WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=QaF3M_PfxW4

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: QaF3M_PfxW4):
- 00:00:15: Meeting Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance
- 00:01:31: Roll Call and Questions on Petitions and Claims
- 00:02:46: Discussion on Payroll, Overtime, and Stipends
- 00:05:50: Fleet Management Leases and Cooperative Purchasing Contracts
- 00:08:21: Resolutions, Insurance Broker Contracts and Community Development
- 00:10:33: Community Services, Tennis Program Fees and Participation
- 00:13:57: Finance Bonds, Pressure Mitigation and Debt Service
- 00:18:32: Library Budget Discussion and Funding Concerns
- 00:20:00: Infrastructure, Energy Contract Procurement and Savings
- 00:24:00: Infrastructure, Rain Garden Maintenance and Waste Hauling
- 00:31:18: Infrastructure, Snow Removal Costs and Alternatives
- 00:40:18: Infrastructure, Project Fees, Funding and Grant Money
- 00:43:22: Transportation, Hospital Parking Agreement Discussion
- 00:55:47: Ordinances, Future Meetings and Discussions


Part: 1

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Hi everyone. >> Hey, how you doing council minus? Hold on one second. One, two, three. >> Okay, we can start. Council president, I can start the open public meetings act. >> Go ahead, please. >> You got it.

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I would like to advise all those present that this notice of this meeting has been provided to the public in accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act and that notice was published in the city website. Copies provided in the burden record and also placed on the bulletin board in the lobby of city hall. Written objections if any should be made to the city clerk.

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All rise for the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and >> to theublic which stands >> for which it stands >> nation one nation >> under God indivisible indivisible liberty and justice

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>> justice for all >> okay >> I like the flag Jerry >> thank you >> call Councilman Cohen >> here >> Councilman Firestone Stone >> here. >> Councilman Fischer

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>> here. >> Councilman Immus >> here. >> Councilman Le >> here. >> Councilman Preszano >> present. >> Councilman Cano >> present. >> Councilman Russo >> present.

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>> And Council President Ramos >> present. >> All right. Got a full quorum. Council present. We may begin. >> All right. Let's get the uh agenda up. >> You got it. We can please my notes. All right.

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We have no items for second reading. Scroll up, Jerry, please. >> Yep. Uh any questions about regarding uh petitions or claims? Anyone? Any questions on petitions or claims?

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Question on the payroll? Congus, >> I had a question on um is that that's all over time. Can you clarify if that covered leprechaun and

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whether or not that is you know like how much are we looking at over time consistently in a in a twoe period? >> Director Gonzalez and director >> director Fanti actually I would refer to for that as regards public safety.

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>> Yes. So it yes it it it does include leprechaun. Uh we average and we we budget for 330 hours per pay period uh for police and fire overtime. It's 5% of our total hours staffed on a street.

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That's a that's a Department of Community Affairs guidance. Uh whenever you go over 10% is when it would be considered problematic. Uh the police payroll, we went about 550 hours because it did include leprechaun. So it was

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almost double but was actually still under 10%. Uh police patrols have about 6,600 hours of patrol over a 14 over the 14-day period. So they did come in under that. The fire overtime was very low. So uh that's an anomaly. You you'll usually

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see on average we try to stick to 330. PD is usually right on par with that. fire has been coming a little bit lower right now which has been good to start the year. >> Are these are these outside employments also director? >> No outside employments go under other

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pay and that's no payment to the city. Y >> correct the other numbers also. >> Yep. >> Yeah. You have about 20 assignments per day in other pay for OEP, which comes out to about 160 to 200 hours a day at $145 an hour. But again, that's not that

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that comes through the city. Uh it's paid back to city from vendors. That's vendor money. >> Yep. >> Council President, >> the uh the stipend in police department that 134,000 is that what you're talking about there, director? No, the stipens

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the stipens in PD comes from uh the detectives have a stipen because they are on call. Uh there's about 20 detectives that get those stipens and with that stipens because they are to answer phone calls on weekends and nights if it's one of their cases that are active or if there's a high crime

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incident on a weekend and they're one of the detectives that are on call for that weekend. >> Great. Thanks. Um and then >> and those are contractual. Sorry, just to to jump in. >> Yes. Okay, I appreciate that. >> Director in uh business administrator

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vacation $12,000 in vacation. >> I believe that that was director Stratton's vacation payout, but I can confirm for you. >> Yeah, if you could if you could do that. Um if that's what it is, that's a no-brainer, but just double check and let me know.

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>> We'll do. >> Thank you, >> Council President. Yes, councelor Prozado. >> Uh, so yeah, sorry I didn't get to couldn't hit the button. Uh, it was more in expenses. I was just looking here in some leased vehicles and fleet management. Uh, 2600260

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enterprise fleet management lease vehicles. Uh, there's HPU. There's there's one that stands out and again I'm asking. I don't know this. I'm guessing 25,000 by the other ones are a little smaller. Are these all a part of

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a I remember approving something for a couple years for lease agreements, but I can't remember directly. Uh do we shop this around or is this just we're stuck with Enterprise? >> Um so Enterprise is awarded pursuant to

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a cooperative purchasing contract. So um you know they are the service the provider for this service. Um we don't have alternate quotes for that. However, all of these leases are approved by contract. uh on a five-year term by the city council.

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>> So, we're in the middle of those five years, correct? That's what I was just trying to remember. >> Yeah. So, we've had multiple years of contracts. So, we're somewhere in the middle of five years for multiple different years of contracts. >> Okay. And so, you said this is the the vendor of choice. In other words, we

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cannot or we just because it's cooperative, we go to them automatically or we do bid it out anyway. >> We don't bid it out. know, we go to the cooperative purchasing vendor. Uh if that's something that you would like us to consider bidding out for future leases. Um we can do that analysis on whether it would be uh you know an

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option to bid it out. Uh I don't know how many competitors there really are to Enterprise. I mean they're they're the only ones that um that we're aware of, but doesn't hurt to to to ask. We can look into it. >> Yeah, I'd like I'd like to have that happen with our with our big budget gap.

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I think anything can be helpful. So I I would like to recommend or if we could see we could do that going down the road. >> Sure. And just for uh for context, we are doing that for all new leases. Um but these are existing contracts.

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>> Okay. Anything else? >> I'm good. >> Thank you. Uh looking around anyone else? Okay. Let's go to uh administration resolutions. We have two. Any questions on A1 or A2? >> Council President. >> Council Russo.

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>> On A1, is this uh is this our broker? >> So, they were insurance consultant uh and their contract ended at the end of December. Um they did provide some additional um services through January and February. So, we are proposing to

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pay their invoices for January, February. Um we did direct them to stop work at the end of February as we are currently um out to RFP for um broker services. Um and so that's that's a a

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60-day RFP that's out right now. >> Great. Thank you. >> Can council president. >> Yeah. One second. Uh director uh sorry Mr. Clerk, can you let um corporation council in please? Thank you. Uh, council president, I'm

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sorry. >> Yeah, that's okay. Um, quick question. So, the contract we have with USI, how much was it for last year then? >> Um, I can look that up. Give me one

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second. I'll look it up. I >> mean, it's not like $100,000, is it? >> No, it was close to that. Yeah. If not that. One moment. So, >> I actually think I was right about $100,000. Give me one moment.

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>> Yeah. I'm going to say if it's two months they're trying to charge, it's kind of what it I mean that's the rough 833. Yeah. >> Wow. I believe it was right around 100. >> Wow. Want that job. All right. Thank you. We're bidding that. You said we're

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bidding that out, right? For new Okay. >> Yes. And uh yeah, I'm I'm pulling it up right now. It was awarded in December of 2024. Um and it does look like if our agenda management system would

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open for me, it's about $100,000. >> Yep. On the top. >> Okay. No, no, it's fine. I mean 3333. It just made sense. Exactly. Okay. >> Thank you. Uh scroll up, Jar. Let's go. Community development. We have uh

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CD1, CD2, CD3 is being removed. Any questions on CD1 or CD2? That's the court reporter. Okay, let's keep on going. Community services, we have CS1, CS2. Uh,

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>> Council President, I do have one quick question on the uh tennis. >> Sure. Got >> can I am I allowed to go? >> Yes. Yes, please. >> Oh, I see. Uh,

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in this are I see we can have 392 players. This is for both fall and or is this just a spring? Quick question. And then >> this says spring and fall. >> Okay. And we also charge or this is

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free? >> I can answer that. Um, so the 392 total participants is what we assume we will be able to serve for the spring and what we anticipate being the same number of participants in the fall. Um, for purposes of the certification of funds,

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we certify for right now the spring season since we don't have the uh registration fees that come in for the fall yet. Um, does that answer your question? Uh how much how much I mean of that how much of that in other words do we recoup I guess

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by fees we charge our our per participant. >> So we um through the recreation fees 24,850 was received and the remaining 16,310 would be through the recreation um OE

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line. >> Okay. And that's assuming a total of 41,160 for spring. >> Okay, cool. Thank you. Was that was our was was it packed like did we whatever 392 or was that less?

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>> Uh I think we have 387 participants. Um and it sold out in about 5 minutes of registration. But I think uh Paul, we had a discussion about this actually about uh having a little more accurate attendance because are are they not all showing up?

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Are people just registering their children and they're not showing up there? Right. >> I did um I did request that from the vendor for last year. So I'm waiting those attendance sheets. >> So we're trying to get a little more information for for us there. Council

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President Zano. >> Um >> okay. I have a question. >> Yep. On the on the baseball one, have we done instructional baseball before? And does this does this like compete with do we have space to do this? Does this somehow

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compete with like little league and you know all of the other uses of our um you know the baseball diamonds in the fields? >> It does not. Um the instructional is specifically built out around the RBI and little league schedule. So we don't

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interfere with uh what they are um with their space on the field. >> Got it. And have we done instructional baseball before? >> Yes. >> Okay. I just didn't remember. Thank you. >> Yep. Uh keep on scrolling, my friend.

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>> How do you think Ruben got so good, Tiff? >> He's a natural. >> Yeah. My my recck space was uh the empty lot on Fifth of Madison. That was the right space. Uh, corporation council only have one

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item. City clerk. Uh, just the minutes. Uh, finance. Any questions on finance? bond. >> The bond uh is for just

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>> keeping our city afloat. Is that correct? >> No. No. So, every time we do a financing through the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank, we are required to do a an authorizing resolution. Um I'm sorry. What do you mean about keeping the city

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afloat? >> No, I mean because sometimes we issue to keep till we get the tax bills in, right? uh we have to issue some short-term uh tax improvements since I've been on the council ever >> that has been done since 2008

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>> what what is what's the 4 million for what's the uh >> yeah so this is a pressure mitigation project um the uh project itself um includes addressing the elevated pressures within our water distribution

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system. So, it's the installation of pressure reducing infrastructure um and associated system upgrades that will improve system reliability, reduces the stress on aging pipes, and it minimizes the likelihood of water main brakes because as as you know, a lot of the source of our water main brakes are

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pressure transients um affecting, you know, aging infrastructure and brittle pipes. >> Do we have any other B bonds outstanding that we haven't issued yet that we could use instead of issuing another one? Well, I mean, this isn't issuing another one,

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right? We already did the ordinance for this. So, the the ordinance exists. This is a resolution that goes along with the low interest financing. This is not a new ordinance for are there bonds that we have not issued yet rather than authorizing another 4.1

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almost.2 $2 million. Is there outstanding bonding that we haven't utilized that we could move to uh utilize it instead of issuing a new authorization?

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>> No. Can you can you ask Chris to put together a memo of all bonds outstanding, what was authorized versus what was issued and then the um

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overall debt uh for the year. >> Yep. >> So I could see that in one place. >> Yes. >> What you and I discussed, Director Gonzalez, a couple weeks ago. Sorry, >> that's what you and I discussed a couple of weeks ago. >> Yeah. In terms of a debt service presentation as part of the budget.

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Yeah. But I'll I'll put it in memo form if that's easier. >> Can I ask a question on that? >> Yes. >> Um, so my question is is when we have all these outstanding bonds, do there's a certain set period of time, right? It's an like an it's advertised over a

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certain period of time. So, do we have any kind of schedule that shows us when certain bond debts are coming off? Uh, so we can see the peak and the the valleys and where we are going to be in the next like 3 years because

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>> I guess being new, I just see a ton of bonds just going and going and going and I have no way of putting that into a residents too are asking the same questions. So, I think it would be great if we saw sort some sort of a a bond

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schedule, what's on it, >> uh whether it's actually in the debt service already. >> Um and sometimes I feel like we vote to approve them and then we're not quite sure if if we're paying for them yet or not. >> Yes, we can we can provide a debt service schedule.

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>> That would be awesome. Thank you. >> That's that's really like 95% complete, I'm sure. Yeah, just to clarify, um I'm not sure that I will have a full memo for you by Wednesday, but I will I will do my best to get you what information we have. >> Thank you,

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>> director. on F4 the um not pertaining to the application but uh pertaining to the library in general. Can you get us a full uh budget for the library uh and not just their top level? I mean down to

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line items so we we could understand what they're using year-over-year. We give them a ton of money every year and and none of that is ever coming back to the city. Um, this is probably the year where we're going to need to rely on the library to

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get back in the game and and provide the city with some money uh to help with our uh with our uh budget deficit here. So, uh if you could do that, I would greatly appreciate it. And then let's start having a conversation about how we can get a few million dollars back from the

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library uh at least for the the short term this year or next year. >> Yep. the council president and I actually already discussed that that letter. I had begun drafting it. So, >> thank you. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Uh infrastructure has a number of

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items. I want to scroll through those. Then we have like uh 10 items I believe for infrastructure. So if anyone has any questions on these a couple >> council president official you want to go first I see you

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you jump >> I'm sorry >> I don't know if it was >> the um the one that I wanted to bring attention to is the annual um energy contract that we enter into just so we could have a discussion about it.

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>> Which number is that council fisher do you recall? I >> no. >> Is it I3? >> Yes, I have. I >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. Please give your >> Is this

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This is the procurement of the energy. So just um you know we >> No, >> no, sorry. This is the energy agent, >> right? So this is the agent that goes out and does the bidding for us. >> Correct. Correct.

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>> So, can you just talk about the when when we had the infrastructure um call um first just confirming this is still the opt out program that we have every year. Um >> yes.

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>> And that can you hold on brownie stop. >> Sorry. Um the uh but can you just talk about what the process is and just what our successes have been and what we're going to do this year to last year we had a

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big fumble at the end of the year and a lot of people ended up being overcharged and there was a lot of confusion. What's going to be different this year? >> So I can start and um director Theofield please um jump in. Um but I think there was a question as far as an opt out

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program and why opt out. Um, so >> it wasn't that actually. No, no, no. >> You're good with that answer. >> Yeah. R.J. R.J. had said to us that it was opt in and I corrected not corrected. I said I don't think it's opt in. I believe that it's opt out. It's always opt out. And so he went and

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clarified for himself, not for us. >> So that's okay. So we know it's an opt out, but but every year we just have agit this time of year um with the changing of billing. So can you just talk about like how we're going to change it this year? So last year's um

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billing issues were related to the former provider. Um this year our bid specifications had um more strict requirements in them. Concord wrote them. Concord helped us through that billing issue um and rectifying that with all of our residents and any

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customers who had been uh overbuild. So all of that had been resolved and they were really key in in getting us through that process. Um IDT has been significantly better than our prior supplier. Um, of course it's subject to an auction, right? Um, but that is why the specifications are key and Concord

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will write in those requirements into the the specifications for the auction. Um, the success of the program is is been even more tremendous this year. I mean, we're more than $5 million in savings for our residents through the program, largely because of the increase

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recently in the BPU energy rates back in June. Um so you know understanding that um this is a new procurement and um setting very clear expectations that you know the pricing may may be somewhat higher but um we would move forward um

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only if we were seeing cost savings. So that is the the goal of the program is both cost savings as well as additional renewable energy. Um that has always been the the goal of the program. >> Awesome. Do you think that you can um I'm assuming at at some point you'll put

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a statement a press statement out about it, but can you just put like a summary together of those savings so we can let so we can just let people know because they they don't know what it means. They just know that it was a pain in the ass. It's they feel like their choices they get angry about the opt out and just

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being able to say that say that we're saving that much money I think is great to get people over this issue. >> Yep. We'd be happy to. Thank you. That was council >> you had a question. >> Yeah, I got I got a few. So, okay, we'll

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start off with um number five, the rain gardens. Uh especially on Washington Street. I walk by those daily and they're clogged left and right now. I mean, the one on 10th

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and or no, 11th and I want to say where we have the Christmas tree and the whatever. That one right there in front of >> Yeah, that one's always clogged every single raintorm. Um, so we clean these out three times a year. I'm curious to

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see what these guys are doing because I see that one clogged all the time and and then other times I do see the same thing. Now, I don't always let you guys know uh because either had a resident that told me that they've already alerted you or not, but I see a lot of these rain gardens packed with water

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after a rainstorm. I understand what they're there for. However, there is a catch basin underneath and just as I found out in some of the ones, uh not so much on the rain gardens, but these catches uh also cause problems because they get filled up with a lot of garbage. If we're only doing it three

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times a year and we're seeing I'm seeing more of these things flooded, uh that's not helping the vegetation. That's not helping anything. It's just a a barren wasteland of uh dirt. Uh is there anything that we're going to do or in this contract where they have to come in and do extra work or mitigate some of

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this or it's only three times a year when they want it at three times a year. Is that >> you want me to take that one? >> Uh, director The I I can speak to it in general. Sorry. >> Okay. >> So, um, so I won't get into the contract

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specifics, but as regards the functionality of the of the rain gardens. So, they are designed to store rain and you will see uh some ponding in the rain gardens. Rain is supposed to dissipate um the waters are supposed to dissipate within 12 hours. If that is not occurring, there could be a variety

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of issues. It may not be the trash screen. It may also be cleaning out the um the inlet or the outflow which could actually just be clogged with vegetative debris. So, um it is not necessarily that we need to do another trash interceptor uh cleaning. It could just

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simply mean that um we need to remove some of the uh soil that could have gotten in the outflow. Um that is actually part of what our our landscape contractor has done in the past too. Um, and I would get defer to to both director Fortunado and and uh

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Theooffield if they have additional information to add. >> That's correct. >> Yeah. So, >> yeah, >> director, if I could jump in here. >> Um, council bus. I mean, I've been

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talking about this contract and for years, and every time I ask, I'm told that, you know, our our employees don't have the skill set to uh to maintain these these um rain gardens. I I I just

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don't believe that. Why have we not had our employees trained so that we could manage this, right? like 30 grand of a contract is 30 grand.

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>> So to clarify the 30 grand also includes materials. This is both professional services and uh and you know goods and services in the sense that they also provide the new trash screens. They monitor the debris. They provide reports of the debris. They provide reports on

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how the systems functioning. Um it is an engineered system and this is an engineering firm that is overseeing the the process. Right. So um I I don't believe even if we were to um say bring

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some of the you know manual maintenance in house there is still a cost to the actual equipment um and the you know engineering to evaluate how the system's working and this is done by the entity designing. Yeah I

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>> I understand that but but again what why can't we have our engineering department manage that? Why can't we have our employees do the LA the the labor on that and then the, you know, whatever equipment we need, you know, replacing screens and things

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like that. It's just a cost to maintain the system, right? Um this to me seems like we're just contracting out rather than having it done in-house, right? It's just two different schools of thought where we're going to continue to contract everything out versus bring

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things inhouse because we have staff, we have uh expertise that could probably manage all of that. I've been asking for years and the only thing I ever get is, well, they don't have that expertise. Well, >> have enough time to train them on that expertise. We have professionals in the

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city that could probably understand this just as well, if not better. Um it's just something that I just don't I don't agree with. I think we need to start bringing some of this stuff inhouse. We have our employees. Um this is a rough year, right? We know we're going to get

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hit over the head if we don't do some things. So this is the type of thing that I think we should really evaluate. Um which brings me to my next questions of I8, which is our uh hauling contract.

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You know, I'm gonna ask to remove this from the from the agenda. I've I've now asked for again years about an analysis to bring this in-house. I re I've received zero other than I'll get it to

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you. Um we're talking about $4 million for a one-year contract to haul our waste. I'll say that one more time. We're talking about $4 million to haul our waste. This does not include all of our

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tipping fees. This does not include the disposal of all of that waste. We need to really look at this and to just put this on the agenda after I've asked time and time and time again and I was told I was going to get a

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comprehensive report on um on what that looked like bringing that in-house versus keeping that contracted out. Um and not getting that is very disheartening. It's very disheartening especially because I've been asking for three years. So, uh, I'm gonna ask to

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remove this until the council gets all that information and then we could take it from there. >> Councilman, we did send that memo out today. >> Today? >> Yes. >> So, when was I So, director, when was I

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supposed to evaluate that? >> When I when I get home from work at about four o'clock. >> So, I didn't I still didn't see my emails from city hall today. So, h how am I supposed to understand what that looks like? This comprehensive look into

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our waste hauling. >> Fair play. Council, >> I still council Russo, you hijacked me. >> Sorry. I'm sorry. I thought you were done. >> No, it's all right. Uh, I'm going to go back to

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I mean I agree with Councilman Russo by the way, so don't don't let that be uh um I've asked some questions and thank you for providing with the cost that you came quickly for the tipping fees. Uh I still do have some answers or some questions, but again, I do echo what Councilman Russo said. I I don't like

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the fact we have $4 million um stuff thrown on the agenda that we really have no time to look at. Uh it may have been discussed in subcommittee, but that's news to me. So I I would like to see if we're going to vote on something very big. We have ample time. We seem to do

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this over and over with very large contracts. Just on a side note. But let's get back to uh number six. I think I want to start working for LEC and design because we're increasing the amount of $48,000 for a new total of $17,000 for winter season snow removal

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service for the Northwest Resilience for the Resiliency Park. This park is a money pit. Is an absolute money pit. 117 for plowing or for snow removal. I'm hoping you guys can give me a big example on this because what we paid per

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street to remove stuff seems to be and maybe if I'm wrong speaking out of turn, correct me, but it was a lot different. So, I'd like to know what this 117,000 is for. And it's specifically just for Resiliency Park. >> It's 135 actually.

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So, um, we did discuss this several times during the, um, Yes. So, we discussed it the first time when it came through and we were all a gasast at the $77,000 number. Uh, and then we got nailed with another snowstorm and I believe this has to do, and director uh,

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Fortunado can re can correct me, um, but I believe this had to do with not having um, only having one response to the bid. Is that is that correct? That's correct. Um we did seek proposals and uh LSE was

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the only vendor that provided pricing for the snow removal that includes all of the um deicer utilized um when they treat the walkways. So I think we had also discussed like

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the problem of you know I can't believe that that's that much money you know that's me personally because that's just a horrific amount of money right and um we did talk about why can't we just get a small plow that is used just for park so that we don't have to uh you know

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outsource this to councilman Russo's point. Um but what I would say is that um >> I was informed that we have nowhere to store this equipment any longer. So if that is still that that's true, correct? We don't have uh a place to put plows.

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>> Can can I ask some more questions? >> Question for >> is that correct? The council I miss's point there you know the place >> that we don't have space to put plows. >> Yeah. The store when we talked about bringing that type of activity in house,

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right? Was was the issue with Yeah, we don't have the equipment and we have nowhere to store it. >> It's less on the storage. It's that we don't have the manpower and the equipment at this time to do that snow removal. we would have to pull staff

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from doing roadway uh clearing to do the park um and or pull staff from other parks to >> we added up all of the little outsourcing jobs we do including this hundred and however much that we just

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did to to to plow resiliency city park. Can't we get another employee and and still save money? >> We can. This is the first year that we are doing the snow removal for this park. Um, in the past it was done by the

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prior maintenance contractor that ended and so this is the first year that the city has had to take this expense on. >> Um, all right. I'm going to come back to this. >> Yeah, I want to come back to it. So, at what point does the administration sit

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back and when they look at a contract and say 135,000 versus what we did for the city on plowing that we don't go and hire some part-time workers or we get a local business, a local contractor in town and we say to them, hey, we need

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some help. You guys do this. Can you can you do this for us? I mean, if this is just for Resiliency Park, I have to ask the question, what does the administration just think money grows on trees? Because 135,000 just for this park is insane. Is literally I mean come pay me. I'll go shovel the damn thing

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for 24/7 and do it myself. Like help you guys for free. I'll do it for free. But 135 just for that park. And I don't see where or what half the again I haven't been down there in a little bit because of the snow, but a lot of stuff is

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blocked off from what people tell me because of repairs. But I'm struggling here at 135 that versus what we paid the 10,000 a street to clear all the snow off. It's a struggle for me. And I I think there's got to be some answers on

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this one. When when a when a something comes in and only one person bids for it, at some point we got to start thinking of alternative things that you know, I echo what what Councilwoman I said and I think what Councilman Rousen and I think anybody on the council will say. We just can't blindly say that one

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person came in and gave this proposal and we just go with it. We have to stop that and we have to get a little smarter on this thing. I again me I don't know how the administration works behind the closed doors. It's just us looking at this and I mean I'm a no vote for this

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even though we've already had the services paid. That is just absolutely ridiculous at 135. >> Anyone else? Just just to clarify the 130 um R.J. can you just um provide the uh total? I believe that there was a typo and I just want to make sure we're

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sharing the actual amount on here. >> So the increase is for about 48,000 and the new total is 117. That this title was not updated. Yeah. >> Either way, it's still a lot.

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>> I I don't I don't disagree with you. Um, nope. We don't. >> Yeah. The ordinance is now 117270. That's that's the number 117270. >> Yeah. >> Agenda, please. >> Yep. And we would we will happily

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revisit this in the budget conversation. >> And and we're adding just a we're going to get through agenda real quick. Just a sidebar. We're adding other parks like down the road and we can't have this problem continue to exist. And that that was that's a lot. We're looking at or

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else we're looking at PNR uh landscaping services, right, Paul? >> Easy. You'll be making a million a year. >> Exactly. >> At this rate. >> What was the who who did the landscaping or the snow removal for like Pure C and Pure A?

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>> But that's covered that that's the uh that's covered through the Maxwell Place uh Grant and the >> and the Pure A PC. So the north No, that's also LSE's landscaping. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Lose they do all of it, but that's

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funded by those grants from Maxwell Place and the Southern Waterfront, >> right? >> At least Pure A, right? >> Pure A. Yeah. Pure A PC to walkway. >> Yeah. >> Do you have a sense of what It'd be interesting to see what they charge? I

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didn't walk through the Northwest Resiliency Park during um the snowstorm, but I did walk through Maxwell. I did walk downtown. Um Maxwell wasn't uh plowed very well. It was just kind of narrow areas with a lot of snow mounds

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and places. I mean, did we get like some sort of platinum plowing for Northwest Resiliency? And did we need to have platinum plowing for it? like was it every single nick nook and cranny that was plowed or or should we have considered just doing kind of the

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basic you know necessity to get people to be able to cross it but not necessarily more than that. So, it includes all of the walkways. Um, >> correct. It's all all of the walkways. Um, all of the the perimeter of the

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park. Um, some areas you cannot utilize um machinery on. So, that requires uh hand shoveling. >> Okay. So, I think that that's for a discussion for to prepare for next winter.

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Any other questions or a number of items? >> Yeah, I got >> in the infrastructure. >> I have one more to go. >> One more. That's number That's number nine. Um >> I know >> even though it's grandfunded, I'm looking at some of the breakdowns on

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this stuff and like I I mean I just don't get sometimes that like I'm looking at some of the fees that we're charged and it's like city council bulklet. It's like 14 hours to produce and it's $2,100. You know, I look down here, it says site

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visits, $6,000. Oversee earthwork and planting. Uh that's a total of 18 hours. Like $2,700 bucks. I mean, it's nitpicking, but I'm trying to understand like even though it's grant money, it doesn't mean we throw it out the door, right? Because

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that's more things we could put in the park. So maybe I just don't know about how planning engineering works. But I mean, when I look at the hourly staff breakdown and then we turn around and we say it's an increase amount of 93,000 for a new contract total.

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Was this expected? Is this like new or is this something different? Is it somebody needs to give me a little little color on that? >> This is totally different uh a totally different scope of work than was included in the original contract. So the original contract went through um

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the uh preparation of construction documents. This is now from bidding through construction management and actually you know construction of the park. So this is an extension of services that were not included in the original contract. It is not just an increase to services that were already

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anticipated. This is brand new scope of work. And all this scope of work is basically what happens on every single project where these numbers for manh hours are included like this. >> We do provide an hours by task breakdown

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for for professional services um for most if not all all contracts. Yes. If you have a concern about how many hours it takes to do a task, you know, we can absolutely relay those concerns to the contractor. I'm looking at some of this that I'm

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just like, wow. And this is all out. This is external or this is internal. >> This is all external, right? >> Yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> No. This is >> Yeah. So, how much of this can be done internal? Like I'm just looking at some of this like the the city council

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booklet. Uh public open house 6,000. What? That's $6,000 for public open house. Like some of this stuff I feel like we can do in house and save ourselves some money even though it's grant money. I get it. But that could mean another another toy another piece

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of exercise equipment in the park or you know something cheaper somewhere else or we can upgrade something else. So I'm I would just like to see as we tighten our belts everybody's got to do a little more and you know even with grant money because we can maybe use that grant money for something else in the park

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that would benefit the community even more. That's my two cents. >> Thank you. Uh let's go to tax collector now. Only one item there and transportation. >> Council president on T2. >> Yep. >> Yeah.

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>> Can we just have a brief explanation? >> What do we plan on doing there? >> So, this is uh authorizing an agreement with Is this the ghost of Ryan Sharp or the real Ryan Sharp now? >> Real. This is the real thing. >> Okay.

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>> Yeah. Nice to be chatting with you guys again. Um, so T2 authorizes a payment plan with HR. Basically, uh, they the hospital has an agreement that dates back all the way to uh, 2010.

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And actually, I think the master agreement goes back to when the garage itself was built, Midtown Garage, uh where the hospital employees, a certain number of them receive uh discount parking to park at Midtown Garage. Uh also historically the hospital has

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subsidized uh daily parking for customers of the hospital through validations and then they pay the city back for uh the amount that they subsidize themselves effectively making the city whole. Um, so as of September

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of 2025, uh, due to some financial, uh, challenges that HR was having, they were unable to, uh, make their full payments for, uh, the parking fees. Uh, they're contra contractually obligated to make.

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Uh so uh over the last few weeks we have been negotiating with them to uh get a repayment plan in place so that we are made whole for all of those outstanding payments and that they get back on track uh with our upcoming payments moving

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forward. And this is the agreement to do that. Uh it involves uh a 30k payment upfront upon execution of the agreement and then uh 15,000 per month. in addition to any additional fees that are

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incurred monthly moving forward. Uh so that's that's the high level for the repayment plan. >> Director, currently um this puts them in breach of that contract. Correct. >> Correct.

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I would I would highly recommend that we issue to them the revoking of that contract immediately and then go into negotiations for a

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brand new contract. with that repayment of all the back fees >> and an increase to the parking spaces per um per individual.

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>> Uh I think if I remember it correctly they're paying like 50 bucks a month. >> It's about $82 a month somewhere in that range. Council President, I'm just wondering if we need to go into close session to discuss this uh talking about

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potential legal action like this. Just >> corporation council. I >> I'm really unclear if you have a current contract and you're trying to break a contract, but yes, if we are trying to break a contract, then yes, I would absolutely suggest we're in close session. >> That's what I believe that's what Councilman Russo suggested. So that's

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why I'm thinking >> we probably need to go into close session to do that. I think what what he's suggesting is that we're in breach of contract which has already been acknowledged. This is potentially a way to make where we're agreeing to

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um allow the breach to not exist anymore or to cure the breach. And so what Mike is suggesting is a different path to not not give them that. >> Correct. >> Yeah. I I think we I think we have Well, you know what? Let's if we're going to

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go into a close session, discuss it. Let's do that rather than doing it in an open session. >> All right. Thank you. >> And whether you want to do that now, whether you want to do that at the meeting, >> doesn't matter. >> The one can I ask a more a question, not

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that specifically, but on the memo that you sent around um and and this is in response. I'd asked the question th this what they're proposing is really post bankruptcy once they came out of bankruptcy um you know all the prior

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liabilities were effectively washed um in bankruptcy but prior to bankruptcy according to this memo um Director Gonzalez that you sent around just to the city of Hoboken it looks like they owed us 2.2 million

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>> is that right the 1.4 4 million plus the 800,000. >> No, those are current those are current property tax amounts. Actually, I think the number you're referring to is the amount of um parking that was dispensed in the bankruptcy proceedings. Um there

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were parking that was dispensed and I believe it was $1.2 million. Um I will pull up that number. >> I'm just I'm reading I'm reading the third bullet. The bullet says this agreement is separate from the other past due balances on the property which include property taxes parentheses 1.4

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million in addition to a 6% per year and penalty and water 800,000 as well as an interest of 18% perom >> and sewer. That's correct. >> And sewer but sewer doesn't come to us. But that's so that's 2.2 million

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effectively of cash that we didn't receive. So like when we look at our surplus balance of 10 million that 10 million would have been 2.2 million higher. >> Correct. >> Correct. >> Specifically um because of the financial

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situation with HR. >> That is correct. >> Okay. >> And that is why we are pursuing all of those other amounts as well uh on a separate path from parking because they are separate matters. Those are taxes. In the 17 million that you forecasted to

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us as a shortfall, do we have the annual non-payment of property taxes? And are they paying property taxes and water right now? >> No. No. >> So, and the this parking agreement that we're talking about is just for the parking, the past parking.

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>> And what and what but it's still the past parking since um September of 2025, right? >> Correct. So it's not. So what is the past parking amount that they would have paid to us that is uh during the same time frame as this 1.4 million for

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property taxes and 800 for water? >> Pre-bankruptcy in the bankruptcy proceedings about 1.2 million was um perhaps dispense is not the correct term. Arlene can correct me if I'm wrong. Um but uh you know that was removed during the bankruptcy

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proceedings. So in addition to the amounts that I gave you earlier today um there is another 1.2 million >> again. So that's 3.4 million if you add those three. So again when we think about our surplus of 10 million it actually would have been 13 million all

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else being equal. It would have been 13 million if the hospital paid the city. So, what what is what are they supposed to pay us this year between parking, property taxes, and um

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water this year? And is that is the non-payment of that in the 17 million? >> Sorry, that's your question is like if everything >> not on the back pay, what they will owe us regular in in any fiscal year, right?

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That's the Yeah, this is Well, we have a budget, right? So, we have I got it. >> In our budget, we have some dollar. >> I just want to make sure I understood it correctly. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> And and is that in is it included in the 17 million gap or would it it would take 17 million to make it higher?

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>> Sorry. We're Well, >> like are you going to budget for them to pay us this year if they haven't paid us in the last couple years? >> Okay. So, so our plan is yes, we do obtain the money. >> Is that our plan? >> Thank you.

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>> Our our goal, I don't know how you want me to say this, but yes, we we need to obtain that money this year. Um, it is passed due and it is legally required that they provide it. Um, they have been notified, the property owner has been notified that we are placing those

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amounts. Um, 1.4 4 million in taxes, 800,000 in uh water, and 600,000 in sewer into a lean sale. >> Correct. >> How can we do a lean sale if they were dispensed during >> the the only thing that was dispensed

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during bankruptcy was that uh the just over 1 million in parking? >> Parking was parking was the only thing uh taken out in the bankruptcy. >> Yeah. Interesting. >> Yeah. Yep. So, can I can I ask a question on this? >> Sure. >> So, they're still getting the discounted

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parking, correct? So, it's $82. Correct me if I'm wrong. >> Yep. >> Uh, director in there somewhere. >> Okay. I >> believe it's $82.82. >> Okay. $82. I have We have massive

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problems right now for residents that need parking. There is also some stuff on the table with raising of fees for parking and we have a business or a service that's delinquent.

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>> Let me ask >> Paul if you don't mind. I'm sorry. Uh I think I I think I know where you're going. So it's funny. Dre Gonzalez, is is there an urgency urgency to have this uh on this council meeting agenda or can

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we can can we discuss it internally uh administration council members for the next two weeks? >> Yep, we can we can uh push it two weeks. >> Yeah, because I I I think uh council $82 for an indoor parking space

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is is is absurd at this point. I I think um if I can throw out there given everything going on, I I would totally agree to delay two weeks. I honestly think we need counsel on this to understand, >> you know, and we talked about this. I I spoke with the mayor and and Dr.

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Gonzalez just in general about the strategy here. Um, but it's so there's so much on the line with the hospital that it's probably worth having >> like close session and with with council familiar with the hospital situation so

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we can think strategically here. >> Is it is it possible to do it for this Wednesday because we have so we have more information to discuss direct uh Jerry a close session for Wednesday. >> I don't think so. >> Right. >> No, no. I mean if you guys want to have a close session it's already been

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advertised. So it's just I really defer to >> you know what we could we how about this we stay we remove this from the agenda at the end of the meeting we just go into close session. >> Yeah >> and we could just do that. >> Okay so as we advertise is that fair we could do that >> that works

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>> but with with attorney or just us talking amongst ourselves. >> No with the corporation council >> if I I would. >> Yep. I if I may, because this matter has largely been worked on by outside

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council, I would kindly request that we do it at the beginning of the meeting. Um, and secondly, just point of clarification, I did pull up the bankruptcy proceeding. It is 1.043 million. So, not 1.2 that was dispensed previously. I just wanted to set the record. Uh we don't usually you know offer this

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up but in that closed session my my preference would be that external counsel detail all the facts to us without us asking questions first and then we ask questions just so that >> that's fair Joe. No absolutely like how we got to this point how they got to this point how we got to this point and then uh then we could ask questions from

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there. Yeah. So we we've done that in the past. Close sessions. We open the meeting up. We'll go to close session right away. >> Yeah. >> And then we'll All right. That's that. And we but we'll remove this. I think we should remove this item. >> Yeah, definitely. >> So, so will we have a a session at 6

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o'clock or 6:30? >> No, we're going to have the session at 7 o'clock, Phil. As soon as because we can't advertise now for a close session. >> Oh, okay. So, the close session will start at seven. >> Yeah, once we open our meeting, we're going to go into close session. We'll have our our representatives there, legal representation there that's been dealing with this issue.

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>> We should at least notify the public that we're going to notifying right now. So, we'll we'll put another notification out there uh letting people know that we're going to have a close session on this item when the meeting commences and and we'll you know half hour and we'll

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take it from there. I think that's this is a vital issue on multiple levels. I think once you know we've been hearing this last couple of weeks, the public's going to be hearing of it as well. So they they owe us quite a bit of money and you know and that's uh exacerbating to the point that council official was

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saying you know leading to our surplus being diminished is not there multiple factors to that right so this is one of them. >> All right >> council president before we move on to the next point I just wanted to clarify something I know councilman Russo had

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asked about the the uh Cali contract. Um, I do want to I'm hoping that we can I mean I don't know if it's imperative, but I'm hoping we can delay this because again I just want to reiterate before we get to ordinances and we're done with this phone call is that a $4 million

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contract we literally have a >> well for that we have we have some more information on that right now and so let's deliberate that over the next couple of days and we'll discuss it in the council meeting as well. All right, for I I get it. >> All right, so let's go to ordinances

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first. I believe there are three items of first reading. Is that correct? Let's scroll up, Jerry. All right, >> Council President. Um, >> no issues here with any of these ordinances. I just want to put it on the um on the record. I'm getting a lot of

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calls from Hoboken Catholic um about their uh closing their street during school hours for uh some of their um recreation time. Uh I think there's some work going on that they're going to need

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um an alternate for uh their uh outdoor space. So uh it's something that if you don't mind uh we could discuss in whatever committee that uh I'm assuming parking transportation committee uh just to make sure that they are uh being

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allocated that space. We've done it in the past for them. I just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention as well. >> No problem. Thank you. Anyone else items for uh first reading? >> Just one more question on the uh the

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additional spots on Newark. Can you tell me how many spots were added? >> Five. Six. >> I think it's six spots. >> Six. >> Six. I can count it. >> Okay. And then the last the other question I had is there this has gone on

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multiple. We had had a few few questions have come up about the Jolt charging station not working on Washington Street uh and whether they were repaired or at least um put bags over them or something

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to return those spots to the public if if if they're not able to be used as charging stations. >> As far as we know, they they're they're they're working. They've been having some intermittent issues and we actually

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reached out to Jolt today to uh request more information so that they can be addressed ASAP. Um but they've been going through a transition from taking over from from uh from Volulta and Shell and you know as part of that process

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they are going you know uh station by station to make upgrades and stability improvements and so as they do that uh overall stability of the network should improve um and uh yeah when we get more information from them uh be happy to

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happy to share that. I think Ryan, I think the issue is um if we know any of them aren't working at any time, we should have some sort of bag or sign or something that is put up until we know they're working again. Even if it's two hours on a Tuesday, those two hours on a

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Tuesday um are valuable parking, you know, in Hoboken. >> Yeah. >> Y Thank you. >> Okay. Any other questions? President, just uh just procedural before we we we wrap up. Uh and I know there's some

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growing pains with new caucus and and meeting uh structure. Um I got a couple calls about information not being up on the website on Fridays. Um Jerry, has there been delays for a lot of this

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stuff going up? delays as far as >> as far as getting everything everything out to the public on a Friday. >> Were claims up on Friday? I got a call that no one saw claims. >> Yep. Definitely claim, right? Could have

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just been a user error. >> Um, but I just want to make sure that we're getting that information out on Fridays so that we're not just waiting for a caucus day. >> Uh, not at all. >> The uh the the clerk lets me know on Friday that everything's up. So we we

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discussed it at around 4 410. So everything is up by like we check it at 4:10 on Fridays last couple of weeks or the last couple of meetings. Everything's awesome on the website. >> And then and then for as far as um the directors being at our meetings, uh

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I know there have our directors haven't been there for our council meetings. Um I think they should be there. I think when members of the public have questions, I think I think they should be there to answer those questions. I think they should be there for the council to answer questions, especially

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when we don't get final answers here at at the caucus. Um, so I would hope that the administration would uh insist that all of our directors are um >> yeah, >> present at our council meetings as well as our caucuses. >> Yep. Thank you, Councilman. Any any

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other council members? I have just a couple housekeeping items to discuss with everyone. Might as well do it here. Uh any questions? Anything else? All right. So, so we have our the agenda meetings, director Gonzalez, we have the 25th and the 26th, correct? For the

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budget workshops. >> All right. So, so everyone knows that we'll we'll be there asking questions of directors when they make their presentations. And when we have uh you may on your own committee chairs, it's it's the committee meeting shouldn't

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just be uh hearing initiatives from that. we're gonna be voting on the agenda items and that's it. Uh make sure you're trying to create have some policy initiatives that you want to create as a committee. So discuss in in committee with with the director that we want to

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discuss this at XYZ date. I think we've done it in a couple of our community development meetings where you want to talk about know short-term rentals at at this date and that date. So make sure that the committee chair you're communicating that with the director for

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items on XYZ date uh that you want to see. Uh and then obviously we have budget items coming up and there are a number of items that went out on a survey that ends March 22nd. Uh some revenue generating items. So feel free

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to discuss those because some of those revenues are based in various committees not just like not just transportation. They're they're spread out throughout. So, we want to make sure directors that we're having those conversations in those committee as well. I think the 79

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items I believe director Gonzalez, right, for uh a couple of items. >> So, we want to have those conversations uh now as opposed to waiting until May and June to have those conversations. So, let's move those uh in those

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committee meetings in the next couple of weeks. And obviously if there needs to be an additional uh committee meeting between the two weeks, try and coordinate that with directors and the other committee behind the daytime to discuss specific items as opposed not just discussing a agenda

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items at those meeting where the policy we're trying to create some policy as a council as well. So let's uh try and do that. Council President, after the um the workshops, >> are we going to have uh any followup uh getting through

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>> uh the entire city in two workshops uh knowing that there's a $17 million gap here? >> Correct. Yep. And that and that's what uh we're looking Director Gonzalez and and myself and we're we're looking to have maybe some like some offline like

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three three and three uh meetings with council members to make sure that everyone has the information as we're moving the budget process forward. Right? So the more that we know leading into the budget introduction and after budget introduction, we're going to have uh decisions to make, right? And we have

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to make them. That that's that's the bottom line. So, as every as long as everyone's armed with the proper information to make those decisions, and we want to make sure everyone has that information, the mayor's committed to that. I'm committed to that, and we're going to have that. Uh, and we have to make it happen no matter what, right?

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Hella high water. We're going to adopt the budget, and that's it. >> All right. >> So, all right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much, everyone. Appreciate >> everybody. Have a good night. See you Wednesday. Thank you, everyone. Good

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night. Good night. Motion to close. All in favor? >> All in favor? >> Thanks. Bye. >> Bye.