welcome everybody if I could ask everybody to please stand for a moment of silence and salute to the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all 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 PL1975 roll call please Miss Perry mayor Blumentock here councilwoman Bodto here councilman Foley here councilman Carney
here councilman Lazero here councilman Padusniaak council President Naldi here roll call estee mr abramson here mr chief Stoofer here mr disco here okay uh I am going to
suspend our regular business for a special presentation tonight uh we are honoring troop 41290 uh for all of their hard work this holiday season the Girl Scouts collected hundreds of toys for Toys for Tots they
are here with their troop leaders Mrs hers uh Mrs souza Mrs salmon uh who also deserve uh appreciation for all of their efforts with this toy drive uh they collected so many toys the the p I saw all the pictures too at the very end the rooms were overflowing here so uh you
guys did a fantastic job uh we also have a special guest here tonight that is going to help honor these girls uh and help give them their pins uh Gunner uh Monaco uh U he's a Mar sorry Gunny Monaco he's a US Marine Corps guning
surge uh sergeant and has worked with this troop during their collection uh and it's a charity that's close to his heart uh and we are happy to have him here and we're honored to have him here tonight with us um I know Captain Roco
wanted to be here as well unfortunately he couldn't make it um but he wanted me to let you know how proud he is of you guys uh and he's worked he worked with the Girl Scouts as well during the holiday season so uh at this point I'm
going to ask if um Gunny could join me at the microphone along with our troop leaders um and I know Mrs hers wants to say a few words to the girls thank you for coming good to see you again mrs hers would you like to start
i just wanted to say that I am very very proud of all of you you did a great job it's a um really special thing to help people who don't have anything at the holiday season um I want to thank Captain Roco and we actually do this as
not only from our hearts but it was actually his wife uh Mrs roco Jen Roco you all remember her who actually brought this to the table for our troop right and we've been doing it since they've been in first grade and now most of them are in what sixth and seventh grade so it's pretty big accomplishment
this was our best year ever we really pounded the pavement and I know you guys freeze out there on the day after Thanksgiving every year and I appreciate that but I think all the kids who get the toys um appreciate it even more so I'm very proud of you all
sure ladies and gentlemen how you doing my name is Garner Maron United States Morning Court twice tax program means a lot to me you guys do not understand what you do out there what it means to a child that has nothing a child when the
mother and father go to a store and a child wants a toy the mother says "No you need underwear instead." A lot of people don't understand that when they're when you're on a budget and you only can afford certain things toys is a
luxury you can't have that so what you do is bring joy to kids that sometimes can't have that and another thing I I think a lot of you girls here know I manufacture for Girl Scouts of America so the sashes and vest that you guys
wear that's me so not only does the toy for program but the Girl Scouts of America I'm intertwined with everything there so you guys are doing a great job for society and giving back to the community so we have some stuff here you want to do
that so what we have Go ahead man i'm stepping on everyone's clothes so what we have here today I actually called headquarters Girl Scouts of America said "Hey we got this troop here that's doing a phenomenal job." So I have actually a certificate for everyone here it's a
certificate of excellence of for volunteering for everyone here uh in honor of your outstanding Girl Scout leadership and dedication so every girl tonight is going to get one of these also next time you're out
there got a little water bottle water bottle for you guys here so and we're actually everyone's going to get paid tonight yeah um actually everyone earned their five-year Girl Scout uh pin which actually was uh bought for us by the PBA
so we need to thank the PBA um for doing this for our troop uh but this is a second highest level community service award you can get because you have all been doing it for over five years so it's a very big accomplishment so you guys are going away with a lot of
stuff tonight that's amazing thank you Gunny and thank you troop leaders and I also have a certificate for you from myself um it says "Thank you for your hard work and dedication collecting the toys and donations for toys for tots with Girl Scoop Girl Scout Troop
41290 thank you for making the world a better place." So if you want to call Okay want to hand out as one of the side we will start with Leila
Souza we'll do it that way got a lot to hold on to riley diane Har don't all the way down all the way down haley Mason oh you know what i I know i should have
just held on to them i don't know why I did haley L thank you emma will Emma and Wanda Anya Sabatka Liliana Salmon Sierra Harris okay we'll give it to her
sister and Leila Lar Rouge hey y'all we are so proud of you girl you really did amazing job once again I know everybody counts on you in Garwood they know that you guys are the ones that do
the toys for Tati to you around the holiday season uh and we couldn't be prouder thank you as Mrs herd said for standing out in the cold and collecting all of the the toys at our Christmas tree lighting and afterwards as well uh it really does make a difference as
Gunny Monaco said so I want to thank you for coming tonight as well it's very uh important uh what what Gunny does a after retiring from the service spent his life giving to our country and now continues to give back through all of
his hard work in volunteerism so thank you so much so if you girls mind coming up and we'll take a great big picture guys are taller than I have heels on so yeah that
stage you're good answer okay great great job everybody is welcome i mean it's not boring to us for them it might be
We'll just wait a minute as we uh let the girls make their way out how are you yes yes yes okay we will move on to our report from
our burough engineer Mr disco thank you Mayor good evening Mayor and Council i I could clear out a room pretty good um I think I'm pretty brief tonight just some updates so our municipal aid 2024
project which I spoke about last meeting that I was here we submitted to the New Jersey Department of Transportation on February 28th got a a fairly prompt review on uh received comments on uh March 6th and then we returned the full
submission on March 24th and are anxiously awaiting their uh re-review of it this is very common sometimes you go through two or three cycles we've tenatively set a a bid date bid receipt date of May 8th it's possible we can move that forward if we get very prompt
comments but um uh I I think we addressed all the comments that they had so we should get to uh a bid date and an award and have hopefully a summer construction updating our contract 2024-1 which is our municipal 20
municipal A23 project um last week we had uh the contractor and their landscape subcontractor basically planted the trees on all three streets that were designated we had a great help from the shade tree commission in uh picking out
what the tree species were the locations of them that went very smoothly we walked it in the field with the contractors multiple times and they were doing that work last week as well as some transplanting work um so I'm going through those very quickly there's
really not much to say again what we anticipate a spring paving for the municipal 23 project we do have with that as I discussed last meeting the the minor sewer repairs to do before we pave um we had some resident concerns
expressed to the uh burough clerk and to the mayor and to the administrator on Pine Avenue uh in terms of some concrete curb that had shown some wear or disrepair um photographs were submitted i I
basically took the resident photos and included them in there almost I I walked the entire um block that these complaints were coming from and almost every one of the curbs that were in question are at a driveway entrance only one or two locations had um some
chipping or spoiling or deterioration in a non-driveway environment uh I gave you a little map too was very perplexing why on one end of the street there's really no repairs or no disrepair and yet um at the other end of the street there are um
I I try to go back in time with Google Maps google Maps usually has a street photo at every address every 2 3 years unfortunately on that section of Pine uh the most recent photo that they displayed was in 2018 which happened to
capture when they were doing the water mane uh replacement where they had the picture you have is when they have the above groundwater piping at the driveway and curb level so I would imagine if the damage was done in 2018 we probably
would have heard about it over the last seven years which I don't think has been the case so I'm a little puzzled as to why in one of those six pictures that the resident uh submitted um it shows a driveway apron and you can
see if you look closely there's pitting of that little minor circles or circleish type of um specks in the concrete that's typically what happens when you you salt or use a salt product that conflicts with the the concrete and
eats away at it it it's very possible this could be salt damage i just don't know why it's only on a certain section of the street and not on the others i did go back in time and I found a email from Don Guariello who was the previous
municipal engineer and that email was dated in 2018 with a look back at the time of the 5-year moratorium streets he had worked on and Pine Avenue was not listed so I can conclude and I listed it on the map that clearly the last time Pine Avenue received the curbs the
concrete curbs and was paved was prior to 2013 so as a minimum you're looking at 12 13 years for that curbs probably much older in 2018 they did the water main replacement and subsequently I didn't
find the exact date but probably late 2018 or early 2019 they repaved the street again if the milling and paving equipment had damaged the curb in 2018 or 2019 I'm gathering we would have heard about it much sooner i don't know why suddenly this is happening i'm not
aware of of machinery or equipment that's been on Pine Avenue so I'm at a loss as to why some of them it is a physical um debilitation of the curb it's chipped it's cracked um it could be salting but
it could be something more but I I really can't explain mayor why it is and why why so many of them on the uh east end near East Avenue East Street excuse me are uh doing well aging well I should say and whereas some of the other ones and again mostly they're at the
driveways mhm is there a cure so we can do an epoxy it's very expensive epoxy when we did the South Avenue curbs we did it over the Garwood Brook at the time because we were trying to beat a paving by the Union County um that was
very limited over only over the culvert there um we can epoxy treat it with what's called a SECA product S I K A um again it's a manual uh addressing of the problem there's a minor textural and
color look to it i don't know if it's recommended or whatever i don't I don't have an answer to you how to address it other than we wait for um the street to have to be paved again which at this point if it's paved in 18 or 19 you're not looking at doing that in any short
time frame so we've we've acknowledged the problem we've identified the scope of the problem i just don't know what the the answer or how we progress at this point so it's informative we can talk about it or think about it
um obviously if you're going to get multiple complaints you're going to want to react to it i just can't tell you other than salt damage what why it was caused and why it's concentrated on the driveway depressed curb sections as
opposed to the full height curb sections um and I'll let anybody who has questions obviously go ahead um sorry what's a epoxy so epoxy is one way you can make a repair is with a cementious
material if you take cement it's not going to last very long and epoxy is what I would call a higher grade uh synthetic product that mirrors the the characteristics of concrete or cement but can be applied in very small or thin
lifts and uh makes a more permanent uh repair rather than cement alternatively I mean you could excavate and repour concrete curbs it's going to be very destructive to the pavement surface and the driveways and you're going to wind up doing the aprons again
so again I can't explain why h 40% or a third of them have it and went to each driveway and saw what you saw and it's just weird how it's just half of the street is it What side of the street is on the south side it's on both sides on
both sides if you look at that um map I tried to do a quick map i don't know if it's affected on both sides but it kind of stopped halfway up the block the X's are where the it's just concrete disrepair is is there a possibility just
that particular bucket of mix had something weird going on with it but why would it be only in the driveways you know a concrete pour they would have gotten 200 feet for a truck it would have been the whole the whole Yeah so I would I that I could rule out um
again non-d driveways there's only maybe two spots i think the one who 351 there's a section between driveways on the full height curve that's damaged there's another one seems to be worse really centered upon that again I don't
I don't know why unless the expected lifespan of these are the uh what I would call the older style curves right these aren't the Belgian blocks this is the poured cement it's a concrete curve yeah yeah so um what's the expected lifespan of that so I mean a concrete is
a wonderful material lasts a long time a lot of buildings are concrete some roads are concrete bridges are concrete they can last 70 years so concrete lasts a long time the damage comes from plows hitting it um utility work that under it
or around it and then it it drops tree roots lifting it i didn't see too much tree root damage on that street so I don't know when the curbs were installed whether trees were addressed at that time so the concrete will last in fact I would say other than the the sections
that are damaged I found the curb condition to be I'd call it good so it it it's those the remaining of those curbs are going to last certainly another decade or two before we would be be looking at it i'm sure you have other streets in town that have older concrete
curbs yeah older than this section of Pine Avenue yeah the the condition of the other parts of the block seemed fairly good i mean it wasn't there was you know the curb condition was was just fine on the other side of that block um
I guess my suggestion would be I if we could get an estimate as to how how much it would cost for the epoxy Yep um fix and then we can discuss as a council if we want to try and put it into one of our road work projects at that point
once we see how much it Yeah okay thank you all right and the last bullet point Mayor you can talk much more knowledge yes I'm going to North Jersey i think that's NJTPA is North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority yes I think so how about that
okay and uh you're get you're getting a grant perhaps and so I'm going to do some field work tomorrow get a plan and and assist everybody else in this wonderful pro demonstration project thank you i was going to talk a little bit more about it so everybody will know
what you're talking about soon um does anybody have any questions for Mr disco or anything come up uh Mr disco there's only one thing I wanted if uh can put on your list to check out um is the 300
blocks of the the H streets I guess um I I know in particular Hemlockk um but the a resident brought a concern to me and he said there was a couple of streets in the area so the H blocks right there the 300 blocks that there seems to be a
crack going down the middle of it um and uh we just want to get ahead of it before uh you know any further damage is done if we need to do any sort of repairs on that as well if you could just take a drive by those in the next I I will certainly do the entire lengths
of the street and and see again it it's very common uh the paving machine goes on those streets they're not extensively wider like some of some of our Garwood streets are so it's a two-pass pavement there again
traditionally they would pave one side do the other you'd have a what's called a coal joint or weak joint that would open up we've been using the echelon paving yes so we have the two pavers going which attempts to minimize that having said that gladly drive the streets and look at it um if it's you
could the the most common thing to do is just uh preemptively seal any openings or cracks to keep water out cuz the damage or the um extending of the damage is going to be caused by water getting
in freeze thaw splitting that pavement more and it's just going to again build upon itself to open up wider and potholes so we you could seal it a crack sealer mhm um but again I'll look at it see what the extent is and and see if I
can find a reason or a consistent pattern for Okay terrific thank you i appreciate it okay if that's it then thank you Mr disco thank you welcome to head out to your next meeting I'm sure thank you very much thank you you too
bye-bye okay moving along to our report from our burough attorney Mr abramson anything tonight nothing tonight thank you uh moving to our report from our B administrator Mr
arthur hello everyone so we have um ordinance number 25-13 updates the chief of police and captain promotional language this is just clarifying what's considered specialized training for the purposes of scoring police chief candidates and clarifying record review for captain um
there was a clerical error where both definitions were meant to be included under both chief and captain two different subheadings in the code um but were missing and just basically needs to be adjusted to make it to make it match um there's also approval for a new cleaning service contract which was the
lowest bidder for this service um I got some really good uh references for them um total annual cost is 24,000 but we are currently paying 26,400 so this actually saves uh 2,400 annually for the burrow um you'll see an
updated version of that as well where it reflects that it is a one-year contract with a potential one-year extension if we are happy with the service um resolution 25-79 is a new requirement from the state so the state sets
budgetary deadlines that um are extended every year this resolution is now a requirement for those extensions um and that's it for my report thank you anybody have any questions for Mr arthur
okay uh I have a few things tonight um I want to start by thanking Councilman Foley and our borrow administrator uh John Arthur for their work putting together and presenting the breaking down the budget presentation last week uh and thank you Councilman Lazero for
stepping in as I was under the weather and could not attend um but I know a lot of work went into it and I spoke with Councilman Foley afterwards he said it went very well uh and the residents that were there provided some good feedback other towns do things a little
differently um some often do a special budget session as a part of their regular meeting or some do a special meeting like us but I think Garwood stands out in terms of how far we go in taking a deep dive into the budget each year uh with both this special and
formal presentation and then our very in-depth special budget meeting which is next week and along with our capital budget discussions which is coming up um so I know agree or disagree with different items or amounts within the budget we we know but I know this council does go above and beyond to
provide as deep a look into it for the public as possible uh so I w also want to say thank you to Nanette Perry for her work as our clerk this past year and congratulate her on retiring again um she brought so much expertise
to Garwood and we thank her for stepping in during our transition thank you and on the other side of that we have congratulations to Patricia Vasquez who will be stepping into the role of acting clerk uh it's been great getting to work with Patrician i know that will continue
um also welcome to Molly Hulk who will be taking over Patricia's previous role as our part-time administrative assistant uh starting April 1st molly is who you will see at the window to help you if you come into Burrow Hall in person so Molly welcome to the Garwood
team uh and congratulations are also in order for patrolman Christopher Smemedberg our new officer joining the ranks of the Garwood PD uh as Captain Roco retires May 1st and Chief Stoofer on June 1st uh we wanted to bring in our new officer to provide some overlap so
that he may benefit from their experience before they go next you'll see on our agenda resolution 2573 acknowledging local government week which is April 6 to April 12th uh as a council person I
thought it was important to highlight this week simply as a way to involve our community in more activities concerning local government or highlight what local government does and as mayor I've continued to uh find ways to highlight the week as well i try and change it up
a bit not wanting to repeat the same things every year uh one week we one year we did a touch a truck um we we've done tours of the burough facilities uh we've done coffee with a cop and coffee with a council person uh and last year we did videos highlighting different
employees and departments within Garwood uh we'll possibly repeat some of those in future years but this year I decided to create a photography contest to highlight Garwood the contest is themed Garwood in the eye of the beholder and it truly is open to interpretation by
the photographer to capture what Garwood means to them um how do they see Garwood where do they see our community spirit photos can be in color or black and white and can be sent to recreationarwood.org uh it is open to
all residents uh of all ages kids adults seniors uh and photos will be judged by our administrative staff uh gift cards will be awarded to the winners and their photos displayed here in Burrow Hall so please encourage your friends and neighbors to start clicking away and
send in their photos in addition once again we will have students in government night on April 8th uh this is when our Lincoln School Student Council members get to take our jobs and run a council meeting and it is always a very fun night we're looking
forward to seeing the students sit up here and hopefully we see who will be running for council one day so one more item to discuss as uh what Mr disco mentioned earlier we have been discussing curb bumpouts at Willow and Willow and Center for some time now uh
I'm happy to announce that it looks like we have a day set to bring a bumpout demonstration to Carwood um on June 21st Easy Ride will join us in creating temporary painted bumpouts at that intersection and we will be inviting the
public to come help paint them um the bumpouts will be temporary the using paint that will wash away in a few weeks but this will allow us to introduce this safety measure into Garwood and monitor its usefulness uh before installing any
permanent bumpouts and as Mr disco said uh NJTPA um does provide a grant to Easy Ride that helps um purchase some of the materials the paint brushes the rollers some of the paint everything like that um and we are applying for that to
purchase the demo materials uh we will also be including uh the children at Lincoln School in the process allowing them to choose from some different colorful colorful designs and they will of course be welcome to help paint the finished product um so
this will be a full community engagement project we will be having a small town hall in April to talk more about the bumpouts um their importance in pedestrian and bike safety on our streets and to just discuss this Garwood project more specifically so keep an eye
out on the burough social media for the day and time in April when you can learn more uh and then mark your calendar for what I'm calling street safety day for June 21st when we will uh participate in the bumpout demonstration
that is all for my report um at this point before we move to our council comments I wanted to uh take a few minutes uh and begin our discussions on Garwood's 2025 capital budget uh so at
this point I will turn it over to finance chair Councilman Foley thank you Mayor if you have an opportunity if you can pull out there's um there's a capital budget um sheet with the all the requests from each department and the
recommendations uh by the finance committee so I'll give everyone a second just to get that together it is nicely colored i don't know if they're attached to the agendas for those in the audience they are fantastic thank you okay so and it
can be found um online as well with the agenda materials okay so tonight the finance committee would like to present the possible 2025 capital budget plan as you can see from the worksheet it is divided into items that are requested
and what the finance committee has recommended we can go we will go over the various departments but most is fairly straightforward i'll jump around a bit but please stop me with any questions we are recommending the upgraded surveillance security surveillance system for the police
department that would also cover Burough Hall and fire department's headquarters as well the recreation department capital would consist mostly of the grant match from this year's kids wreck grant which we received to instill to install solar lighting surrounding the
wreck complex as well as some replacement items such as picnic tables and new garbage and recycling cans as the ones we have are in disrepair following the recommen recommendation from the superintendent of the DPW and
our burough administrator the committee unanimously supports the purchase of a Nissan dump truck with snow plow as well as an improved ventilation system for the DPW building the DPW brought this to us this year to see this extra safety piece be
installed and after researching various types our B administrator has estimated the cost out to 30,000 we feel it is obviously important to continually update the DPW building as necessary for extra protection of our employees the decision was made to put off the
purchase of a line striking machine at this time for the fire department due to an urgent issue involving the antenna system that transmit tones to the fire department pagers the committee has already approved the immediate purchase of 10 pagers from the current temporary
budget these were essential for ensuring uninterrupted emergency response and communication to spend money to replace the antenna and continue using pagers that were out of date and will soon be opportun so you made the decision to
place the pagers at the top of the list and move forward if you manage costs responsibly the remaining pages will be blinded allowing us to maintain preparedness while preserving budget flexibility we are working to ensure that donating pagers arrive as soon as
possible and I thank the department for adjusting during this time i will also I also want to add that the fire department submitted multiple requests reflecting our ongoing commitment to safety and preparedness while the committee acknowledges that not all requests could not be could be fulfilled
to the full extent desired we carefully reviewed each item that these recommendations aimed to balance fiscal responsibility with the priority of maintaining safety for both our residents and our firefighters obviously we had to adjust
when we cos this best represents the top priorities engineering products include the installation of the pedestrian signal at South and West which has been purchased by Rooster Development as well as the bike lanes which we are hopeful will have a grant
reward to offset any questions please let me know otherwise we can open this up for discussion among council thank you thank you Councilman um I I think this it it is pretty
straightforward as you said i appreciate um laying it out in this way um I obviously every year we we have a large amount of requests from our departments and um we this year ended up with almost
$760,000 in requested equipment or matching funds um and of course as you can all see the uh the finance committee has recommended about 371,000
uh of those uh items so um the next thing would be really for us to discuss uh our opinions on some of these items they're uh discuss your opinions on the recommendations that came out of finance
so that we can move forward uh and with financing uh in the coming months um Councilman I see you have your hand on the microphone off just simple clarification so it's 30 pages total 10
have already been purchased 20 additional not 20 total correct okay yeah just right so just to clarify what happened the these pagers were working off an antenna at the county building and during a storm uh a couple weeks ago
windstorm I think it was um the antenna broke and obviously it would cost some you know we got some estimates between $3 and $5,000 to repair but at that time the fire department had already been looking at
um pagers because they were obviously obsolete working off an antenna so um the decision was made to to not put good money after bad essentially uh and move forward with
that as a priority um but I do appreciate the the time that the finance committee took to sort of figure out uh how to sort of spread the cost a bit because um it was sort of an emergency situation where they at least needed
some pagers right away uh to cover some of the uh firefighters who are always uh on always attending the calls uh you know so the decision was made to split between 10 and 20 um so that we could
plan a little bit further ahead for those 20 pages but they do have 10 pages that I believe have come in already and are working um Mr arthur everything has been okay with them yeah they just we just got them yesterday they're in the process of being programmed and then
I'll obviously double check that once programmed they're they're working did you have an update on the programming or uh the programming was completed that they were doing test pages uh either last night or today okay that I that I heard go across um the air and um just
just to clarify what the mayor said um I'm sure it's a lot more technical than I'm not going to everybody with the overly technical description but there there would have been a transition to these new pagers anyway and it was always going to be considered in this
year's capital um Mother Nature taking down the old UHF antenna uh a little earlier than we were intending to go totally off that system we're still in the process of transitioning i believe the police are fully transitioned to the
new radios and system fire was going to take a little bit longer just because there's some challenges with mounting stuff in their apparatus and then just their pager function is unique to like volunteer fire and EMS um but the goal would have always been to page over the
new system which would require these new pagers so basically spending any money on that old antenna to shore it up uh my opinion would have been wasteful and I I want to thank Mr arthur and Councilman Foley for both reaching out to me because they knew this was a part of the
radio project that I started uh with the bond last year so thank you all i'll just ask another clarifying question while I'm while I'm out here so most of the requests I think are pretty um you know easily interpreted just in terms of what they mean what is the
architect request that was not met what is the in the I I can answer that pretty easily okay so the architect request from the fire department was for the design of what's called a gear safe room
is there like architect standing in there for person who would you know be looking into the design of this particular room yes so that wouldn't even include the cost of potentially building such a room you know all those other things it's just the design phase of it
you have something um that particular request I think uh carried over from prior years as well um uh it would be the first piece of of what they need an architect to look at it to determine if they're going to reconfigure space inside the structure
what's loadbearing what isn't etc and then um yeah that I think that actually started when I was fire commissioner and it's just one of those things I'm I'm when it's my turn to comment i'm actually gonna one of these things on here is from 2021 and I'm thrilled to see it so sometimes it takes that long
it does was that it Councilman okay feel free go right ahead um I just wanted to specifically point out the um the recreation grant match i'm I'm grateful to see that there one year we were up here where we didn't get that particular one off uh but the the solar lighting
yes and the wreck complex was uh a proposal from me in my first year on council in 2021 based on resident feedback and also my own experience attending uh you know things with my much smaller kids at the time and just there not
being enough lighting after dark for if it was in use or even if somebody's passing through even though it's technically closed so I'm I'm actually thrilled to see this one on there and thank you to finance for supporting that and uh I'm everything else here is is very straightforward i'm in support of
uh finance's recommendations mr arthur yeah for the solar lighting just to uh manage everyone's expectations it will not cover the entire recreation complex this will be a stretch of walkway uh if we want it to cover more and more of the complex we're probably going to have to
apply for more money next year so I just didn't want anyone to think we're going to have like lighting everywhere probably didn't say that as accurately as I would my the original intent was always the more trafficked area from the parking lot into where people
tend to go to watch games it wasn't the entire compliment i think sometimes people think when they hear the solar lighting they think of the things you can go buy at Home Depot that we can put in our yard this is not that this is these are installed and yes so when you see the cost it's it there is a
reason for it obviously we cannot have something like that at the rec complex um it it wouldn't be suitable so these are uh these have been researched very uh thoroughly by Mr arthur and Miss Lysk so um and as silly as it is looking at
recreation new trash cans I know we say "Oh you know it's just something you don't even think about." When you need a real um heavy durable trash can they're very expensive um the ones that you need to provide for wreck complexes so
um I I'm actually very happy i've been It's been killing me seeing the the condition of some of those so I'm very glad that finance is recommending putting some of the money towards that it's it's a silly thing but um very necessary and our recycling cans as well
which is obviously something important to me uh have just been um they're just in complete disrepair so this will be very much needed for our recreation complex um does anybody else have any com uh comments need any clarifications
i just wanted to just comment um so you know one of the things uh that we really tried to do on the finance committee is to really prioritize the needs as opposed to just the wants and um I think you know if you look at um what's left over in our
recommendations and you know I was I asked for our CFO to provide what our previous um you know capital projects were and you know how much we spent and you know looking back to you know 2022 2023 and 2024 and I think all those you
I look back to those those projects and there was a lot of certainly needs in there but you know it's the amount of money that was spent at those three years averaged somewhere in the range of $800,000 so you know we you know to be able to come to this meeting and
recommend you know half of that um I think you know it puts us in a nice situation long-term financially um that hopefully we're you know that we're not having to bond as much money which then incre decreases our you know our notes and our interest rates uh that we're
paying for future councils so uh you know hopefully this you know obviously there's going to be years where it's going to go above that that's just the nature of you know a town where we're going to have to purchase trucks that are quite expensive here and there but it's good to have a year here and there
where we're kind of buffering from that uh needing to have to spend a lot on our bonding and I think that speaks to the planning um that the council has done over the past years um with the department heads uh really feeling out
those five-year plans so that yes there's always things that happen and we have to rep prioritize but uh the fact that we are able at this point to sort of pin down uh what we you know absolutely need and sort of keep our our
debt a little lower this year um is just a testament to to that planning um as we move through the years and as you said yes there are going to be years when you have a large truck or a piece of equipment that costs more but um if we continue doing this sort of 5-year
capital planning that we're asking our departments to do um it does allow us uh the opportunity to sort of keep everything in check like this this year so um thank you for that i also want to thank um the departments because this
year they did a great job of putting everything together explaining it putting in files documents and really kind of coming in and giving us a really important rundown so I really want to thank them and for for giving us the information spending time with us and
being real clear um on on their needs and their priorities so we thank you for that too councilwoman thank you um I also want to thank everybody uh this this being on the finance committee for the first time um really puts things into perspective
um you don't you know like you said the wants um and to to all the department heads again yes they were very very detailed um you know and and I I wish we could wish you know grant all the wishes but I've learned um how important it is
to really prioritize um thank you to to Councilman Poly and Gas Malazero for their guidance and just their experience is amazing the way you know to just see ahead and and just be very very responsible
so you know we did the best and thanks yes and I do want to thank Councilman Lazero look this is and I mentioned this at the the um breaking down the budget he this is someone who really takes fiscal um responsibility seriously um
and fiscal security and I think you know he looks at it long-term not just short term he looks and breaks it down he's got a wealth of knowledge and um it's just he's been excellent at this um he really cares about the town and its
economic health and you know we're I think you know I'm grateful for it i think we speak for the whole council we're very grateful for it so thank you 9 years later that's where it'll get you um thank you anybody else anything
um are we okay then to move forward with our recommendations um at if all is good and we're all good with finance recommendations we will instruct Mr arthur to work with our CFO to begin um
planning for that in the next month or so at one of our council meetings um I know some of our departments are anxiously awaiting some of this equipment so um the the earlier we can figure all of
the the financing out the better so everybody uh feel good about these recommendations okay thank you thank you finance committee thank you council um this was a a very good way to go
about our discussion by using this uh our template here it made it a lot easier so thank you okay we're still at our comments from council councilwoman Bodto thank you Mayor uh first
congratulations to the Girl Scouts and the trip leaders thank you for all your work um I would also like to thank Miss Perry for her time with us and best wishes in all your future endeavors uh lastly on tonight's agenda
you will see a resolution 2585 approving the memorandum of agreement with the DPW team's contract i'm glad negotiations have concluded i would like to thank everyone involved for their efforts in reaching a mutually beneficial agreement and I ask council to please support it
thanks thank you Councilman Foley that um I just wanted to express that I will be doing uh walk in Garwood again this year um I thought last year was a success and I'm really looking forward to doing it again uh this year will be different as I will have a baby with
me but I'm excited nonetheless and I look forward to connecting with residents it's going to be you know a long you know a long you know weekend after weekend but uh I do look forward to it and I'm excited about it so see you all soon thank you i'll join you on
some of those uh Councilman Carney uh thank you mayor and I'll also uh join you if you'll have me um and good evening to everyone uh I just want to thank our outgoing burrow clerk Miss Perry uh for stepping into the breach uh
for us since last year uh working with you as our clerk has been an absolute pleasure uh it's amazing the number of efficiencies that you've found and implemented in a such a short tenure uh and I know the mentorship and guidance that you provided to Miss Vazquez will
prove invaluable to her throughout her career uh I will also miss your flashy nail polish and uh the many many amusing ways that you pronounce Councilman Padusniaak's name uh but seriously thank
you again and enjoy reclaiming your retirement status uh for many more years thank you thank you Councilman Lazero yes i also want to extend my congratulations to your second retirement and uh may it be
a relaxing and rejuvenating one thank you yes bye Councilman Padusak yes uh you know I go late in the process so I'll just say thank you congratulations congratulations uh just a very brief
comment thank you Mayor uh yesterday the mayor and I were in Cargaret for the uh New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission's film ready workshop you know I've been talking about this quite a bit up here uh so far I've spoken to over 20 businesses and locations i've
signed up for either vending or for being potential filming sites uh more to come on that we have a photographer coming from the commission on the 11th so hopefully some more updates soon thank you very much thank you it was actually really exciting to to go to
that conference and see all the filming that's being done in in uh in New Jersey and then point out some of the locations like right by us too so Spielberg in in the state right now or just was something like that yes he was in Kate May um and there was a number of things
they pointed out from Cranford so it it was fun and uh I thank you you're doing a lot of work getting all of this together so I appreciate that council President Naldi no comments for me just a good luck and congratulations Miss Perry thank you so much for your service
thank you okay minutes Miss Perry minutes of the regular meeting of the mayor and council held on March 13 2025 can I have a motion to accept regular and executive session meeting minutes as presented so moved second uh all in
favor i opposed okay communications miss Perry rvsa minutes re-regular meeting user charge report report of treasurer and flow rights true to Bruce Patterson correspondence to mayor and council
regarding breaking down the budget discussion thank you received and filed uh we have as we said a couple ordinances up for adoption miss Perry can you read ordinance 25-08 by title only ordinance
to amend chapter 106 land use regulations within article one general provisions of the burrows code do we have any correspondence concerning this ordinance does anyone present wish to be heard concerning ordinance 25-08 okay seeing none can I have a motion to
close public hearing on this ordinance second uh all in favor i opposed okay any discussion from council okay can I have a motion to adopt this ordinance so moved to second
okay roll call please councilwoman Bodto I councilman Foley Councilman Carney Councilman Lazbro Councilman Padusak you got it council Council President Noly I
miss Perry can you read Ordinance 25-09 by title only ordinance to amend chapter 106 land use regulations with article eight zone regulations of the burough code do we have any correspondence concerning this ordinance no does anyone
present wish to be heard concerning ordinance 25-09 seeing none do I have a motion to close public hearing on this ordinance so moved to second all in favor opposed any discussion among council
okay uh do I have a motion to adopt this ordinance so moved second uh roll call please councilwoman Bodto hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney hi councilman Lazero hi councilman Pendusiaak hi
council President Ni hi miss Perry can you please read Ordinance 25-10 by title only an ordinance of the Bureau Code of the Bureau of Garwood by amending chapter 21 entitled Vehicles and Traffic Article 7 Prohibited Turning
Movement Section 21-16.4 for left turns prohibited do we have any correspondence concerning this ordinance does anyone present wish to be heard concerning ordinance 25-10 uh seeing none do I have a motion
to close public hearing so moved second all in favor opposed any discussion among council do I have a motion to adopt ordinance 25-10 i'll make that motion second second uh roll call please councilwoman
Bodto hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney I councilman Lazero hi councilman Padusniaak I council President Noli I uh Miss Perry can you read ordinance 25-11 by title only an ordinance of the
Burough Code of the Bureau of Garwood by amended chapter 67 entitled Buildings and Structures Article 8 Registration of Rental Units do we have any correspondence concerning this ordinance does anyone present wish to be heard concerning ordinance 25-11 please step to the microphone
state your name and address please limit your comments to 5 minutes good evening mayor ladies and gentlemen of the council bruce Patterson 325 Will Avenue i just referenced the ordinance number 2511 it looks like there was a date changed um in the middle of the
ordinance to April 13th i'm just wondering why that date was changed to that date so simple question thank you thank you does anybody else wish to be heard concerning this ordinance seeing none do I have a motion to close public hearing so moved second
all in favor i opposed okay mr arthur do you want to just clarify it's a clerical um that we we're just fixing the ordinance originally was put in April 13th 2023 then it was later amended and
the original date got amended alongside the amendment when it should have remained in place as the original date so this is just fixing the fact that that date got changed erroneously upon the uh amendment to the ordinance i just said amendment a lot of times yes but I
got what you said i hope everybody Okay thank you any discussion among council okay do I have a motion to adopt this ordinance so moved second roll call please councilwoman Bodto hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney hi councilman
Lazbro hi councilman Padusniaak council President Nley i we have a couple ordinances up for introduction tonight miss Perry can you read Ordinance 25-12 by title only an ordinance amending the Burough Code of
the Bureau of Garwood by amending chapter 134 entitled sewers article 5 industrial waste and fees subsection 134-15C do I have a motion to introduce this ordinance so moved to second roll call please
councilwoman Bodto councilman Foley councilman Carney i councilman Lazero hi councilman Pendiaak council President Nley i Miss Perry can you read ordinance 25-13 by title only an ordinance amending the
Burough Code of the Bureau of Garwood by amending chapter 34 entitled Police Department section 4 entitled appointments do I have a motion to introduce ordinance 25-13 second i can Okay i don't even
know do you got that i think so roll call please miss Perry councilwoman Bodto hi Councilman Foley councilman Carney hi Councilman Lazero councilman Padusniaak Council President
Ni hi all right we made it if I may have to if I can get a bathroom break yes i will make it past Councilman Mazero's library i second the motion for recess uh all in favor i okay five minute recess thank
you [Music] what about you oh are you kidding i have a blanket on my It's cold up here no I'll be fine it started getting warm around here so maybe that was it i just
I'm glowing in my That's why your cheeks are nice and red no it's fine no they bought it just for the room because it is cold in here sometimes yeah I've been for a long time i'll go
back to retirement no I enjoyed this it got me my mind going again you know that yes there's still a lot we could do but is going to do a fine job i'm very sad
oh you won't have any ordinances mr oh I kind of like told her and use some of the older you know an older one and then go but I told her basically check the last ordinance because the code book isn't immediately updated so you pull
that up you're not going to get what was done so you know that was very nice when I was there I did the general code so I did wish to do all the then when I got close to retirement
there was nobody else to do it so that's when we switched over to general code but that it's not an easy thing i was just saying when I was doing good the police one because I every time you move something
it changed all the one two and it's like oh my god it's driving me nuts so annoying it is at that point this out at that point I was taking it off the automatic and I'd do it It is
i don't know well summer's coming and we have a place in the Poconos so so summertime we'll go up there my husband's semi-retired we own a business and our older son works it so You were just there yesterday
okay yeah he's the attorney that's why she ran yeah no every other person was they never settled the one they're gonna pay for the insurance
the longgo attorneys are all themselves weren't they in the central gift or I'm not sure if there's one or the other everybody good what
yeah but I don't think they're very bas okay can I have a motion to resume so moved all in favor i opposed second
you moved sean was second yes okay moving on to our committee reports councilman Foley finance thank you Mayor uh this week the bureau has been informed that the BM BMED fund the joint
insurance fund that provides health benefits coverage to participate municipalities including Garwood is facing increased claims and financial strain as a result they're requiring additional payout costs from each municipality garwood's portion has been
set at around $95,000 which we were told we should be able to pay out over 3 years nonetheless this is extremely concerning and would obviously make an impact on this year's budget as well as the budgets for the following two years while we anticipated
a 12% increase in cost and understand that even the state plan is seeing even larger increases this is an unprecedented move by the by the um the fund aministrator is scheduled to meet with the BEMD representatives tomorrow
to discuss this new requirement and explore payment options that would help reduce those impacts the finance committee will be holding a meeting this weekend to discuss the outcome of tomorrow's meeting we committed to protecting the long-term fiscal outcome fiscal health of our community and we'll
continue to moni situation closely an update will be given at our special budget meeting when we have further information i also ask that everyone inv Hall for further updates and discussion thank you 6 p.m right 6 PM sorry 6 p.m we're doing it a little
early because it it's always a long one so 6 PM mark your calendars april 2nd um yes I thank you for for that uh Councilman this was obviously a very late breaking development um in our
budget cycle which is not really appreciated certainly um and it's really concerning uh I will be joining Mr arthur in the meeting tomorrow with our representatives um to find out more about this um it was
sort of just presented to us with no background information or anything like that so unfortunately we don't have more information until next week for you but um it's something that we are obviously going to have to figure out uh and and
we will so um fire Councilman Lazero um no friendly report but I just wanted to pass on my condolences to the Vanetta family uh due to the loss of Rod Vanetta Garwood Bio Department life member whose son Jeff is an active member on the
squad so our condolences to the family oh my condolences that was the first I was hearing of it i'm so sorry to the Vanata family um community development councilman
Padusniaak no report mayor thank you public works councilwoman Bodto thank you Mayor um the DPW completed residential pickup of household waste and white woods i mean white goods sorry checked and treated
reoccurring problem sewer lines on a weekly basis cleaned up the litter and debris throughout the grounds at the sports and recreation complex around the bus stop enclosures along North and South Avenues uh both sides of the underpass on Central Street and Kennedy
Plaza repair broken street and traffic signs in various locations of the burrow check the roof drains on the municipal complex and remove any accumulated leaves or debris meet with the shade tree officer to discuss residential tree concerns clear the debris from the tops
of all storm water drainage inlets on the north and south side of the burrow that's it for my report thank you police councilman Carney thank you Mayor the police committee met before tonight's council meeting to discuss uh updates to
the north side parking layout recommended by Chief Stoofer uh after his ongoing follow-up meetings with residents and our small businesses in the area uh we will have a second item for introduction uh as well uh this will be a small adjustment to slightly
enlarge an existing no parking area on the 300 block of Hickory Avenue that's uh being requested by a resident in the area uh the committee is unanimously supporting moving both of the chief's recommendations onto the next agenda for introduction uh also since our last
council meeting we've provided markup on the proposed updates to the burough code regarding dog and cat licensing for review uh by the burough clerk the health department and the burough attorney uh I expect we will also have this ready for introduction in April and
that's all for this report thank you uh community engagement Council President Nuli yes thank you Mayor the Garwood Partnership for Arts and Culture is preparing its second annual Garwood Poetry Festival which will take place the weekend of April 26th and 27th at
the Garwood Public Library and at the Crossroads the event at Crossroads is made in part by a heart grant from the Union County Board of County Commissioners gpac is asking local poets to submit their poems for consideration in order to be invited to read at the Garwood Public Library on April 26th
poems should be submitted to my burough email culygarwood.org the due date for poetry submissions is April 14th no report for historical uh for recreation we have some adult programs I'd like to um call everyone's attention
to open play soccer which is uh for ages 30 and up fridays from 8:00 to 9:50 p.m which is free ceramics behold the bunny we did it last night it looks very nice that was this this month's um
this month's uh ceramics project the next ceramics evening is 700 p.m on Wednesday uh April 30th and there'll be another class as well on the 28th of May it's only $18 for residents so I encourage everyone to sign up canvas
painting is also on a Wednesday evening at 7 the um the next canvas painting is the 9th of April and that is $23 for residents these are the youth programs I'd like to um call everyone's attention
to we have Bxology which is a Lego based program which is for grades kindergarten through 5ifth grade uh this is presented by Mad Science uh Mondays from 5 to 6:00 um walking challenge that's something that's going to be happening during the
month of April this is for ages 8 to 17 soccer classes uh which is for ages 1 and a half to 7 by US Sports Institute saturday mornings for 6 weeks parent and me multisports for ages 2 to 3 and a half also by US Sports
Institute on Saturday mornings uh the summer wreck camp the registration is now open for grades 1 through 8 um please register at garwoodrec.com the early bird rate which is $130 for the whole 6 weeks is going
to be until May 23rd upcoming uh community events we have the Garwood Easter egg hunt on Saturday April 12th at 11:00 a.m in case of rain the date will be Saturday April 19th at at 11 as well this is at the
Garwood Sports and Recck Complex which is completely free and no pre-registration is required so hope everyone will come easter Bunny drive around this is in conjunction with the Garwood Fire Department this will happen on Saturday April 19th at 10:00 a.m uh
mark your calendars as well for the Memorial Day remembrance ceremony this is Monday May 26th at 12 at the Knights of Columbus and we'll have more information on that closer to the date additionally Garwood Recre is looking for counselors and counselors in
training for the summer camp please submit your application at garwoodre.com by Monday March 31st and that's all for my report thank you yes oh yes just for the next ceramics class if anybody's interested the project is a
gnome a that's cute for your garden sign up quick because it's filling up fast that's a cute little garden project all right thank you library councilman Lazar thank you uh some of the programming coming up at the library um includes on
April 7th 14th 21st and 28th at 3 p.m is kids chess and formal games this is for children of all ages this is a non-instructional supervised play and no registration is required on April 8th at 3 p.m and April 15th at 3 p.m the April
8th date is for kids and the 15th date is for adults there's a grab and go craft you can pick up your supplies and instructions for seasonal craft and registration is required on April 12th from Italy with love at 11:00 a.m this is a musical performance featuring an
array of Italian classical songs performed by renowned vocal tener Salvatore Chelli on April 23rd there's a program at 11:30 uh a.m which is called How to Be an Effective Caregiver join Sandy Do
Greenberg a claim author of Better My Toast which I think is just a fun title for an insightful and enlightening conversation sandy will author a clear precise guide to caring for incapacitated loved ones drawing from both personal and professional experiences
and on April 30th from 10:00 a.m to noon the aging services kiosk will be available this is the Union County Division of Aging Staff um they'll be in on hand to assist seniors aged 16 over or their caregivers with information on services such as meal delivery respbit
care adult daycare and services for caregivers and our library director provided a report to the library board that I thought was um of value uh which is um the number of visitors etc uh in 2024 so in 2024 there were
13,839 visits to the Garwood library 430 programs held 5,724 attended of those programs at the library 14,171 total circulation of items so I thought that was a really just impressive stat to kind of put together
about how important our library provides for our town so that's all from that is thank you to uh Mrs stephie putting that together school board liaison Councilman Carney the Garwood Board of Education held its regularly scheduled meeting
this past Tuesday March 18th uh presentations to the board included the monthly Mustang movers uh honoring Miss Joanna Lopes as the educator of the year uh the board attorney regarding ethics for board members and the fiscal year
2023 2024 audit uh the board took preliminary action on the 2025 to 26 school year budget uh using the relevant state aid figures and submitting the tenative budget to the county superintendent of
schools for approval uh they also set a date of April 22nd at 7:00 p.m for their public budget hearing uh the preliminary calendar for the 2025 to 26 school year was also set uh as always the superintendent's full report for the
month can be found on the Garwoodschools.org website uh look for the link under Mr kenny's name uh which is found under the administration tab uh and finally just a news item uh kindergarten registration for the fall
is officially open the registration packet is available under the parent resources tab on the Garwoodschools.org website uh and the packets are due due at Lincoln School by April 25th uh the office will be accepting registration paperwork uh between 9 to 11:00 a.m
monday through Friday accepting holidays okay thank you um no report for our Garwood seniors just that our next meeting is in April on the 3rd at 12 at Knights of Columbus uh small business advisory Councilman Carney no report
okay board of Health Leaison councilman Foley the Garwood Board of Health uh met on March 19th to review and discuss current public health matters impacting our community key items for the meeting included u an observed increase in H1N1 cases also known as bird flu the board
urges residents to remain vigilant and follow best health practices to prevent the spread of illness including regular handashing staying home when sick and seeking medical attention when necessary uh Garwood remains um the only municipality in Union County that does
not currently require cat licensing the board unanimously recommends implementing cat licensing to support public health and safety license licensing helps ensure that cats are vaccinated against rabies a particularly important measure given their increased risk of rabies and the emerging threat
of bird flu this committee is in agreement with this recommen recommendation recognizing it as an important step to toward ensuring a healthier safer Gwood for all uh the board of thought will continue monitoring these and other issues remain committed to
protecting garment residents thank you thank you uh planning board leazison councilman Carney uh thank you mayor the planning board met last night um most of the meeting was again spent in an executive session regarding affordable housing uh in the public portion the
board unanimously adopted a resolution granting the appeal regarding 639 to 645 South Avenue from the prior meeting uh and also discussed updates to the application packets which were also adopted in a previous meeting uh regarding more clearly spelling out the
various uh development fee structures uh which will now be incorporated using a link on the burough website and a separate handout to avoid having to update the entire packet which uh requires the board to approve it uh anytime the burrow or the state decides
to update a fee uh the next planning board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday April 23rd uh but this meeting may be moved or cancelled depending on whether or not there is new business uh at this time there's no pending appeals or applications ready to be heard uh I'll
provide an update on that at our next council meeting thank you okay uh we do not have any officers reports tonight so we will move to public comment 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 five minutes good evening good evening ronnie here very rarely firefighters and risk personnel firefighters in every [Music] answer
want to appall our police and fire departments and rescue squads because they serve us they saw us and they us danger we also need to thank our soldiers sold Marines
first out there fighting serious lost our lives for us in Vietnam yes sir that's so shy to I'm
[Music] sorry anyone here got a lot of places on board that's what I say i'm proud of you
state legislature very Thank you Mr is there anybody else who wishes to address the mayor and council good evening Mayor Council uh Premier said 320 Hickory Avenue
um I'm ministering tonight that four things are not new but I feel have been lingering for a long long time i'm sure your favorite subjects still rats and when I say garbage I'm talking about recycling too enforcement and revenue generation and I'm going to actually
read the recommendations my recommendations out first so that in case I get cut off I don't miss making any of them okay recommendation number one and I'll support these as I go along uh amend the bar code to state a specific bur official or officials are
responsible for enforcement of the regulations i'm going to talk about discuss the DPW i'm sorry direct the DPW not to pick up garbage disposed of in plastic bags just leave it with a note ban use of black plastic bags as our DPW
workers have no idea what is in them amen to add a maximum a maximum number of garbage cans that a resident can put out start at a ridiculous number say five reduce it by one every year until
you get down to two cans per household any more than that and you know the resident either is not participating in their recycling program or is throwing away or we're throwing something else out that shouldn't be in their garbage five place a real monetary fine for
breaking these regulations are you really the code has fines and penalties for breaking borrow regulations as low as5 and $10 i have recommended the bureau direct an employee to review the code enforcement sections to make certain that there is no penalty imposed for breaking bur
ordinances less than $25 now let's speak tonight about four things that I mentioned section 99-9 of the health and sanitation code requires the following one garbage quote shall be kept in watertight receptacles with
tightly fitted covers plastic bags not acceptable number two containers shall not exceed 35gallon capacity number three no waste may be stored or disposed of in plastic bags code specifically states that receptacle
should not be set out for collection earlier than 6 p.m of the evening before pickup empty receptacles should not be moved and no later than 6 p.m of the collection day and building materials are not acceptable for collection i don't think any of these are new to you
the problem is comment about these regulations they are broken every day of the week in this or in this borrow with no penalty i thank whoever it was who added a section on rack control in the annual
public work schedule the rats know that residents put their garbage out in plastic bags many times the night before pickup and when we wonder why And when we wonder why we have rats garbage cans are in the public ride away during the day every day of the week i'm tired of
seeing them i hope that you are too i hope that you agree there's no public benefit to lining garbage streets with garbage cans all day no one forces to prohibition plastic bags nor the hours in which garbage cans can be pulled out
why i realize that it's because our ordinance does not specifically state who is the enforcement entity if you look at the code many offenses are tied directly to an enforcement body police zoning or health officer but not these regulations i have asked who is
responsible for for this enforcement i am told all the above bodies plus the housing official and property maintenance really no one knows can these regulations are broken after regular working hours is any employee going to come in on his or her time off
to enforce these regulations without getting paid i don't think so thus no one no one a single bull employee enforces these regulations there's also no regulation of number of cans that a resume can be
can put out could be two could be 20 and more than two garbage cans put out in front of the house 30 seconds Mr mayor thank you very much and as spring approach you're going to see more cans put out as you know I do not understand how any household
sold generate more than two cans per week i made the recommendations glad I did obviously with all ordinances new regulations should be properly advertised and there should be an initial grace period after that the new regulations should be enforced the new enforcement portions
reinforcement can generate some revenue without reducing the time our DPR staff spends on garbage and opening them up and opening the staff up to undertake other projects in our burrow while improving our appearance at the same time i quickly to mayor and council to
that thank you very much thank you Mr nstead is there anybody else who wishes to address the mayor and council please step to the microphone ladies and gentlemen of the council Bruce Patterson 325 Little Avenue Bill Nerstead always well researched uh he
has the ordinance memorable I guess um yeah the the health insurance the the insurance uh that F Commissioner Foley was commissioner Councilman Foley was talking about he said we're having a 12% increase and then uh I guess a
$30,000 bill every year for three years but anyway the board of ed was talking about their insurance and it only went up 10% so possibly somebody can reach out over there find out why theirs is 10% and ours is 12% um reference to budget I I I have been
in uh corresponding with finance chair Foley uh I just today I sent out an email mentioning that possibly Oh I sent it to uh the BA also i I said you know somehow we're getting confused as to this sewer fee as to what it's actually
going towards or being appropriated and I said possibly you should have some line item and some subline items of what goes to the uh RBSA standard billing and what goes to the maintenance so I sent that email out just today so hopefully
they received it uh Miss Perry good luck i hadn't I hadn't really interfaced with you much uh just recently you kicked back one of the Opas so I guess you're a tough lady to deal with uh what else reszo
2585 uh the last whereas it mentions about attached is an exhibit A but it's it's not there so could uh somebody give us the highlight to the public as to what that is uh government week I I did uh I did
suggest to actually have videos of employees you did that last year it was pretty good but I mean there's more employees there's uh Chris I don't remember his name he's he's the uh housing enforcement guy uh there's John Patterson the uh the parking guy you
know you can interview him katy Lysac but also the the uh organization that oversees the affordable housing over at the Burmelas i mean you know these people the public wants to know more about the operations behind the scenes of our burrow so I mean you really
should do more videos not just a uh photog contest uh the Garwood Fire Department antenna that's interesting i I was late at a couple of meetings maybe I missed what it was but I'll tell you that was a major liability if the
antenna blew down and I'm just wondering when that happened and how long it was out uh that was a major liability and concern for the public uh in the capital request that mentions two grants one of them is the kids recreation the other is the uh
infrastructure uh those are matching grants they're listed on your capital request i'm just wondering does that mean we're going to be borrowing the money to match the uh grant uh the grant money's coming in for the capital request um also when's a copy of the
budget uh going to be out for the public not only the copy of the main budget but also the uh friendly budget sheets when are they going to be uh given out to the public and lastly uh thank you Mr pritchard for mentioning the 250th 250th
anniversary of our nation garwood actually had a street old Elizabeth road actually goes through um Garwood that goes from Elizabeth uh travels down to uh Philadelphia and actually part of it
is still around it's called Fourth Avenue and and that's the stretch where uh the Tuckers live and the Banics live so you know surprisingly we were actually part of way back the history and spike garwood wasn't even around at
that point so the historic committee can talk about celebrating that little piece of road so thank you very much is there anybody else who wishes to address the mayor and council okay seeing none can I have a motion to
close public hearing second all in favor i opposed okay um Mr nerst um you know we've spoken about this at length just the two of us several times
um there are certain items that you mentioned that I actually feel very strongly about as well um in terms of putting out garbage cans before 6 and putting them in garbage cans rather than leaving the plastic bags out um and putting them into the garbage cans with
the tight lid that is obviously very clearly spelled out in our ordinance and part of the reason we put that little brochure out in the yearly schedule of services was to remind uh residents about that because obviously if the
longer our cans are out there the more time there is for rodents and obviously if they're not in a garbage can with a tight lid and they're just put on the plastic bags on the ground I it's it's ripe for th those guys to come in and grab them um there are certain items of
course that you you spoke about that I'm I'm not so in favor of but um you know I I understand where where it's coming from um at I would like to turn this over to Councilwoman Bodto for your next
public works meeting um to discuss to discuss some of the the various items that Mr ner set mentioned um particularly the enforcement entity um I think Mr ner is right we do have to sort
figure out he is right that all of those roles all of those employees can enforce this um but I do think we need to figure out narrow it down and figure out how we're going to enforce it because as Mr
nurse i mentioned there is some challenges such as putting the garbage out on in the evenings we don't have a code enforcement or a property maintenance officer employed in the evenings um Sunday nights right before garbage
it's it's a it's a challenge i would like to to work on figuring out some of uh some of the possibilities um and bringing forth some recommendations to council um and and move on that because yes part of the
reason that we did put that out is that we do want to begin enforcing some of those some of those things to limit road inactivity in town um so thank you uh for bringing that forward Mr patterson a couple of
questions you had um the sore fee there will be a line item uh for how much is going towards maintenance um I there is no line item there is a line item for how for RVSA
uh and how much RVSA will cost which as we know from breaking down the budget is significantly more this year um in in in terms of how you pay for RVSA it it there's not a mechanism that
we can pull the money gained by the fees into the budget it's it comes into our surplus so I I know it was discussed at the breaking down the budget meeting
um that it's Mr arthur you talked to me about it how you described as one sort of a pot it it's it's not necessarily that you can say um you can break it down in that way there is a line ite so
we we you will see a line item for the maintenance um but when we talk about covering the the billing of RVSA and covering the gap increases it it's the revenues that come in are going towards that
um I'm sure uh Miss Bruns can sort of explain it a little bit better than I can and I I know you're you will probably be in touch with her to to talk to her about that um the resolution 25-85
um the exhibit A that is part of the the contract Mr that should have been the MOA that you guys are ratifying tonight yeah um so the council has the MOA that has it highlights uh new salary
increases for your activives lower salary starting range for uh part- timerrs uh greater salary guides for new higher full-timers making it um a little bit less expensive some additional time
off for the employees um I think that's the majority of them those are the the big things yes the big things right some changes that the union wanted regarding their employees being able to
donate their money to causes uh that's basically the majority of it yes and so council has received that entire uh MOA so they do have exhibit A um to vote on um yes as always
the grants that c well certain grants that we will be getting are matching grants um the matching grant that we did we did receive a grant from kids wreck and that is matching so yes we will be putting up our half of that um we are
looking for a sustainable jersey grant that is not matching um but the project with the bike lanes will obviously uh the grant is for $10,000 the bike lanes uh will go past that price point so yes we
will have to cover some through uh the capital funds um but that so this is something that is done each year um and the friendly budget will be available I believe on tomorrow I believe um because we have our special budget meeting on
Wednesday yes so I asked that it was um made available to the public on Friday so you'd have the weekend to peruse it um and I think that is it okay we will move along to the consent
agenda does anybody have a resolution they need to remove uh I do mayor okay uh 25-83 okay anybody else all right if I could have a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended
so moved second uh any discussion roll call please councilwoman Bodto hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney hi councilman Lazero hi councilman Padusniaak hi council
President Ni i okay looking at resolution 25-83 do I have a motion to adopt so moved second second okay um
discussion uh since I deleted it I'll just say uh I made my feelings clear on this on the last meeting i do want to thank uh Councilman Foley for uh engaging a discussion with me offline and uh there
he accepted some feedback but I still don't agree with the form of it so that's it okay anybody else okay um roll call please councilwoman Bodto
hi councilman Foley hi councilman Carney no councilman Lazero hi councilman Padusniaak hi council President Ni it passed okay
um any new business all right payment of claims Miss Perry be it resolved that the following claims as approved be and 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 uh roll call please councilwoman Bodto hi councilman Foley councilman Carney hi councilman Lazero hi councilman
Padusniaak council President Ni okay uh the regular meeting of the mayor and council will be held on Thursday April 10th 2025 at 7 p.m in council chambers information for meetings is posted on the burrow website do I have a
motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor i opposed okay thank you everybody 8:47 on the dock i just look over and they're all beating
this one was Bodto yeah that this one I think was nie i have I have photo okay i think it was an oldie okay honestly at this point when they go back and watch they can't
hear it either employees International i wonder what their employment part and whenever their