that are going to be made with developers I guess are going to have to include that but you don't have to answer that one only because it's just a postulation but that's it um I oppose it only because it's another tax and that's it thank you thank you
does anybody else wish to be heard John Blick 231 humock Avenue um just a minor correction for councilman Foley uh the discussions on these fees predate um 2024 fact November
2023 uh these came up the discussions about earmarking them for sewer maintenance and repair that's new and that is part of the Genesis behind uh some of the issues that I have with this new fee it was originally or at least at
that time brought up as another General Revenue source for the operating budget you're going to do what you're going to do with this uh I have no qualms at all about investing in our infrastructure I was one of the people
back in 2024 who was saying stop using infrastructure grants just for Paving when the engineer was trying to encourage the the council to uh think more broadly about how to apply these grants I have no problem with generating funds to take care of
the infrastructure I've been a homeowner now for 45 years and you don't have to tell me how important sore lines are uh my major issue with all of this is those are wonderful questions I think
I already know the answer there's no way to guarantee that funds that come in through these fees will be applied in the way they're being described right now even if the seven of you believe in your heart of hearts this is how it's going to be used there are no controls over what will happen subsequent
governing bodies so uh as far as I'm aware maybe on Municipal financing is not my forte but you're taking fees in for a purpose and there's no way to guarantee that that Revenue won't be shifted somewhere
else that is the major major problem I have with this thanks thank you is there anybody else who wishes to ex uh address the the mayor and Council sorry okay um can I have a motion to close public
hearing second uh all in favor I opposed okay um I think I'm gonna actually let Mr Arthur handle a bunch of those questions and I think Mr Patterson's and Miss kaab bianos are kind of similar so
we can kind of do them at the same time um to be honest I just want to address Mr bartlick that you know there's no way for future councils to utilize to use these funds in the same way to be honest that's true with anything that we do up
here I mean we talk about pilot shared pilot programs things like that even if we do contracts uh any Council can come the next at any point and make some decisions to um change things around even if you create a utility a council
could come in and decide to end that utility so it it's I understand where you're coming from with that and I I do um but I you know I just feel like that's kind of a large argument for many things
[Music] um as for the conservation I I mean Mr Patterson it's interesting that you're worried about conservation but our skip the stuff was very controversial for you so uh it's kind of a hypocritical a little bit there um
that you know we're worried about conservation but we don't want to get rid of plastic so just want to point that out I'm sorry I had to so um Mr Arthur you want to take some of those questions and break them down a little
bit sure sure so we are recommending to put a line into the budget for sewer fees to be used specifically for sewer maintenance um oh sorry um so the first year that will be a somewhat conservative amount because
we're not completely sure how much of the revenue will truly be realized until we do the billing and see what happens um whatever is not designated into this line will be used as a General Revenue which does offset rvsa
increases um some may go to Surplus which could help us in future years you know our engineer was here recently and he had described really more than a I'm more than a million dollars worth of potential repairs that we could do for the sewer lines so you know this Revenue
would take us many years to even bring in enough money to to do all of those repairs um I think there was a question about Vera's pilot um verla's pilot is not impacted by this in any way verela and any other you know rental unit
throughout the town will be built equally um we looked at various towns to see what they were charging uh the goal was not to overburden Residents uh we I did a comparison we were I think it was five or six towns that I made a chart for the finance committee and we were
the the lowest price of all of those towns um you know the decision was made to begin at $100 over coming years this could obviously be reassessed you know as you know Mr Bartle said and as you said any future Council can make changes
um we felt comfortable that this could be used to cover maintenance of the sewers and offset some rvsa increases you know rvsa increased from last year to this year don't quote me but I believe it's $42,000 just from one year to the next it was
um all towns we discussed this with recommended not doing a usage based um as it requires you know larger amounts of Staff time something that you know as a small town in guard we we don't really have um you know we don't want to have to add staff for this type of purpose
that would partially defeat the purpose of bringing in a revenue at all um it's a you know it's a much heavier lift to do all the residences as compared to you know a smaller number of of businesses that are on a usage based
system um and lastly you know we know rvsa is going to generally increase each year you know so it does make sense to include some incremental increases to the fees you know just a step in it's $5
increase each year so it's it's you know we want it again it's that still doesn't bring us close to what some of our neighbors are charging and a lot of the neighbors charge a flat fee and then usage on top of the flat fee um so yeah that I think that answers
most of the questions got it yeah and honestly anybody can call or email me answer because there were a lot there if we missed anything please email over this is if I this is also about fairness this is about fairness I live in verilla
it it's not fair G resident subsidize my toilet um it's a crappy thing to do this is one of the big reasons here this is about fairness if we can't Vera goes through a
pilot agreement a Bo will go through the pilot agreement they are not want to make sure that they are paying their fair share and that's what one of the big drivers of This was um want to make it affordable make it
Equitable are we in discussion at this point or yeah I just fine I have a few thoughts to share based on on what we've heard um and just to piggy back off of uh Alpha councilman Foley um it's also not fair that our industrial properties
have been subsidizing our Residential Properties for probably something like two decades now with their usage based fee uh and obviously that's a small subset of the total property in the burrow um I I'm also just I'm astounded that I heard two different residents
here call to place a higher fee than this council is proposing uh in their comments tonight because that is exactly what usage based would do based upon what the finance committee has recommended as the flat level I I don't see any way that usage
based wouldn't be more than that for most folks um and again I'm just I haven't seen what Finance has seen numbers wise I'm just trying to apply a little bit of uh common sense I know that doesn't always go hand inand with government but let
let's give it a try uh and just you know finally yeah there is a an element of of of fairness that we have to address and I know Finance has some uh stipulations at least in what I discussed with uh the members of that committee as this was
being form over the last couple months um you know where there's potential fee reductions right councilman Foley depending on certain things veterans and seniors so I mean I think you should really highlight all of that and then it's just you know the
discussion and this happens all the time becomes a little disingenuous uh but you already pointed out that this isn't politically advantageous for anybody that sits up here uh but it's what we we need to do it's the right thing to do as good government and I I'm proud to sit on a council with people that are
willing to make this decision because I and I'm not going to call you out directly here but you sat on councils that kicked this can down the road and I was sitting out there when you guys did it so you know this is in some ways a long time coming a and yes any
successive council could come in here and undo everything we've done on any topic um that's just elections have consequences so um it that as you will if you want to twist that into saying the fact that we got elected is the
consequence you know if you're Sor Fe I I get it um but I hope my point is shining through in what I'm saying here that that's all for me thank you I just wanted to ask Mr Arthur a further question um oh yeah I was just going to say based on what I saw from
neighboring communities yes a usage based system would I'd say for the vast vast vast majority of residents increasing would would be a larger than $100 fee um unless you're like vacant home for you know most of the year um it
would be larger that way yeah I just wanted to to follow up on something you were talking about the potential need for uh Staffing hours to to calculate a usage based fee I mean I'm in favor of the flat fee this is just for the record and for everyone to know so I think in
the question that was read in there was this idea that that would be calculate the level of the water utility which would mean we would have to do nothing could you us explain you know maybe why that wouldn't be the case or or how you know our Manpower would factor into it basically I mean you would still have to match up that usage to the actual bill
that goes out to the resident um based on tiered structure most likely either a tiered structure or there's there's multiple ways towns do it some towns do it where if you're between this these two numbers of usage you get this fee if you're between the next tier you get
this fee other towns just do it where it's you know I'm making up a number here but like 17 cents per whatever usage um so there's there's that aspect of you have to yes you'll get a chart from the water company but you have to then make sure it's correct you have to
make sure it's in the right tiers you have to make sure the bills match what that is which creates a lot of work for our our you know tax collector and our our sewer clerk there's also residents that would challenge that the level of usage that
the water company is you know saying that they use is correct or not um that would create another level of you know back and forth that would have to happen so I mean this way you know you print the bill and it's the same bill for
everybody so it it just does take less staff time in my discussions with other Mayors uh on this who have created different ways of doing it that was probably the the biggest um challenge
that they face is the constant appealing um and the constant um trying to reconcile with the resident um the bill and it it winds up taking on on a lot of hours for the employee um as much as you
might think it wouldn't it it it does and thank you and just a followup so most of what we've heard has been both tonight and in Prior meetings with respect to potential repairs necessary to the line there's been some discussion of conservations evening but to be clear
my understanding is that the primary goal for the leving of the fee has to do with kind of maintaining Mr bar was saying the infrastructure it's all conservation is sort of I mean obviously you can have any externality from from any decision but that the goal we're
pursuing here has to do with maintaining and repairing infrastructure not with that particular environmental problem yes I think both both that and and offsetting the rvsa fees that will that will continue to increase but as I said there's essentially millions of dollars worth of repairs that we could do I
don't want this the only be alarmed they're not like critical failures in the system I we heard was last week or like where was wor and better there was a whole chart right it's it's being more proactive so that those critical failures don't end up happening you know
it's um it's taking your medicine before you before you you know before you get sick basically um so that's that's the goal okay thank you everybody for that discussion um at this point we'll we'll
move along and I'll ask for a motion to adopt this ordinance so moved second uh roll call please councilwoman Bodo hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney hi councilman pusc hi council
president noi I okay we have a couple of ordinances up for introduction tonight um Miss har you read ordinance 25-8 by title only ordinance to amend chapter 106 land use regulations with in article
one General provisions of the Burrow's code do I have a motion to introduce this ordinance so moved a roll call please councilwoman Bodo hi councilman Foley I councilman Cary hi councilman
pusc hi council president noi hi can you uh Miss per can you read ordinance 25-9 by title only ordinance to amend chapter 106 land use regulations within article eight Zone regulations of the Barrow code do I have a motion to
introduce this ordinance so second second roll call please Miss Perry councilwoman Bodo I councilman Foley I councilman Carney hi councilman pusc hi council president noi hi
Miss Perry can you read uh ordinance 25-10 only an ordinance of the Barrow code of the barau of Garwood by amending chapter 21 entitled vehicles and traffic article 7 prohibited turning movement section 21-1 16.4 left turns
prohibited uh do I have a motion to introduce this ordinance so moved second roll call please councilwoman Bodo I councilman f councilman Carney I councilman kusak
council president ndi hi uh Miss per can you read ordinance 25-11 by title only an ordinance of the burrow code of the buau of Garwood by amended chapter 67 entitled buildings and structures article 8 registration of
rental units do I have a motion to introduce this ordinance second uh roll call please Council Bodo I councilman Foley hi councilman Carney I councilman
pusc council president NY I'm all right standing committee reports Finance councilman Foley stages of finalizing the 2025 Municipal budget last week we conducted discussions regarding salary and fire department items we also discussed the
possibility of adding an 18th police officer as recommended by Chief stoer but the as you see tonight have decided to bring this item to full Council for discussion to ensure full transparency as we move forward we'll be holding a budget breakdown meeting on
Wednesday March 19th at 7M here at burough Hall where we will discuss the budget and the budget process in more detail this will provide an opportunity to allow the public to see and better understand and all the various components going into the budget this year additionally we will be hosting our
budget meeting on April 2nd at 7:00 p.m. at 7.m here in council chambers the session will allow for public engagement feedback and transparency before we present the final budget for introduction we encourage all residents to attend and participate in these discussions as we work toward a
responsible and effective finan and for our community thank you thank you um I spoke with councilman Lazar there's no fire report Community Development councilman pusc just that we met to discuss the ordinance is already introduced tonight
the two of them uh 08 and 09 and give a recommendation that's it thank you uh Public Works councilwoman Boda thank you mayor in addition to their reoccurring activities that DPW employees continue to perform preventative maintenance on miscellanous Public Works trucks and
Equipment set up and takeown tables at chairs at the sports complex for numerous recreation activities ities cleaned up the common areas around the municipal complex installed the park mobile signs in miscellaneous locations of the burrow um stripe the new spots as
needed pruned the shade trees around the new park mobile signs in various locations cleaned up the accumulated leaves on the turfield at the sports complex provided Public Works assistance for the e-way drop off on March 8th began the annual storm water inlet clean
and inspection program as required by the njd and storm water management Reg ulations that's all for my report thank you uh police councilman Carney uh yes thank you mayor um I do
have last month's activity report for the Garwood Police Department uh who have recorded 2051 calls for service during the month of February 2025 yeah uh these calls include but are not limited to uh 329
motor vehicle stops and I just want to put an exclamation point after that one uh that's a lot of stops for not a lot of cops in a 28 day month um 48 parking complaints 90 fixed traffic posts which are radar stop sign
distracted driving details 304 building or property checks 49 medical assists uh 78 community policing posts 18 walking posts 29 suspicious persons and vehicles investigated and 19 criminal investigations and
um again seeing production like this come out of this department uh we really do need to be backing it up when the chief asks for it uh finally uh my other news item for the police is that the installation of the new radio system for
the police department is complete uh Chief stoer reports that the radios at Police Headquarters and out in the field are working great uh and I for one I'm glad our officers now have the newest and best Communications equipment possible while serving our community and
that's all for this report thank you uh Community engagement council president ndi thank you mayor uh in preparation for the Garwood poetry Festival gpac is asking local poets to please submit their poems in order to be invited to read their poetry
at the Garwood Public Library on April 26th poem should be submitted to my burrow email cgar with.org due date for all poetry submissions is April 14th um we have some upcoming adult programs that I'd like to highlight um
please visit uh Garwood rec.com to for the full list um and the times and dates that the these classes are taking place tai chi on Tuesdays from 7 to 8: begins in April yoga Thursdays from 6:30 to
7:30 beginning in April open play soccer for 30 and up on Fridays at 8 this is a free program Ceramics Wednesdays at 7 there are uh three classes remaining um
canvas painting is Wednesday um April 9th at 7 and then the upcoming youth programs that I'd like to highlight again please visit Garwood rec.com for the full list brixology for grades kindergarten through
five um walking challenge is going to be during the month of April for ages 8 to 17 stem Python and our coding for beginners as well as for intermediates so it goes from grades 3 to 8 for both of those programs th those programs are
going to begin on March uh 21st soccer classes for ages 1 and a half to 7 by us Sports Institute beginning um April 26 for 6 weeks on Saturday mornings parent and me
multisports also by us Sports Institute on Saturday mornings for ages 2 to 3 and A2 we have some um exciting up upcoming community events our Garwood um Easter egg hunt is Saturday April 12th at 11:00
a.m. uh in case of rain it will be held on Saturday April 19th also at 11: at the sports and Recreation Complex this is free and no pre-registration is required uh the Easter Bunny drive around is in conjunction with the Garwood fire department and that will
take place on Saturday April 19th at 10:00 a.m. um an additional announce announcement is that Garwood W is looking for counselors and counselors in training for summer camp please submit your application at Garwood rec.com by the end of March um the registration for the uh
summer camp will begin um next week and um you'll be able to see all the details of the camp it's going to run from uh June 23rd I believe until um August 1st six weeks and that's all for my report
okay thank you um again there's no Library report tonight so school board liais on Council MCC Carney the board's next regular meeting is next Tuesday March 18th I will have a full report after that meeting
um thank you our seniors uh no report but just to let you know our next meeting will be March 20th at 12:00 pm at the Nights of Columbus a small business advisory councilman Carney I just like to highlight that uh councilwoman boto told me that Tuesday
March 18th is her birthday and uh so happy birthday in advance the uh gsba executive board met virtually this past Tuesday and uh continued work on events and an Outreach plan for this year uh the board is working towards a business card exchange
type networking event uh and is also preparing to head out on the street to recruit participants for this year's Taste of Garwood restaurant week uh the dates for Taste of gwood this year will be May 16th through the 23rd uh I always look forward to
visiting as many locations as possible to support our incredible small business Community I hope everyone else does as well thank you thank you yeah it's a good week every every year uh B Health leaz on councilman Foley okay uh recently New Jersey reported a case of bird flu uh in a domestic cat
highlighting the importance of staying visioning about public health uh the Westfield Board of Health which oversees Garland's Board of Health has provided ful guidance on best practices to protect yourself your family and our community these include avoiding direct contact with sick or dead birds and animals wash hands thuroughly after
handling pets or animals Outdoors monitor pets for unusual symptoms and stay informed I encourage all residents to regularly check the Westfield border Health Website for updates and best practices to ensure our community remains safe and healthy um next meeting for the Board of Health will be on
Wednesday March 19th 6m uh here at burough Hall you planning board liaison Council MCC Carney thank you mayor uh the planning board met last night in a marathon session uh we heard an appeal from a
prospective purchaser of the property on 64 639 to 645 South Avenue uh an appeal under uh njsa title 40 chapter 55d d7a for anyone following along at home uh
regarding our uh I think the Chiefs had enough of me tonight um this is uh regarding our planning officials administrative decision that a car storage facility was not a permitted use at that location uh the board took
test testimony and reviewed the record of Prior use variances including one uh the last one which was issued 15 years ago to the current owner uh after the board's discussion the appeal was granted unanimously with various conditions uh added and continued the
conditions from the prior use variants uh the board also received updates on several ongoing projects from our planning officer and heard a presentation from Mike mrea of Harbor Consultants regarding the upcoming fourth round of affordable housing which
is required by last year's legislation uh there was also an Extended executive session regarding affordable housing uh the next planning board meeting will be held on Wednesday March 26th uh we have no applications or appeals on that agenda uh the board will mostly be an
executive session again regarding affordable housing uh the upcoming board actions in April uh will include a Public Presentation of the affortable housing plan and also hopefully the public hearing uh that goes along with that and
uh we'll we'll keep uh everyone updated as to those dates in the event they become a moving Target um just because of all the uh the work that has to go into actually having the plan ready for presentation so I will keep everyone updated in this report and that's all
for tonight thank you okay moving on to officers report Miss Perry zoning Enforcement Officers report for February 2025 property maintenance code enforcements officers report for February 2025 can I have a motion to
accept these officers second all in favor I I opposed okay uh if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to address the mayor and Council please step to the microphone State your full name and address and please limit your comment to 5 minutes thank you ladies and gentlemen
John again I have to say that we have to Poli officers and firefighters resqu Personnel they are out there for as every day you know fire department resc of both volunteer
organizations 24 hours a day seven days a week they respond for is not the answer and what I say ladies and gentlemen should never be the answer so
one resc squs Sons [Music] the so [Music] next you have the our nation coming up valleys amountain and more
loans that is why thank you Mr P is there anyone else who wishes to address the mayor and Council Joe Paul 54 Third Avenue so happy pum um that's first that wasn't mentioned um welcome to officer kabali
congratulations on the accreditation I know how much work went into that um thank you for prioritizing the bike Lanes though my concern would be distracted drivers um I know the county isn't planning on doing anything at North and Oak when the paper board opens
um as Apartments but I really think that that's something that you guys need to advocate for or it's going to get even more dangerous on second and thirds intersections um I do actually have a question how much does a traffic study
cost um I spoke with Mike disco at the last meeting about the Deep Groove growing from south to North on Center he notified DPW and they actually fixed it the next day so thank you to DPW and Mr disco for getting that done um regarding
the Aliva Foundation we are actively working on Wellness activities in all of our partner communities including Garwood for CPR and AED awareness week which is the first week of June since this time last year the Garwood first
aid squad has significantly inreased increase their membership all week night shifts are now covered and they are starting to have weekend coverage to the point that they have um that they'll have all of those covered as well they
have EMTs graduating their training um and new ones entering they participated in and hosted their many events um and community events including handling interactive CPR and AED demos at the Hartman Park Community celebration event
for the outdoor AED and the olivver foundation's restarter Heart Day at Lincoln School they exceeded all of the Strategic goals they set last year and we all discussed um the gwood first aid Squad is a crucial asset to this community I'm
asking you to please consider increasing the $9,000 from last year to the 22,000 that we asked for last year when you're finalizing the budget it literally breaks down to less than 90 one since a household in Garwood each month this
will allow them to focus on serving the community instead of worrying so much about fundraising an investment in the Garwood first aid Squad is an investment in our residents and our community as a whole so the question there would be how can we make this happen I'm looking
forward to the musical tomorrow night at Lincoln School word on the street is it's square dancing and puberty instead of sex and puberty and their performance today at the art the teen art festival was apparently slle so I'm expecting to
see everybody at Lincoln School either tomorrow or Saturday for Mean Girls Junior so thank you thank you John bck 231 hlac Avenue I just wanted to speak in support of two things I heard this evening uh the first is the
uh request for an 18th police officer wholeheartedly support this uh in fact I'm a a little taken back because I usually pay pretty close attention to this and I I heard reference to passionate discussion at at least last year and perhaps longer about this topic
I never heard anything about it during the budget last year and I think back to when we added the 17th officer for three years this was an ongoing discussion and I supported it every budget season and I was you know very happy to uh see it
finally happen but at least that was a transparent discussion and you know some of you know how I feel about transparency now I'm gonna go back and look at the budget this is how passionate I am at Beth this I'm gonna go back and look at the budget meeting from last year so uh maybe I will be
taken aback by how I missed this uh but I don't think I did so uh that's part of transparency we always hear about the hard decisions we know ever hear these kind of things that uh you know frankly I think the public may have been interested in and I for one certainly
would have uh supported it just please don't add a police fee on top of everything else so uh the second thing uh I wanted to support is uh kelman Foley I agree with you a billion percent about the budget design uh after all
though you got to remember this is New Jersey we have a certain way of doing things here uh so you close the front door you open up the back door you do things the same old way under a different name so good luck with all that uh but uh I certainly uh have uh uh
you had my support on that one and I hope uh that for whatever it's worth Garwood will let it its little voice to uh making that uh uh our legislature and our governor think a little differently about that thank you thank you is there anybody else who wishes to address the mayor and
Council ladies and gentlemen the council Bruce Patterson 325 Willow Avenue uh my normal question first uh how many parking tickets have been given downtown I it's been averaging around 80 to many months I'm I'm just wondering is there like
some kind of learning curve that's going to be setting in where where we're not going to be giving out 80 tickets so I guess my question is for this past month how many parking Tes have been given out uh yeah yeah the mayor mentioned two
people wanted higher fees on the sewer fees I mean I I said it was a tax and I opposed it so I mean the only other two people were Michelle and John B I don't recall John actually asking for more fees he was in favor of it but I don't
recall him asking for higher fees uh yeah so so he called me hypocrit I mean you you selected certain phrases to contrive that you know which is all right I mean everybody's misconstruing all sorts of things as as the days go on
so I mean I've been called worse than that you should watch some of the videos of the of the county if you want uh the uh yeah a couple of the oh here before I get into the resolutions um that led
Hawk light that's still uh in the works on on West South Avenue I guess it's maybe for the kids crossing and also the Vera people between the two veras but anyway it will that be able to maybe retrofit for the garw with fire
department that if there's a fire and the and the trucks want to pull out through the apron somehow they can actuate that light to at least stop additional traffic coming into this block the 400 block of South Avenue I wonder if that you know can be looked into because that's a safety item that
should be looked into to uh the uh yeah the two ordinances coming up 08 and 09 that uh councilman dnak I can't I'm just wondering is there anything about cannabis in that is is there going to be like a backd door approval of
cannabis and that because we I know we had a separate ordinance about that so I if that could be answered the uh 251 what the heck is that 2511 oh yeah registration of rental units just could you give an overview of
what that is uh 2553 uh which is the 250th anniversary of our great nation the USA I'm just wondering if uh you know we're a tiny town and and this is a
nationwide celebration so instead of maybe just singl Town celebrations maybe we can uh sink in with either Cranford or Westfield and and join in with a across town celebration type of setup that would be nice you could you know if
you want to look into that uh 2569 yeah let me look at that one I don't know that one that one was funky here so oh yeah this is this is the counter claims to any tax appeals the tax appeals I guess the window is open in
April for tax appeals and to me I mean you're saying we're we're planning to counter suit uh to increase assessed values but there's but nobody even has come forward yet so how can you actually
put forth this this resolution saying that we're going to counter suit to make sure properties are going to have a higher assessment if they come in front to sue for a low assessment this makes no sense one minute okay well I'm almost done that's the last one but anyway if
anything this should be tabled until until somebody comes forward with some kind of a claim to lower the assessment uh it just seems like a a game type setup so thank you very much thank you is there anybody else who
wishes to address the mayor and councel okay can I have a motion to close public comment second second all in favor I opposed okay um Miss Paul the traffic
study it's actually the I guess it's actually um called the circulation element we've called it before um it we we got an initial quote of uh 25,000 but I believe we're that could be lower yes it was it was a range of like 22 to 30
but we we're anticipating another quote that will be lower than that okay I don't know exactly how much lower but it should be at least a little bit lower than that um and yes mean girls did slay at the teen arts festival or or so I heard
from a certain performer so fet I I am looking forward I got a lot of text yesterday they did it at the school and I've never heard CCE sing so that uh that sounds like No Cap mayor yeah sorry I don't I don't
know the lingo um Mr bartlick the U if I if I may I think the reason why um it I I misspoke before um so I was on the police Committee in 2024 and we the discussions about an
18th police officer did not begin until the point that point um and it didn't make it out of committee and it didn't make it out of committee and really we wouldn't bring it to the public until it was a fully baked idea um and with a lot of data to back it up as well so I think
um you know I'm sorry for the confusion that I misspoke um I wasn't on the police Committee in 2023 and I'm quite sure that after fighting for the 17th police officer for three years with that um fresh in our minds um the discussion of an 18th police officer wouldn't
wouldn't have really taken place quite as quickly as 2023 um it was brought up towards the end of 2023 I know Council former council president Graham was the chair and uh but it was that was very preliminary it was towards the end of
the year and then you were incoming into that committee um but I'm I I've spoken to Mr bik offline before he's just not a fan of the committee process and um I I would just
Counterpoint that with uh I would urge you to check the minutes of my Council reports over the last few years where I frequently reference we're discussing police Staffing and all things associated to it that is as much transparency as we can do out of a subcommittee that hasn't fully baked an
idea yet uh and unless someone up here wants to do Committee of the whole and we can make these meetings last uh till midnight every time we have them the committee process this is what it's for and there's a lot of things that get discussed in committee that never come out here because they don't get support
in committee uh or they it's brought to a committee by a professional or a member of the public and we shoot it down and uh that's kind of how a council Works yes I was just going to say I don't think it's a lack of transparency doing it that way I think we saw how
long the conversation was up here we can't do that with something that isn't fully baked as you said but also you know that doesn't come with the recommendations out of the committee yet um that doesn't mean any that's
okay that doesn't mean anybody's hiding anything I know there's been a lot of that being said around that it it has nothing to do with not being transparent I think the fact that we it was brought out from the finance committee to discuss and get feedback shows how
transparent we we are trying to be up here doing our best with that so um let's see let's see what else I think that was it I was going to speak on 2589 just on the Cannabis thing
okay I I was very brief about it earlier my understanding is that that's not allowed in any of our zones yeah uh so you would need to pass an ordinance per wide you can't uh permit that within a particular Zone if it's not allowed at the at the level of the
municipality um essentially this is just taking a series of things that were already excluded uh and making them explicit rather than leaving them implicit which does allow a few additional usage none of usages none of which would have to do
with cannabis sale or anything even even remotely like that so don't worry about that that would be a whole whole different conversation for sure thank you appreciate that um so let's go a few other questions Mr Patterson the number of parking tickets
I'd ask that you talk to chief stoer after the meeting as I do not have that number in front of me right now um I think councilman Carney when he mentioned that uh some residents were asking for a higher fee he went on to explain that asking for it to be usage based
would be higher so that was the intent behind that comment um uh the hawk light um we it was there has been discussion about um a light for the fire department there's been a lot of
discussion about the traffic light situation over in that area however it is a do Road and we do have to abide by what they will allow us to do and um I it's very few uh fire departments
that have that that light as you are describing it um so no there will not be that Hulk light is a is pedestrian there's there's no way of hooking it into anything else it's just a pedestrian signal um the 25 uh
69 um with the tax appeals it's clerical it actually it allows our employees to deal with it should any appeals come up so we have to pass that now should any appeals come to their desk [Music]
um re uh 2563 um Revolution New Jersey if um in my discussion about this at the last meeting I actually did speak about the fact that we are going to be working with Cranford uh and Westfield I've
already spoken with them about even joining uh they're having a special Parade on the 4th of July in Cranford and joining them on that and other activities so that was already spoken about last time um 2511 uh Mr Arthur that's also
clerical do you want to explain that one yes this is the one I was discussing earlier but Mr par you might not have been here um okay essentially it's just that we need the date to match the date that this was originally adopted not that a later Amendment happened to it so
we're just making sure that the date reflects when this was originally adopted and then there's also literally a one one letter typographical eror what's being changed in there as well okay yeah um and that seems to be it let's uh move on to our consent agenda
does anybody have any uh items they wish to remove yes oh 25- 69 I'm Sorry Miss Perry Okay 69 did I um
okay okay can I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended second H roll call please councilwoman Bodo I councilman Foley councilman Carney I councilman puser council
president NY I okay do I have a motion to adopt resolution 25- 69 I'll make that motion second second okay discussion uh
mayor the reason why I pulled this was just and I we've kind of both been drawn into this a little bit tonight but um there was an assertion made here that this Council was playing games with this resolution uh I now in my fifth year of service I believe you're in your 9th or
10th has there ever been a year that you've been on this body that there was not a tax appeal no thank you you I I I'll just add in I'm obviously new uh but even in the brief time I've been on I've uh seen the number that
have recurred or have happened annually um it's more than I would have expected uh just before I came on to the council so I'm not surprised to see that that might be adopted to ensure that the they can be addressed since they can be expected thank you
okay um do I have oh roll call we've done our motion thank you councilwoman Bodo hi councilman Foley councilman Carney councilman pusc council president noi hi okay um new business we have a new
volunteer Noah Gibson for our Green Team welcome and let's move to our payment of claims Miss Perry be it resolved that the following claims as approved being in the same are hereby ordered paid when properly signed and verified and the payment of payrolls as listed is hereby
confirmed and ratified do I have a motion to adopt payment of claims second roll call please councilwoman Bodo I councilman Foley I councilman Carney I councilman
pusc council president NY I okay the regular meeting of Mayor and Council will be held on Thursday March 27th 2025 at 7:00 p.m. in council chambers information for meetings is post on the Barrow website um happy
porum happy St Patrick's Day happy birthday and do I have a motion second all in favor all in favor a post no I am stay another
hour thank you everybody sorry