Join me in the Yes. Thank you. That's my little warning. You got it. Okay. I alsy and justice for all. In accordance with chapter 231 of the Oakley Public Meetings Act, adequate and proper notice of this meeting has been
given to the public by publishing a notice in the Glenidge paper, Glenidge Voice, Monontlair Times, and the Star Ledger, and posting said notice on the bulletin board in the municipal building. The agenda and public handouts for this meeting can be viewed online at
www.lenridgej.org. A public comment period will be held as listed on the agenda. Please state your for the record and note that comments will be limited to three minutes per person. Madame um clerk, could you please do a roll call? Yes, madam mayor. Counselor Leavitz
here. Hughes here. Zimit here. Law here. Meer here. Moody here. Mayor M is present. Madame Mayor, you have a quum. Thank you. Question for the clerk for the minutes. We could just do a motion to table.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. May I have a um a motion to table the minutes of April 14th, 2025? So moved. The motion by councelor Lewoods. May I have a second? I'll second. Do you need to do a roll? Yeah. Okay. Madam cler.
Yes, madam mayor. Councelor Lewoods. I sim. Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. Moody. I. Six eyes. No. The motion carries. Thank you so much, Madame Clerk. Any uh presentation or written communications? No communications this evening, Madame
Mayor. Okay. I have uh no uh comments from the mayor. So, with that, we'll open it up for comments from the public. If you'd like to comment, please come up to the mic. Deferring. No, it's you.
Good evening. Good evening. State my name. Yep. Name and address. Alexander Cole, 16 Oakwood Avenue. Pleasure to be here. I've been a resident with my family for going on seven years now. Honestly, since we moved over from
Brooklyn, I've been following local and police and was aware of the automobile thefts that were going on and following as it evolved into I guess from left in cars and cars left
unlocked to forced entry to homes. Long story short, took appropriate precautions with my home, cameras, uh, motion detecting, motion lights. I also saw the notice from the police department within the last 6 months or
so recommending RFID blocking pouches for your keys and you can put some of these vehicles in your garage so they're out of sight. Long story short, took all those precautions a month ago today. had someone try to force entry by my
back door. It was it's what we prepared for. The good news is they were not successful. So, three assuming young men, two lookouts and a third, came around back, saw the camera, stepped out of frame, tried to
take the camera unsuccessfully because I found I came back from exercise early in the morning, found the camera dangling from my back porch. Security cable held um and I and I kind of started piecing things together. GRPD was was on the
scene two doors down at my neighbor's house. So, they tried our house at 5:45 a.m. And within that block of time, become very popular and we gain entry using tools through a case window in my neighbor's home. That's the third
attempt on my neighbor's house. Wow. Second successful. Um I have heard other stories throughout the burrow friends directly and indirectly impacted where there's folks coming in with crowbars uh trying to jimmy windows and they're these are windows in the front of the
house windows. This is this is sobering stuff. I know I think we're all aware of it. My question for for the council and even Chief Quinn is what can we do not to outright prevent better deter this type of activity in our in our town?
I've seen the notifications around forgiving automatic license plate readers and then where we're taking precautions that we we don't want to live in a surveillance state per se, but we'd also like maybe the wider area to know that don't even bother stopping in
Glenidge and trying this out. I also know we can't convince our neighbors to put their BMW X5s in their garage. So many like park them right on the street, includ not going away. And I I was just moved to come speak tonight given that uh had
explained to my little girls why wonderful officer Carl was having breakfast with us Friday. No, it's it's um I'm going to turn over the chief, but you know, I'm really sorry to hear that happen to you and
your family. It's extremely scary. Um and it has escalated. It's regional in nature and it's um involving the state attorney general's office as well as our police force. And um they're going to tell a little bit more about both the
immediate things they do in in respect to when it happens and then the detective work that's happening offline that you know we don't talk about publicly that much um to like actually like go after the ring. So Chief, do you mind? Oh yes. So yeah, I mean I'm sure
you've read in the It is a statewide autotheft ring. It's organized. Um the attorney general's office is involved. They're actually bringing RICO cases against people for um we recently last week made an arrest and the attorney general actually put
racketeering charges on them um first degree. So uh our officers are out there. Um, unfortunately, we put out the the safety precautions that everyone can take that out on Facebook. Unfortunately, we can't predict what they're hitting. Um, so
we'll target Oakwood and then the next one will happen on Carter or something. So, we're out there. Um, basically it it's a lot of detective work that that our detectives are putting forward and working with the attorney general's
office to try and crack that ring. Um, they're employing a lot of So that creates a little bit of a harder issue with us to deal with. Um, but a perfect example is we had a car going south on the Parkway. It was stolen from
our town. The driver was pulled over, recovered the car, and the driver told the police officer, "I was just told to drive south and then I was going to get a call." So these aren't just people trying to steal cars from themselves. They're stealing them for a bigger a bigger ring. So, the attorney general's
office is working very diligently on this. Um, we have officers communicating with them every day, but until this whole ring is broken up, it's really just put light on your house. Make sure your car is as inaccessible as possible.
Um, it doesn't help. We had we had a stolen car recently where the car it was BMW. Uh, keys were in the vehicle. So, that word gets out too. So, you know, they say, "Oh, you know, residents leave their keys in their vehicle." So, that
doesn't help. So, um yeah, just the Faraday boxes. We don't have evidence that they're using an RFID transmitter yet, but it is an extra precaution you could take just to, you know, make sure that that isn't the way that they can get your car. Um biggest best thing you
can do is is cameras with alerts on so when it goes off, it wakes you up. I know you can make it so people that set you off instead of a bird or something. But um that's what we're recommending right now. Our license plate readers are going to be invaluable. Um because a lot
of these times the way they're coming into town is in a stolen car. They'll steal a car from another town like Hillside or you know, for example, and then drive that stolen car up here to get a more valuable car. So we have those AOPRs that'll hit on those vehicles and we'll be able to flood that
area. Is there cross town collaboration? I've heard just this has been a topic of conversation in many different circles task force has been mentioned sounds like yeah there is an autotheft task force that's that's run by the state police with local jurisdiction
involvement but also the county chiefs are all involved the state chiefs are all involved and there's there's a lot of cross communication and information sharing so we are working together state police actually runs if we um we get a lot of valuable information
It's called infotainment from the car, which is where we can extract all the data. If you hook your Bluetooth up to your phone, we can get everything from the phone. Uh, state police is the only ones that do that. So, so they know they're they're basically the epicenter. Get my paper map. Get my paper map back
out. They're the epicenter of all the information. So, and they're the ones running the lead on the investigation. And I'll tell you as well, I mean, the enforcement that the chief and his team have done more on like routine
traffic has also netted folks who have outstanding warrants um that are part of the risk. So even like a routine traffic stop that they're doing can result in you know contributing to to addressing
that. So that's why we're like happy to have like a traffic officer who's like full time doing that and like that. Yeah. Plus visibility from traffic stops. So we are very proactive with traffic stops. You see flashing lights, you know, you're probably
so the Glen Police Department is phenomenal responsive respectful present. I see the cars on my camera and certainly also officers I do know, do we ever position
cruisers in and around the burrow that are unoccupied that have video capability? Would we tell you if we did? Why would we give away all our secrets? Where will they be located? And where are the speed traps? So, historically,
we have and it's kind of a mixed bag with the reaction that we get. Some people like it. Some people say that we're illegally parked. So, uh, if there is a certain area that's getting targeted, then yes, we will do something like that just to we'll put an officer out there, see if
we can catch anything. If not, then it's just complete deterrence. We're putting out visibility. Yeah. But like I said, it's not like it's Oakwood, then it's Ridgewood, and it's Forest, and it's there's no real set pattern other than
the highend SUVs like opport. Yeah. What we're seeing is it looks like almost like they know where the vehicles are. Like it's not just by by there's probably a database somewhere, this location. It's pretty sophisticated, but
um if you are talking to anyone else, your neighbors or friends in town, please if they want to get more information or you know, please the police department, you know, chiefs always makes themselves available and we have the um parking the traffic officers
and call us anytime. I mean, if there's something happens in the middle of the night, there's a sound, just call. Um we we've taken multiple reports where they said, "Oh, they heard a window crash, but they thought it was a car crash out front, so they kind of just ignored it." Something like that. Make sure you check
it out when they call us. This is my children are using this to try to convince us to get a dog. Yes. Dogs are Dogs are fantastic. We're with your kids. Yeah. Yeah. They've got our vote.
Very smart kids. It could be a little dog. The kids talk to the chief and you never know. Yeah. But we're really sorry that that's happening. Um and we're we're doing our best to contribute to, you know, bringing it up. It's good good to know that at least the ring's been identified
and efforts are being made. In a way, it's almost more disturbing how organized this is. Yeah, it is. International. Yeah. Cars being shipped. Oh, yeah. They're on container. I was told by somebody that they're so often on
container trucks before you can even start re researching them sometimes. I heard a new story the other day about this case. I can't speak to that yet. I I haven't seen it then.
I don't know if we've seen those reverberations yet, but hopefully it does. Um I mean, every it seems like every week there's new people getting charged in connection with this ring and it doesn't seem to be slowing down yet. Hopefully it does with time as time goes
by. Have there been any reports of armed injury? not in our that's frankly someone wants to get in, they're going to get in. What we're seeing is typically it's it's juveniles and if they get alerted by a resident,
they they run. They don't there's no confrontation. They're only looking for key fob and potentially whatever else valuable they can grab, but they're not searching the whole home and they don't know what happens near the doors. Yeah. So, we what we tell people is make sure your keys like aren't sitting out like a
purse sitting out window because they'll look through windows and they'll try to grab that first. So, keep them hidden even upstairs with you with the dog with the dog. Thanks. Thanks to Instagram police
department. [Music] Yeah. I mean, the legislators made some adjustments to the law recently. They have. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Thank you very much. Thanks. You are not obligated to stay. Uh, any other comments from the public? Okay. With that then um I will turn over to councelors for the finance and
administration committee. Yes. Uh thank you madam mayor. I have a few items this evening. The first is resolution 95-25. Um this is to pay our bills. Um it includes um payments from the the
funds listed in the resolution itself. So I move resolution 95-25. You've heard uh the motion um
sorry I have a second you heard the motion by council seconded by councelor meer. Any discussion? Seeing none. Madam clerk, please call the role. Yes, madam mayor. Councelor left. I
zimit. Hi. Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. I six eyes, no names. The motion carries. And uh next I have resolution 91-25 to amend the burough's fee
schedule um with regard to uh work on streets and sidewalks, uh parking permits, um and uh water connection uh shut off related charges and meter
reading. So these are all to um bring our fees up to date and uh make them appropriate to current circumstances. So I I move resolution 91-25.
You've heard the motion by council left. Do I have a second? Oh, second. Heard the motion by council. Second by councel type. Any discussion on the resolution? Not. Madam cler, please call. Madam
mayor, councelor selectivist. I simmit. Hi. Law. I. Meer. I. Moody. I. Six eyes. No names. Motion carries. And next, Madame Mayor, I have uh
ordinance number 1822. Uh an ordinance by the Burough Council amending chapter 13.04 regarding the uh water service system uh for first reading.
All right. May I have a second for the introduction of the ordinance? I'll second. Is there any discussion amongst the members of the council on the introduction? Just I think we can just say that uh the purpose of the ordinance
is to uh make sure that the um water meters get replaced uh comprehensively and in a timely manner. Councelor, did you want to add anything? Yeah, just on a second page, uh it it seems like the fine is going to go in
effect uh towards the bottom. It's uh bullet point A. is a September 20th. Um yes, we we talked about this in workshop which I know you were attending the event on our behalf that Yes, that is um there was a little uh 30th. Yes, that's
going to be addressed. We'll get you the updated language. It's it's in the um workshop agenda. Okay. The updated language that we're looking at, right, perfect. Good catch. Any other discussion?
Seeing no further comments, madame clerk, please call the role. Yes, madam mayor. Councelor Leitz I. Hughes. Hi. Zim. Hi. Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. Moody. I. Six eyes. No names. The motion carries.
I refer ordinance number 1822 uh to the municipal clerk for the purpose of statuto publication and posting. Thank you. And finally, Madame Mayor, I have ordinance number uh
1820. Um this is an ordinance for the calendar year 2025 to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank under New Jersey state law. This is to state for the record that
this ordinance has been published and posted in accordance with the statute. I declare this meeting open for discussion of this ordinance and this ordinance only. This being the time and place for the public hearing. Are there any comments um on ordinance 1820?
I could just say that we do a version of this ordinance every year to um establish the parameters of our compliance with the uh state budget cap law. Thank you. With no further comments forthcoming, I
declare this public hearing closed. Uh so, Madame Mayor, I move that 20 be adopted. May I have a second on that? I'll second. Thank you, Council Law. You've heard the motion by councelor Leco, seconded by Council Law. Madam Clerk,
please call the RO. Yes, madam mayor. Hi Hughes. Hi Zim. Hi Law. Hi Meer. Hi Moody. Hi. Six eyes. No names. This ordinance is adopted. Thank you. Anything else? Councelor Le.
Uh thank you mayor. I have a resolution and an ordinance parking ordinance for second reading. First is resolution 9225, a resolution that the bureau adopting the 2025 Essex County hazard mitigation plan. Whereas
the bureau has prepared a multi-hazard mitigation plan hereby known as the 2025 Essex County Hazard Mitigation Plan in accordance with federal laws including the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistant Act has amended the
National Flood Insurance Act 1968 the National Safety Program Act and whereas the county's plan identifies goals and actions to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and from the future from the impacts of
future hazards and disasters. Now therefore, the bureau inordance with its bylaws hereby adopts the 2025 Essex County hazard mitigation plan. Mayor resolution. Thank you. You've heard the motion by
councelor Hughes. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. You've heard the motion by council, seconded by council Zimtt. Uh any discussion besides thanking our police department and lieutenant and Maro for
their work on this. It was very timely. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um no other discussion. Madam cler please call the role. Yes madam mayor. Counselors. I hi. Zimit.
Hi. Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. Moody. Hi. Six eyes. No names. The motion carries. Thank you. Next, mayor, I have ordinance number 1821, uh, an ordinance entitled, uh, parking restrictions on designated streets for
final reading. This is to state for the record that this ordinance has been published and posted in accordance with the statute. I declare this meeting open for discussion of this ordinance and this ordinance only, this being the time and place for the public hearing. Comments on ordinance 1821. Yeah, this
is a very small ordinance addressing an issue that was raised about street sweeping and uh access to the curb along road. I also want to again I know Rich I think
you went down and talked to the neighbors there. This is a town a street we share with Bloomfield. Broomfield does the street sweeping. Some of the uh neighbors there really felt strongly about the street sweeping helping with the flooding issues there and making
that the storm drains were um cleared and everything. And so we worked with Bloomfield, our police department did, we did some um initial communications in the area thanks to Mike Kelly and uh are doing this together so we match up with
the Bloomfield or Yeah. Okay. Uh no further comments forthcoming. I declare this public hearing closed. Mayor, I move this ordinance be adopted. May we have a second on it? I'll second. For the motion by councelor Hughes, seconded by
councelor Lecoitz. Madame clerk, please call the role. Yes, madam mayor. Councelor I. Hughes. Hi. Zimit. Hi. Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. Moody. I. Six eyes. No. This ordinance is adopted. Thank you. Anything else? Councelor Hughes. Mayor.
Thank you. Councelor Zimit. Community affairs and public relations committee. Uh no formal business uh this evening, Madame Mayor. I will say that the um town newsletter went out and is up on the website. Uh you probably got an email about it so
uh kudos to uh to Jim Cowen in the rec department for put it all together and compiling all the information. Um it's a good snapshot of what's going on in town and what some of the groups in town have been up to. So I encourage everybody to take a look. Um, and if you're near the end of the month, I'll also remind
everybody that uh Wednesday is recycle day and Thursday is big trash pickup. It's a good time. Put your patio furniture out so you can pick up some new stuff for your house. Just saying you put a lounger out. I wouldn't say
no. Um, did they call you first? Yeah, if you have a hammock. Okay. Uh, thank you. Councelor Law, public works and utility committee. Yes. Resolution number uh
93-25. Whereas in 1872, Jay Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for planting trees. This holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska. uh our day is now
observed throughout the nation as well as the world and whereas the burrow gl has been recognized as tree city USA by the national array foundation and desires to continue his tree planting ways now therefore be it resolved by the
mayor and council of ridge do proclaim April 25th 2025 as arbor day madame mayor I seek to move resolution you've heard the motion by councelor law. Do I have a second? I'll second.
Perard the um motion by council law, seconded by councelor Zimit. Uh discussion on this resolution. I know there was a nice event by the shade tree commission uh down in the uh they planted a couple trees. They planted two
trees um two hazel uh with hazel trees um with the assistance of I believe it was second grade, fifth grade. Fifth grade was it? And um in addition, as we're speaking about this, the commission just oversaw the planting of
53 street trees and we'll do another 50 or so in the spring. And the finally, their annual report has uh been posted online. Just posted it. Um and you can check out all all of the things they do. The shade tree commission is charged
with tending to our um burough trees. And really over since Sandy, they've they've picked up the charge and are really working diligently to make sure every year we're in a net positive position in adding trees to our community. Yeah. And um it makes a big difference. Now is a beautiful time to
be walking around the burrow. Sure is. Um it's just really lovely and I will tell you I know data wise when you look at how temperatures are in Essex County, Glenidge is always cool. And you can correlate that with the shade cover,
with the So there's a science behind it too. So that's good news. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. Seeing that madam clerk, please call the role. Yes, madam mayor. Counselor. Hi. Hugh. Hi. Zim. Hi.
Law. Hi. Meer. Hi. Moody. I. Six eyes. No names. The motion carries. Thank you. Anything else? Council. It's good to see nobody's literally getting started today. Madam Mayor, I'm just curious. So we could have bumper stickers printed that say Glen Ridge were cooler like because
[Music] that's almost I would that's very well like I would have David I would I didn't know you had the puns in you put that in a haiku I can do that I'd wear that shirt designing a logo in
my you resemble everyone you print it in time for eco day So many good ideas. Um, Meer, no report on part today. I don't have any plans for anybody. All right. Well, we know our teams are out
playing on the fields and uh if you have anything you want, send it over to counselor. I think we I think um we won the the battle of the lacrosse. The Yeah, I know. The eighth grade boys won. I think we took the trophy this year.
So, I I think uh thanks to James Goodwin. I It was a brainchild of of his and all of the lacrosse folks. I know it's a real big sport in townhouse. So, congratulations to all those who played organized and um I did forget momentarily about that one, but it was a
really great event kind of showing some friendly the friendly sport competition between Bloodridge and and Montlair and Montlair where you can wear your Blendri is cooler shirt in Mont. That's all I have to report this evening. You're wondering why you're staying. See?
Councelor Moody, planning and development committee report. Uh no formal reports, madame mayor. We did uh have the head of HPC into workshop. Uh to those who are aware, we've been working on a resolution to kind of uh
help with the process on um per you know approvals for HPC. And thanks to the public who came out on that um last month and just an update that we continue to work that through and uh shore it up and and make it uh
practical. Um not wearing my planning and development hat but wearing my liaison to the uh environmental advisory committee. I've been asked to let everybody know that they are screening a movie, Plastic People, at the library on
Wednesday night. That's all for me. All right. Um Mike, the So, as we mentioned, we have um excuse me, free cycle Wednesday, bulk Thursday, and then Saturday, the big one
is um household hazardous waste day. We'll be pushing that out. That's the the the one that opportunity for you to get rid of your oil based paints, fluorescent light bulbs, um where it may be some chemicals in
your garage that you no longer need, fertilizers, things of that nature, um things that cannot be picked up in our typical uh trash pickup. This is a great time to go look in your basement or your garage and get those things out of there. So, when you come to uh clean out
your house because you're moving on or whatever and you go, "What do I do with all this old oilbased paint?" That's what you do with it. The county offers this uh free to Essex County residents residents, not companies. And uh you just drive up, present your ID, keep
your items in the trunk, you don't even get out of your vehicle. And as long as it's labeled, please just don't show up with mystery stuff because we we people have mystery stuff. If you had a father like my it's a mystery uh jars of things. Um they
don't take those. Uh but it it it's an opportunity that only comes once a year. Um so please if you do have material you wish to get rid of use this opportunity. Take it. It's at their public works um up in Cedar Grove and we'll push that out. We like to push it out a little
closer. You know we'll probably push it out Wednesday just to remind everybody. Okay. Thanks. Collect all the Thank you, Mayor. Yes, Chief. In the spirit of spring cleanup, we're having a medicine dropbox event tomorrow
at um hospitals lobby. We do have the box in our police department lobby as well, but we've partnered with them in the past and we do get good amounts of of unwanted prescription drugs that people bring in. Keeps it out of the waist streams, keeps them out of your
Please don't flush it down your toilet. Yeah. Can you clarify what types of medications that people can bring? I know I've had challenges when stuff get t what we're looking for is prescription
um medicine. However, like if if you have unwanted Tylenol and things like that, you can bring in liquids as long as they're fully sealed. They can't be like in a bag or anything. And then things like saline, we we take everything, but typically we just take that out and throw in the garbage anyway because
recycling just because it's it's salt water. But really what we're looking for are the harmful chemicals um in prescription drugs. No report. Okay. Thank you so much. Um and we have no viewer or unfinished business, right? Thank you. Uh this is
the second public comment period. We'll take uh comments from the public afterwards I guess. Uh council Moody. Uh motion to adjourn. Madam in favor.
Thank you so much on the agenda.