and was posted on Bor website at www.hpor.com and on the bulletin board of borrow 221 South 5th Avenue Highland Park Derson and has remained continuously posted as required by law. Fire exits are to my
right and left of council chambers and I'm going to ask Jake to lead us in the present. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Hey, yes, here. here. Council member here council member here attorney here
here. First item is uh discussion and it's board's commission and committee diversity survey findings. J no action will be taken. I'm going to just uh share my screen because Jake does have some slides. sorted.
All you need to do is just figure it out. Yeah. Um Okay. So, just to kind of give a primer on what we're doing, what this is, and what this is in response to, um, to maintain our sustainable jersey
certification, part of the actions you need to do are to figure out diversity and inclusion among your boards and commissions and volunteers and um, things like that. So the first step in that was to run a survey through our
various boards and commissions and kind of come up with a a generalized idea of the makeup of our boards and commissions and see maybe where we can start where we lack and where our strengths are. Um we did this uh at first in 2021 where we
first got certified for it and now we're just renewing that certification. So, it's a really great opportunity to see if we've made improvements um and things like that. Um so, just to give you an idea of what happened, um on June 18th,
Terry and I hosted the boards and commissions chairs meeting where we brought uh debuted the survey and asked the chairs to fill it out. We sent it to the council um and we basically asked everyone to filter it down through their boards and commissions and make sure everybody or as many people as possible filled it out.
We had 102 responses. Um we have about 200 people on our boards and commissions. So it's kind of like a 50% response rate. Um a lot of some boards and commissions definitely filled it out more than others. Um but that is to say a lot of the data in here is not to be
taken as ironclad as much as it is to start a conversation about what diversity looks like on a I'm sorry. which did really well. We're not going to rat people out. Not
rap just in general. Just in general, we like did well. I thought I wrote it down, but I think uh safe walking and cycling did pretty well in terms of response. Yes, in terms of response. No correct answers. Good. And then a few others I can't name.
Um so to kind of start us off, uh we're going to talk about gender identity. So, um, an important note here is that throughout this throughout this presentation, I'm going to be comparing the data we collected to the census data. Um, and the census does not ask
about gender identity. They ask uh sex assigned at birth. So, we asked about gender identity. We try to be as inclusive as possible. But I just want to shout that out because it's kind of it's hard to compare when you have certain statistically significant people
either not answering the question or identifying as something other than man. Um so we have definitely a lot more women serving on our boards and commissions than men. Um and that is consistent with
2021 as well. Um nothing's really changed there. It's kind of the same. Um so yeah that's the first the first attribute. Next we tal we wanted to look at household income. So just some quick things you'll see
here. Um about 53% of respondents made over $100,000 a year and our among our volunteers whereas that number is about 40% among you know the rest of Highland Park. So we know that our boards and
commissions definitely skew towards the higher uh strata of the income distribution. Um a lot of them well that that is yeah that's basically kind of the story there. We know that they skew there but our definitely the middle and lower incomes are also very
well represented on our boards and commissions and the differences between that and the census data are uh about 4% you know three or two percent respectively. Uh next we looked at we wanted to take a look at home ownership. Um so who owns
their home versus who rents their home. We definitely have renters uh a lot of renters in town and in fact we our renters are over represented in Highland Park compared to the rest of the state which we kind of know because of our proximity to Ruckers. Um, as a matter of
fact, I was looking at the census before this, and if you look at the total people that live in town, they asked a question about when did you move here, um, 16% moved here in the last year, compared to about 8% in towns like the
Touch, comparable towns like the Touch. So, we can tell that we have a kind of transient town with a lot of renters. Um, but definitely our renters are under represented on our boards and now just this is the only time in this presentation I'm going to we're going to
see a comparison to 2021, but I just wanted to show you that we did one of the recommendations in the last survey was that we wanted to see if we can reach out to more renters and get them on our volunteer boards and commissions. And it looks like we've made some progress towards that goal. Um, and
that's what this kind of graph shows where the blue is 2021, the red or orange is 2025. Um, next we looked at uh race and you know um what are the makeup? We basically we didn't want to see an overwhelming majority of white or
caucasians on our boards of commissions. Now we have 78% that is definitely an over representation compared to the town. But the caveat there is again another recommendation in the last survey was that we try to reach out to other groups and try to get them to
join. The last survey we had about 84% white or Caucasian. So we've definitely seen diversification over the past 40 years and there needs to be more of. We also looked at age trying to see if we had an equal distribution among you
know different age groups represent um our town is pretty even right uh the graph the graph on the left and the right don't include that under 30 is controlled for like 17 year olds and under so even even controlling for that
there's still about a third people living here under 30 but only 3% on our boards of commissions so I think that there is an area there where we can attract younger people to volunteer for us and kind of develop that connection with the town as well.
Um there's a lot of people obviously as you can see in the 50 and over category and we'll get to kind of how long people have served, how long they've lived here which I think kind of colors in that data a little. So that's this slide.
So, as you can see, most an overwhelming majority of people on our boards and commissions have lived here for 10 or more years, which means we have a strong sense of community among our boards and commissions. I think, uh, people that really are dedicated to the town. Um,
and we have a healthy distribution of people serving different strata of, you know, have you served on a board of commission one to three years or 10 years? it seems like it's pretty equally people filtering through the system um serving and then leaving. So I think that really represents a a good amount
of people dedicating their time to helping out. We also wanted to take a look at different neighborhoods. Uh it comes up a lot in meetings that we talk about, you know, which side of town is benefiting or what are we working towards on each side of town. Um, so we
definitely have majority of people uh living on the south side of town and this is mostly consistent with what I've seen um data well mostly consistent with the census data from how many people live on the south side versus how many people live on the north side. It's
pretty comparable to what is represented on. So that was uh definitely good to see. So represent the triangle was definitely under represented under represented. Uh I kind
of used different census track data to figure out about six 15 16% of parks population lives in the triangle. So there could be more work done there to kind of reach out to people that live there. um as well. What was the number of triangle again?
Two which is an increase from the last time but only by 100%. Uh so we also asked about language and education just to give you an idea. Um other than English the most prevalent languages were Spanish, Chinese,
Gujarati, Hebrew and Korean. Uh other languages included Turkish, German, French, Czech and Hindi as well. Um so again broad these these are languages spoken at home. So broad uh a lot of different a lot of diversity in terms of
you know what language people are speaking commissions our education this is also kind of expected we have 83% of our respondents had at least a bachelor's degree of those 58 with an advanced degree um divided 37.3 for
masters and 20.6 six for PhD. So very very well educated population and I was speaking to Terry before this that seems consistent to when we've collected this data over the past 20 years or so. It's always that you know a lot of sensus data there
proximity to runs as well. Impressive. Yeah. Numbers are even higher. Yeah. high percentage highly educated boards and commissions is expected when a lot of them are highly specialized and talk about things that might be in the field and things
like that really neat. Um so just kind of wrapping it all up I think that we've done a lot of work to increase diversity on our boards and commissions but more can be done. Um we're still as you saw overwhelmingly
white. Um and I think that among of of a lot of recommendations we can make I think more inroads can be made with different social groups, faith groups um to kind of understand their needs or yeah understand their needs, the issues they're facing and also seeking
volunteers um as well. We should pro we should also be looking at recruiting younger volunteers as well. I think that um generally speaking, younger people skew towards, for example, renting their home versus owning it. And I think
there's a lot of legislation discussed among our boards of commissions that affect homeowners and renters differently. So just having those voices can really help um make the conversation a little more robust. Not only that, but younger volunteers, you know, working with your town gives you a stronger
attachment to your community and the town, and they will tend to stay here and live here longer. just kind of building that social fabric being very helpful. Um, and then lastly, just to kind of wrap up the survey portion of it, um, I just wanted to go over, so we had a
little bit of trouble. I said we obviously we only had about a 50% response rate. We had some privacy concerns among respondents who, you know, more than one person reached out to me more than one time talking about what's happening with my data, how are
you collecting my data? Um, and even after showing them my screen, like this is all I can see, they still either didn't fill it out or they wanted to end the piece of paper, which was fine. And then I just put the answers in myself. So things like that, I think, especially
with a question like household net income, which was the most unanswered question. I only had about 90 answers to that of 102. So the most unanswered question, that's kind of like an intimate detail that you maybe don't want to talk about. So Rob like so I
think it impacts our data as well. So I think that uh to complete the survey next time to get that response rate up to alleviate any privacy concerns there are maybe other ways of communicating the survey we can look at to try and make people a little more comfortable. Um we're also missing a question on
disability status. Um, and I think that data would have actually been really helpful to talk about accessibility because diversity without accessibility isn't very doesn't say very much. Um, so I think there's a conversation to be had there and I think that would impact how you look at some of the other questions.
Um, and the other data. Um, and then lastly on the language question, it was just one thing I just wanted to say is I made it a like you could select multiple if you spoke multiple languages at home. Whereas I think the next time to get more precise data, I would have rather
had it than primary language spoken at home and only been a one response, right? Where so we could really get a picture of, you know, different languages that are spoken. So that's a survey. Um, if you have any questions, happy to answer them. But
that's kind of uh where I kind of want to start this conversation moving forward about how we look at recruiting for our boards and commissions and things like that. You can share that with us. Yeah, because I'm I'm particularly interested in getting more younger people in that triangle.
How do we tap into that? Yeah, for what it's worth, publish academic papers with less than I worry that maybe some of the people who would respond or may not have the time to respond may skew into one of the count, you know, that's always the
worry. But thank you. But there's a bunch of tests to see. Yeah. Yeah. 10% is pretty good. And a lot of the a lot and to speaking to that, a lot of the data is more or less what I expected. There weren't too many surprises. It was mostly in line
with what I was looking at from the last survey with some slight improvements as well as the census data that I was looking at as well. And we're also living in a precarious time where people don't want to overshare information. Exactly. There there's different things. The only the other thought because I was
thinking about after you he gave me the dry run earlier and I was thinking the other thing that might affect we do have as you guys know some boards and commissions that are much more active than others and I have a feeling that some of those unanswered are the less active members of those boards that were
kind of trying to reactivate or because I was thinking like why and you know I bet you a lot of them are ones that you know which is also something we can work on to kind of touch the touch them yeah more frequently during the Yeah, I think Matt.
Oh, thank you, Council President. Um, I was just saying and I think I think you know this certainly know this system. Thank you. Uh, is one of the actions that we qualify for is the extent of our
outreach to you started in earnest a little bit last year. We've had some preliminary meetings with um some of the property owners some leasing offices and gardens treetops
the follow and obviously transition leadership that's definitely so that could dubtail into some of the goals of getting renters. anything else that you think that we would be able to do like if we send letters to some of the boards in Finnish
and just checking in on them, you know? Um, yeah, I do. That, you know, could regenerate some people who haven't been so active. uh that and I think there's a certain level of like distrust as I said like trying
to get over that privacy concern for example over some of these questions um we I tried to model the questions and answers after census like or the American community survey which is just census more frequently um but even then
I think there were some hurdles that maybe increased communication would help with kind of demystifying what we're doing because you know maybe I could have explained it better what I was doing. Just working towards that. Just to touch base.
Yeah. So, can we add like the you said a paper form? Can we add that form with our volunteer application and say it's optional to fill like an optional area? Um because then we would have Yeah. I mean, I think if we had new
recruits and they wanted to fill it out, we could continue to collect the data. I would say that before doing that, I would want to redo form to include, for example, that question on disability status and try to, you know, I would definitely have to work with the
commission on universal access to try and because the wording of the question was more um accessible. But there's definitely certain things I would change about first. That's a great idea because then when I meet with people then that form would be
there and they could just nor I had a similar whether we can generate a paper form. Uh yeah yeah we can definitely do that because you can you can make it a print. Yeah. Were we collecting email addresses when so it was but I don't
Yeah. No, that that kind of is where the one of my issues came in was that people were like, "How can you say you're not collecting my data when my email is at the top of the screen?" Because when you go into Google Forms, it knows what account you're using, right? So, there's a concern, okay, well, if
you're not collecting my data, somebody knows that this is me filling up this form, right? So kind of working I don't know and and I don't have a a clear answer on this but working towards that end of you know aligning people's privacy concerns perhaps maybe another survey medium
because I know a lot of people are suspicious of Google that's definitely so another another probably a line of people that you'll never be able to satisfy exact you know what I'm saying it's if you're Yeah. Yeah.
I mean 90 90 out of 102 sounds pretty good for income for for in for the issue I was having was um that if you if you that's a whole 10%. You know what I'm saying? Which which theoretically could be its own like
slice of the pot. So, it was just it it was definitely not anything that like affected how I saw the data in any way, but just if I wanted a more complete picture or I was worried that certain people didn't fill out the survey at all, didn't reach out at all because they didn't even bother, I was just that
was one thing concerned about Sarah, you had a question. So it was a more of just a follow up on your idea which was maybe after because usually the process we vet the candidates for the boards I wouldn't want them to think that that how they answer that survey is you know
like is but after they've been selected and you send them their nice letter that Jen actually helped you get out that could be like we really appreciated it here's the link here's the link or here's the the paper version whatever you're most comfortable with and Maybe a
survey monkey has a way to protect an ankinity in a way that Google doesn't, you know, or something like that. So, those are all really good ideas. No. Yeah, that's a good idea. Just attach it to the letter that they normally get maybe because that's what they already they're already in.
They already know the letter, right? Um, and then that maybe well I was some cultural eventual just keep in mind with the breeze speak up
the person sitting next to you. I just thought she was uh she was saying with the cultural events that we have that probably one way we can tap into and get more information and and although most typical loan applications job applications you have
to you normally put your race before you even interview but I know we're a disclaimer. I know but they don't they could I prefer not to answer I don't know if I'm crazy about that. I'd like to know more about that actually
what the criteria because that may be seen as a deterrent depending on who's doing separating application from we're just trying to collect data that's the case once I once I interview with them I
don't I have this letter that I that they get and blah blah blah and then that would be attached to the letter that they can fill out so it's not so intrusive it's not like you have to answer just to you know and we have other events with our boards and commissions in here we had like in
December we had the holiday uh appreciation party thing I think there are various touch points where if this were an ongoing thing and we were collecting the data on an ongoing basis we kind of say don't forget to fill out the survey those I'm sorry those events help you
build trust, right? Because you're engaging with volunteers. The volunteers are engaging with each other. So maybe they won't feel like you're collecting their information for other purposes. It's just community engagement and building that trust and relationship.
Okay. Any other questions? Thank you so much, Jay. Thank you so much, Deb. All right. I'm going to stop share. I just realized we've been sharing that one screen for a long time. And sorry,
one person who's at home back. And now we go to um Okay, now we go to U S3 3240. That's a Senate bill and assembly bill A 4369.
state legislation that would allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in local school board elections. And we had sent um they had sent out the information. So we hopefully everyone had an opportunity to read the the text
of the letter plus there was an email sent in regards to what Norc had done, Monontlair and what and where the state is. It's time to have discussions on this. So if I may just from a legal perspective. So in reading the law
there's a couple things. So other towns have passed ordinances to support this this but u the law at the very end it's actually fairly emphatic that the municipality doesn't have to do anything. This is a state provision. the Secretary of State who's the uh
lieutenant governor was was authorized and ordered under this bill to create registration forms for 16 and 17 voters to create a paper ballot that is only for those voters for schoolboard elections. Um so really you have the option to you can pass resolutions, you
can pass an ordinance if you'd like to codify that rule, but you can also if you so choose just rely on the state law and then just look to enact it. The second part of it is how that action goes. And that candidly, mayor, I'm still working through trying to figure out like what the registration form
looks like. Like I was on their website now and it looks like it links to the same registration. Um, and they're trying to figure out like what kind of IDs that you need. So people may have to get an ID if you're 16 or 17 years old. If you already have driver's license, something identity. Um, but you can vote in schoolboard elections under the state
law if you're 16 years old, but only schools. So would that have any impact? Um, the state says that, but would it would it have to be when the schoolboard election is going to have to be concurrently with schoolboard elections? How would that work? They they would vote in the schoolboard
election. It's not a separate election. They they are registered to vote. They go through the same portals. It's you register in the same fashion that you would register if you were over the age of 18 and you registering to vote. Um, and you vote in the same election. So, when there's a schoolboard election, 16-year-olds would be able to go in when
they when they go and they and I'm speculating a little bit now based on what the law says, but my reading of it is you walk in, you hand in your ID, they hand you a ballot, and if you're under 16, your ballot will only have schoolboard elections and you'll cast a vote in the same election as everybody else. Jason, a clarifying question. Are you
speaking about the bill um in terms of what it authorizes or are you talking about current law in terms of Well, the bill was signed in. So the governor Yeah. Senate assembly bill. Oh, right. It was It's already been done. Oh, yeah. It's already It was signed in the law and and New York's already implemented an
ordinance. In fact, Governor Murphy in March this year was in New York with Hammy Murphy doing a a registration drive to encourage 16-year-olds to register to vote. I think that was for primaries, wasn't it? Wasn't that for registration for primary elections? Well, that's Well, that's what you always do, right? So, when you register,
we do we'll do campaigns to get people to register because the primary is coming up and we want you to be able to vote in the primary. But if you register to vote, you can vote in the primary and then you can vote in the general election. So, okay. So, the bill that is referenced is not the law yet. So, I just want to rec.
Yeah, this hasn't moved out of committ. So, Senate Senate Bill 3240 is still in committee. Correct. And assembly bill 4369. They passed their own ordinance. They didn't they did so by ordinance. The city of Newark put an ordinance.
They pass an ordinance to endorse the legislation or to actually implement implement in their school system in Newark. So their high school system did it. So in Newark 16 and 17 voted last
and by the way I I believe and I have to I think it was 17 I believe that the bill was passed because there again on the state reg on the state page for there's a student voter registration and voting on the state's page. So, so the state has been authorized to implement this.
I believe respectfully I believe that is the legislation that allows primary voters to vote um to reg to vote in the primary if they are going to be 18 by the general election. Okay. Yeah. This bill I'm diving into it. So maybe right I'm
reading everything but again I'm I'm looking at the same thing the mayor was looking at which is the governor's out there promoting it in the same fashion and and it was a pretty big hoopla that that day. So in New Jersey, you can vote as a 17-year-old in a general primary in regular election if you're going to be 18 by
in the in November, right? Yeah. So So that's that's that's there's a difference. This is just about Yeah. Um Okay. So my my questions and maybe
this can figure out this is um do the kids who are voting in the board of election or board of education they have to go to post or private school it doesn't matter what school they go to they can vote
no it's it's well it's no different than from from it most basic core and again so I'm reading the bill and so we're still going to work through this Um the way that the bill is you vote in your you have to you would vote in whatever the primary or whatever the general election was for school was for
your area. So you can't go to it's not a question of whether or not you attend the school. It's a question of whether or not you are a resident in the district and then you're voting within that district which makes sense. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any attachment. One of the initial things is the reason
we give 16 and 17y old vote is they're voting on people who control their blacklist. Yeah. Now, if you're attending private schools, uh, you know, you may see a drop off in those students because they may feel like it doesn't affect although those students may say, well, if I vote in the regular school board elections,
what the public school boards do has a very much an effect on what private school boards trying to do in terms of policies. So, right and and to be fair, the New York election less than 4%. Um, okay. But the other questions that I had um are around what happens in
potential campaigns in Highland Park and let me take one step back. I really like this idea 16 year olds to vote and vote often. You know, I think it's a fantastic thing to get people but I do think that it's important to ask things like um can they donate? Do they have to
get permission to vote? Do they have to get parental permission? They have to give do their parents have to give them permission to campaign their parents have to give them you know can can someone who is campaigning for a for a
um for office are there are there presumably restrictions on them talking to someone who's under 18. So, I mean, the bill as written, as I'm reading now, what's been proposed, does not place restrictions other than to say 16-year-olds are now eligible to vote
and then authorize the secretary to make the changes necessary to enact that. Your questions would then all fall under any other applicable laws that are there. So, as of right now, a 16-year-old in the state has the right to work. You have to get your parents permission. You'll get working papers.
That's what I do, right? But they get a paycheck and they're, you know, so any they have to get their parents permission before they go to work. They have to get their parents permission before they can vote. No, under under the law they are authorized with if if it passes as is, they would be authorized under the law
to vote. They, you know, to nowhere in there does it require them to have parental permission to vote. And and in all fairness, that would be a hindrance because part of the issue with with children voting has always been they're easily influenced, right? So if we pass a law says, "Well, you can vote, but you need your parents permission." Well,
then the the first thing someone's gonna say is, "Well, then they're only going to get permission if they vote for the person that the parents want them to vote for." So the idea is no, you're giving students the ability to go vote based on their needs and what and their own research. Um because in fairness, they're the ones who are directly
affected by what the school board does. So the bigger question for me is donations. Are the restrictions on underage donations? I think there's restrictions in general. I think I I'd have to go back and look at specifically the restrictions for 16 year olds, but whatever those restrictions are would be
maintained regardless. This bill does not affect their ability to donate or not, but whatever the state laws are. So running is an interesting one. This doesn't address running. I think you have to be 18. Um it does not address that specifically
is running for a school board. Although that's an interesting it's an interesting concept that if you can vote 18y olds can't be president but they can vote for them too. It probably falls under a similar guideline. I I do just want to say that um I would imagine
council member George. I think a lot of these questions are the interesting part about um the fundamental purpose of it which is to engage students um in civics and in voting for what is going on in the
community and keeping that engagement and I think these are secondary questions. I think they would make sure they would be on the next agenda. I think it's time to do it. I don't think these questions are relevant for the passage of it. I think that parents may
want those answers and some of them there are not any wishes for parents and that maybe is the way it should be. There are regulations that say talk about donations and whether the 16year-old can solicit or accept it or have a bank account to do it. Um but the
parent all the other questions parental permission that's deliberately why the law is written is to engage students and allow them to grow up in and mature in their own process. I think we put put the ordinance on and let questions answer themselves.
No, sorry. Council member, thank you. Sorry doesn't stand up before you I was just going to say that the the law written is very straightforward. Um it's got some good support from all points around the state as far as
co-sponsorship. But I would imagine this is probably this is something we need to do is a what did New York do in the freestanding outside of this law and then how would how would Elac and how would you know how would the LG you know
so that's why I say I'm still doing some research and uh the mayor and I briefly on this and and I'm kind of picking at the the newer ordinance itself pretty much just takes the last couple bullet points from the proposed law you have to be 16 it like it's just a basic it's like four bullet points in the ordinance
that just effectively expands it to 16 rules. Um, now I took a cursory look through your code and I don't see a specific ordinance that relates to schoolboard voting. Uh, but that's fine. If we were to implement this as an ordinance now in anticipation of law, we would just implement that section as well, which
would just be I mean it could just be a standalone, you know, kind of section, but it would have the same requirements. What I don't know is how they implemented it. And that's what I would have to check. Counc member. Yeah. Jason. Oh, no. No.
Everyone keeps it. It was you. And then Yeah, I was And it was right. So, so can parents prevent their kids from voting? Can a parent can prevent a 16-year-old from doing a lot of prevent
talking about under the law or in general? Oh, so under the law, there's nothing in that proposed law, and I'm assuming ordinance, right? There would be nothing that would prevent a parent from legally stopping. That being said, it's a 16-year-old kid, so I can't if if a kid
says, "I want to go out tonight. I I want to go vote." And the parent says, "Too bad. We're going to your grandparents house four hours away. Deal with it." I don't know what there's nothing I can do. Yeah. There, you know, and what I don't know and and kind of your What your
question sort of anticipates a challenge after the fact. I would have to wait and see if at some point I imagine that some parent will challenge will tell some no I don't want you or if you don't go for this and some student will will take some action against that
and and just be very clear should because I bet a student is going to sue a parent or parent is going to sue for that but is there any do we have any state it's just a no that's a private that would be a private action between two people from our end
it's just park it may happen No, no, but but from from the municipality, I I I don't get we don't into that the same way that we don't into, you know, my my husband is mad at me because I didn't vote for the president. We don't get involved in those conversations. I'm
not saying they don't happen. I'm not saying that there's not problem to it. It's just not something that we we have no authority or ability to. And then real real quick, I'm still not 100% sure if we're going to be voting on supporting the state ordinance.
So I think that the the we were going the request was for a town ordinance to support schoolboard election 16 and 17 to vote. Yeah. So right now it would be in order. The state the state bill has passed as the
municipality doesn't have to, but it hasn't. to to Matthew's point, I'd have to look through I think it's still in the process of going through. So, um right now it would be an ordinance first. We could always write the ordinance that says but however such ordinance will will always comply with
whatever any revised state trumps everything else. Okay, Stephanie. Yes. Um I support uh this idea as well but is there any costs to the borrow
like do you have to move? So those are those are the when I say looking at how how New York's implemented I I have to I'm still trying to get my head around because assumingly yeah if you have to create separate ballots there'd be a cost of creating ballots if you have to do
I mean that really that would be the cost hypothetically if if a primary or a general election for the school board took place today you already have a building allocated you already have mechanisms there you already have staff there to take those. So if they were just separate paper ballots for students that were 16 and
17, if they could go and fill out a paper ballot and then put it in the box, your cost is the cost of the ballot and the cost to count, which is probably not a lot when you consider that. I mean, how many students do we have as we just went through all of that process for
16 voting potential voting? Yeah. and and it sort of creates a non-issue which is maybe about 200 less than 200 and and if all of them voted and it I mean that's a great problem to have if so many students are signing up and voting and taking advantage of it that it's costing us more money than we
anticipated. It's a wonderful engagement but I think okay so no calls for like an additional machine separate machine I haven't seen a requirement you need to have a voting machine okay so and now when the state if the state
enacts this I'm assuming they would then it would go through the regular voting process into which case it would transition to the ballots and I'm assuming it would transition to the machines as well but for right now I think you're just paper ballots and you're paper ballots with I mean I don't know how many folks are running for board of ed Three names, four names. If you only
have 20 students registered, you need 20 names. Yeah, Jason. Yes. I was just going to say that I support this policy change to allow 16 17 to vote in school board elections. And like Matt kind of like alluded to
like where I was going to go with this was that I think we should do both a resolution supporting these bills, which you know, we're still confirming. It looks like they have not been passed. they haven't moved committee yet. Um so I would assume a resolution to support encourage the state to adopt them. Um
but I would also separately I guess like confirmation that there is in fact legal authority. It does seem like New York has went ahead and done this I guess under the opices of the home rule authority. Um and I'm okay with proceeding with the ordinance to actually just go ahead and do that of
the uh the legislation state level. Um I would just mention especially since our other council is here um I don't think in the situation that h referenced earlier my colleague council referenced earlier
a little too but we have uh I I I wouldn't be concerned about a situation involving a parent you know kid litigating but I do think theoretically since there isn't this like authority in state law. Um potentially it seems like Newark may have not had any issues but if someone
wanted to con challenge the constitutionality of our ability to pass this ordinance absent the state legislation um you know we could become another test case theoretically like with we have dealt with in other areas but I I feel comfortable enough probably
just moving forward and allowing the policy. I think that's that's always going to be a risk with these kind of things. Um there hasn't been a challenge yet to to the works. Um so I if if if we're the third or fourth one to do it, but the first one to get a challenge
stranger things have happened. Um but at the same time and I'm kind of going through it and again I'm I'm kind of just winging into all of this. I'm not totally sure what the constitutional challenge would be here. You know what I'm saying? The state said a uh I would argue that the current voting age is the
seal. You know what I'm saying? So wouldn't stop the lawsuit from saying we exceeded our appropriating. Well, and it's a local board election ordinance. It's not It's an ordinance local ordinance. It's a local ordinance for a local. Okay.
I just wanted to say thank you for raising that point Jason because that was my concern is that you might attract some attention which is in some in this case it might be a good kind of thing because it shows some momentum and support from
the initiative I don't want to underplay while it's not a cost like it's going to be dollars that we have to buy ballot money get printed the figuring out of all this because whatever we can look at what New York did may or may not fits
for our needs isn't enough time Jen's time and how that how does that my big question is like okay so we have these votes how does the county reconcile add those to the total to know
who won the board election you know I don't know I'm sure there's an answer figure it out but it is a lot to to administratively, but it does sound surmountable because our numbers are so small. Uh, but I just I you know, if we decide to go that I think we should
fully vet that aspect of it before we rush to introduce that and not just figure it out. I tend to agree because we also need to have a conversation with the school notation. And as you mentioned now, I wrote county on my list. I mean have a conversation
with the county board of elections and say you know whatever. Yeah. But in general I I zero problem. I just I there's only three town in the 500 something towns in the state. I just wanted to make sure that on the list
on the list the county and the school board I have on the list. Council member her. Thank you mayor. I I I just I did just want to say that this um uh that I would also support you know a resolution supporting the law, the
proposed law, but uh then moving forward on crafting an ordinance that we can look at in bed and ask questions and that may take some time, you know, we do slow walk a little bit
as well. Um I I think you may have some time too. Yeah, they're all everything is in one. We have less time than I thought. We do have some time and because I will need some time to have a conversation with I need some
time to have a conversation with the county. It probably is closer to 2026. So when you factor by the time you know two two separate readings of the ordinance plus the time to do that and then you would need time to now create the ballots register people the whole nine yards. I think when you factor in the 60 days
plus that time period, you're like if we put it on the thing tonight, you might be able to get it done by November. But I I I think chances are it's a resolution while we work through this and it's passed and then the next election cycle. I was just going to advocate for I wouldate
I would support both the resolution and the actual ordinance, but I hear fast. But I do think that maybe not one more thing.
Um uh the the law also, you know, the the legislature doesn't go back into session until after until November. So the the chances of this law passing are slim, but it gives us an opportunity I think to this session
to well and to engage with our reps and you know and also you know get get more get more people on board. Absolutely. And just to back off that like build momentum going to have a decent chance. So that's where I was gonna go about it.
If you were gonna pass this that's actually that's a governor going out. Yeah. and they're going to want to make it happen quickly. We might go very well go through this. Any other discussion? Okay. So, my takeaway is I'm going to
have a conversation with the school. I'm going to have a conversation with the discuss with the with the county and we're looking at a reso and a possible ordinance that we all can something will be crafted. We all can look at more and more discussions.
Cool. All right. And now it's time for public comment. 21 minutes total, three minutes per speaker. Members from the audience attending will be heard in first followed by those on Zoom.
So thank you guys for that discussion. Um student congress really appreciates the discourse on this. That's something I've been working on all year. Um so personally myself, I know Highland Park. I've grown up here my entire life. went for the public school systems. Um, just up until this month when I graduated. So, I've seen this town. I think this
town is something that stands out as a town that's very civic town kind of almost a town that represents opportunity that represents this. So, I think by passing this ordinance, it would be a very strong showing for this town to continue to show this type of progression and innovation um especially
the town council. Um, so this town or the what we're coming here to advocate for is passing the individual town ordinance. We would pass, we would support north ideas and that's been brought up. But the reason we wanted individual town ordinance is because when S 3420, I believe it was, was
introduced. It was introduced to the floor on May of 2024. This was an issue that student Congress started talking about at the beginning of the school year, which was the fall of 2024, and still no action has taken at the state level at this. That's why now at the end of the school year, we came here to ask for individual action from the town
council. He's the state hasn't been making much progress on like you said it's Newark Montlair these three state three other towns have set the president so we do think this is something that is realistic um for this town council we would greatly appreciate if you did it um just inside school system there's
about 300 kids that represent this demographic of 16 to 17 year olds so that's about 300 people that you would be infranchising infranchising with more rights so we think that is a very big issue and we think it's a pretty easy issue for this council to deal with in
the past. Thank you. Oh, one more person and I'll give you a chance to I am Dan Malik at 216 Graham Street Park and I advisor of student congress and I just want to say thank you for this uh
discussion. I think it's empowering for our students. Just the fact that you you're having this dialogue and it's a very thoughtful dialogue and you brought up, you know, an issue that I hadn't thought of. I never thought that
litigation issue that that don't want to give it any more uh wind, but uh but the the bottom line is I I understand the all of the logistics that you have to think through. And so this has been enlightening and also encouraging. So um
very excited about the promotion of civic virtue. Thank you. No attendees on Zoom. Any other seeing none may see no further. May I have a motion to close public participation?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, we had a spirited discussion. So, we know what our takeaway is. So, that section is closed. And now we're going to move into executive session. We have
two one litig litigation versus Clark and discussion privilege communication. May I have a motion to go into? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Right. I know that the wind is like you don't want to close the door. Do you want to stay here? Yeah. I got to close out. Okay. Yeah, you close that out. We will not be returning to this
meeting. This close the finalizes the meeting for tonight. Thank you. One second.