just say it again RI a little what we we should make a point right right philosophy in
life council president we are ready Rod ready I would like to advise all those present that notice of this meeting has 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 were provided in the Bergen Record L Especial the Newark Star Ledger Jersey journal and also place on the Bolton board in the lobby of City Hall written objections if any shall be made to the city clerk if everyone can rise for the
pledge of allegiance to flag United States okay we'll do roll call councilman Cohen here councilman fiser yes councilwoman jaor councilman preso pres councilman Cano councilman
Ramos councilman Russo council president Doyle pres all present so we're going to start this evening with a presentation from the Hoboken Middle School for the steam tank
challenge soim ready okay good evening hello can you guys hear me okay sorry you raise that thank you so much uh good evening we'd like to send our heartfelt thanks to the city council to
Mr sorine and ladies and gentlemen my name is Lura Courtney Martinez and I am a sixth and seventh and eth grade special education teacher at Hoboken Middle School we wanted to say this thank you uh for this opportunity you're sharing that you have allowed us to share with
you it is an honor as my first year here as a middle school teacher after 21 years at Hoboken High School myself and my co- teer Mr herenga were approached by our math and science director Miss D wondering if we would
like to participate in a Statewide science initiative called steam tank and to be very honest we jumped at the opportunity as our students have some real really great ideas when it comes to creativity and Ingenuity the three students you see standing before you
came up with this project that they believe will help to keep our beautiful Waterfront and areas of our town we live in clean subsequently sharing this concept across the globe after submitting The Proposal the steam tank committee reached back out notifying us
we had been selected to move forward as a 2025 qualifier which is a really big deal because this is the first time this has ever happened well we just can't express and tell you how Beyond proud We Are of the hard work of these students that have
put into this project all they've got the steam team who put us in touch with a mentor met with us to bring our project to the next level and one recommendation was to reach out to our city council members and just share our idea let the city know what we were
doing doing and let's all be on the same page as a community in a community that we all really love very much so thank you so much I'm going to introduce you to the three students here they are good good evening my name is zir Kau
and I am here with zand creno and Jeffrey conceptone and we are the famous Cleanup Crew we are here to present our uh invention the FC Grabber the concept of our in invention is to collect all
garbage especially around our precious Waterfront and dispose e ethically by using a large magnetic claw pollution is one of of the major problems in the world many animals and people are affected by the trash rats
Vermin that create Within on sanitary conditions wait one more many of our word a majority of the pollution lacks such car in which leads to over
littering affecting many of the of our world WS WS W to have this invention mass produced to use goal as well as to provide a product that will help our future Generations
this product is to help sustain a clean and healthy planet for future generation to come we would really like to take this opportunity to say thank you all so very much for allowing us to share our presentation with the whole booken city
council with special thank you to miss V Vanessa Falon and Miss Nora de benedetto de benedetto thank thank you thank you okay now there you go um our project is supposed to be um around like we're trying to save all of
our community and all the animals from from getting polluted of their environment because everybody's littery in the world and we have to stop it so we don't have any more littering in this world because all the cuz people are throwing trash and and littering all in
our Waterfront and all the animals are getting stuck inside of the water and so we built them a hydration Center and we're supposed to um stop everybody from having throwing water inside the trash in in our Waterfront especially the peir
and our city is supposed to be all around our country in our worlds we're supposed to help everybody and stop the littering for our whole life because cuz all the animals are getting stuck inside the trash with Metals cans and plastic
and that's not right because it's hurting our environment and theirs thank you they designed this FC Grabber it's the famous cleanup Grabber and we've reached out to Stevens and we're in the process of meeting with our mentor and
Stevens that will try to come up with a prototype so that we can share it so we wanted to say thank you again so much for allowing us to do this and we look forward to Bringing more of these inventions to you guys have a wonderful night thank you thank you very
muchim do a picture face me now yep come back thank you so much your face oh let let me do this lower put the sign a little bit lower the sign there you go there perfect got it
thank you guys thank you so much thank you guys you did a great job of course great job you thank you love you let me come over here if if the council will indulge me I I we have uh three people from Stevens
Student Government Association and uh they just wanted to come up and give us a brief presentation uh Michael mcello and Alex and Sarah are you hi everyone um good evening my name
is Michael Melo I'm the vice president ations from the Steven Student Government Association this is Alex stanzak the president and um our vice president student interests um Sebastian solsberg uh we're here to today to continue to reaffirm our commitment to the Stevens and the Hoboken community at
large um our government community relations chair Sarah that you mentioned couldn't be here tonight uh but we were here last semester continuing to reaffirm our commitment and wanted to share a few of our initiatives that we are doing right now and to continue to civically engage the Steven student body in the Hoboken Community our key
initiatives that we've been working on include ensuring the student government Representatives attend at least two City Council meetings to keep an open line of communication between the student body and the city council to keep engaged hosting an Earth Day event between Steven students and the student uh
Hoboken community in order to promote sustainability throughout the entire Hoboken City in addition organizing an emergency service appreciation luncheon to thank those who serve to protect the community in addition to our community efforts we want to move civically continue to invite city council members
members to campus for city council member Forum I can see some familiar faces here that were on campus last semester and we want to continue to invite you all to Stevens next this semester in addition expanding our ducks for democracy initiative expanding uh voter turnout by over 10% ensuring over
200 additional Steven students are registered to vote in Hoboken getting more voices heard we've already seen this in practice with our nixel notification system seeing 50 students signups already and that was pretty helpful these past two days these initiatives ultimately reinforce
our role as civically engaged student body and we want to continue to engage with the hobok community with the Stevens government and also this continue to maintain engage with our Civic student body thank you thank you very much thanks guys tell Sarah we miss y um something they didn't mention
actually in your list that's been a really big success locally I know is also the society for women and Engineering has been sponsoring Outreach events so this Saturday there's actually um an engineering challenge going on Saturday afternoon on campus students in grade six through 10 are welcome to attend so um I put it out there on
social but hopefully people are aware of that as well so another great group it's such a great great Community thank you for for being such a good neighbor thank thank you so much thank you thanks guys okay so Jerry second readings you want
to well okay okay yeah which so for uh thank you we are pulling A1 uh yep cl7 A1
A1 that I think that's it very good okay okay so so uh could someone give me the uh sign up list that they've already done um so also mentioned that B7 733 is going back
to First reading first ordinates y yep yeah as indicated on the uh agenda b733 is going back to First readings which is number one on the agenda stricken so we're we're looking at uh
737 we have no speakers well uh is it Mark Weller Willis you didn't indicate what you you are are interested in speaking on with regard to the ordinances do you have
would I think public well okay so you would like to speak in the public portion not on an ordinance is that correct okay so we'll make sure that your name is on there so I'm gonna right no problem it's all right
so B 737 Jerry yep an ordinance to amend and supplement an ordinance establishing a schedule of classifications and allocations of title for the herein mention positions in the city of Hoboken no members of the public any motion to close public
portion those in favor I council members Mr Mr finina Mr lore call the vote councilman Cohen I councilman fiser yes councilman
Jabor yes councilman prano nay councilman cantero I councilman Ramos Council Russo I and council president Doyle I so B 738 do you want to read it before we have the speakers problem you got
it amendment to Hob city code chapter 138 outdoor dining to amend the specifications for parklets to require access to 100% of the area under or below the floorboards for daily cleaning to require quarterly compliance and
require setup during business hours uh Rosemary marle good evening um Tiffany thank you for making me read read this brought out some real doozies um the devil is in the detail so I want to thank you for that that you forced me to reread this and it
just turns out to be jumbled up mess of words that really don't do much for quality of life of the residents but you may want people to think so on letter d uh the line was taken out that no new applications for parklets will be
approved or considered so that does not help anyone for quality of life so again that's more for the restaurants 25 restaurants or the others that want to come along versus the 65,000 residents on E added access to the entire area for daily cleaning inspections through
multiple means hinged trap doors which we already have and has been proven that you can't see all the way through they can't be totally clean because beams are in the way open base with full visibility um didn't we close up the bottom bases because that's how the rats were getting in so don't understand why
we want to go back to leaving that open and no one can see from one end to the other uh other structural sound designs wouldn't that be bases that are removable that that was on the last ordinance that was voted the ordinance that was voted down M1 and two only when
customers are served inspection will take place in cleaning and washing of the area so you took out every day and made it eh whenever I guess they're on the honor System they could serve people we wouldn't know and we don't have to clean it's a very gray area but I think that's what the point of this is three
power wash underneath platforms to flush out the rats remove any standing water would' love to see how that could be done with hinge trap doors and we have Bings in the way so standing water is always going to be there the only way is if platform is totally removable like
the ordinance that was voted down for safety purposes washing is not required if the temperature is 32 or less or if no one is eating there so no clearing cleaning in winter months that's wonderful 6A entire area at any time
must be easily available via hinged trap doors again we know that the trap doors don't work because the restaurant in question has six of them I have pictures it's disgusting under there an open base is listed again seems like that removable platform would have been the way to
go you have that the health department will do inspections and in h you list the Parks and Recreation and Public Works will do inspections around the parklets all along the council's been saying Administration doesn't follow through so who's going is anyone really going to do these inspections or we just
writing this down and again hoping it keeps the residents quiet again if the restaurants were really good neighbors they would turn them into seasonal Streeter and no one can blame them for rats areas are easily accessible to clean and residents have some parking back in their neighborhoods part of the
Year this is a win-win for everyone I understand that some don't feel the parking is a essential but for people who don't have parking garages two more parking spaces on their block is a big deal and in closing I'd like to say I understand this will never happen since
residents really don't matter and it's all about the restaurants and how much money they make and not about our quality of life it's been proven Time and Time Again by Council Administration I would hope that she would go back to just remove the bases and make them Street Aries thank
you thank you m marle uh and R Herrera so this is in response to the the whole you know the rat infestation and stuff like that in terms of the outdoor dining and how we can clean that area um this
being a modernized grid City structure it will be easier for us to actually just time out when people finish uh or at least businesses finish up at night and sanitation comes in an appropriate time than just at random points in time in regards to cleaning underneath any
type of outdoor spacing or anything like that it just becomes an easier option for for anyone to just go for things like that first that's where the most rats come from especially the outdoor dining that area in in general um is the most infested if it were anywhere else outside of the trash compactors and
stuff like that uh so the ordinance of or at least to to at least understand it better this being a modern Grid City you should just have things correctly put on time because if you know time and time again that occurs it's just because
people are not correctly going to their spots it's like if a police officer doesn't make their call on time it doesn't it's the same thing it's it's a work environment uh or at least the the trash compactors that is it's a work environment that you have to be on point with what you're doing um
I worked in janitorial fields in in day spas and in other various locations outside of warehouse work when I was younger and if you actually keep up the upkeep does matter and less rats in the city is a better option uh but where do they come from exactly usually um the
PATH train is the big spot that that spot and then there's the um the bridge that connects Jersey City to uh Upper Manhattan I think there's a I don't really know the specific Bridge of Name Escapes me but those are the largest hubs of where rats come into Jersey City
or West New York or Hoboken and once that path opens up um how we deal with that is uh pretty much maintaining it with this modern Grid City structure like knowing what's going on doing something about it seeing the problem preventative measures that could work in
the favor of the city just to see it that way cuz it is an advancement in terms of or at least as this uh as this country went on about you know doing its business as a modern Grid City structure to keep the citizens safe is one thing but the upkeep of keeping citizens safe
is sanitation so if we can just fix that problem in terms of upkeep make sure that at the end of the day the businesses are aware that if your trash is not wrapped up correctly in New York they did this you will get fined making it a bigger problem for them
isn't isn't isn't about the money you just have to do your job correctly as a sanitation officer you know um I think there was some sense of people walking by two or three times a week and that does involve income but just the basic sense of calling these um calling these discrepancies out would help and if you
see anything like that in terms of any employees is not if anything dragging your feet on any issue in any system like that it it's just uh an OD to like how uh employment needs to change in terms of picking things up you know
lastly just just to be clear just moving those things out the way and cleaning them best option just make it simple makes it easier right thank you thank you uh James rle that's annoying go back to the old
clocker I don't like it I like it it's so loud good evening council members sorry distract for it I didn't want this not at all not at all I remember making noise it's new it's just gonna I'm just
gonna see go beep beep I'm just glad I'm not the only one hearing even council members uh as president of the Hoboken business Alliance uh we are here to express our full support of ordinance b738 uh for our residents and visitors
Hoboken is a dining destination 51% of our regional Shoppers come here specifically for a vibrant food and beverage scene in fact 37% of respondents to our own Community survey actually want more outdoor dining which is a tribute to its popularity uh for our restaurants on the other hand
outdoor dining isn't just a popular amenity it's a crucial Revenue stream helping them navigate the rising cost of doing business uh it also provides a buffer against unexpected disruptions which you know do happen allowing owners to better plan and allocate resources the hba's work closely with elected
officials to update this legislation incorporating feedback from real businesses which will be affected b738 offers increased flexibility for restaurants while maintaining a clean and safe environment for hoboken's residents by establishing clear guidelines including compliance notices
uh from City Zoning and health officials this ordinance makes it easier for businesses to understand and comply with requirements this collaborative effort reflects a shared commitment to finding solutions that work for everyone residents businesses and the city and we
at the ba are very grateful for this partnership and we're excited to see more of the dining experiences our community desires we believe this ordinance is a positive step forward for hoboken's business community and dining scene and we're committed to work with the council and administration to develop resources that proactively
support businesses to help in understanding and adhering to updated requirements and regulations thank you as always for your time and especially for your partnership we do greatly appreciate it thank you again thank you sir that's it for public speakers motion
oh no I'm just kidding Alex I'll put you on the list I'm sorry um Alex Garcia 6 Ward the reason I'm ask I'm came over here is regarding the b738 I'm not sure if you guys even
looked into this before even though I support it because that's we have no solution at this point do you guys ever thought about turf I mean it would have been a lot easier I mean when I got Turf back in our high school days that was the best thing they
came out easy to clean out there's no rats worry about picking up boards sliding whatever the case may be it's a lot easier to pick up to the stre to come through and uh it's safer something you
should have been thought about before this came through that's one secondly I mean hopefully it doesn't go through and you could bring this up that's another resolution secondly is um myself and the majority all of you are pretty healthy to carry
water and um sorry I'm I'm bringing this up right now because I'm I'm in a Time situation the fact that there's no no Buffalo Water tankers in the senior citizens building is a problem for me I had to bring two 5 gallon Waters to my mom's building
so she she can shower the water's coming out black I mean dark brown boiling does not resolve that issue Paul you know we did that last year right now on the third day we need to think about senior citizens I could carry water bring it to my house my kids
could take a shower clean water we need to bring those Buffalo Water tankers at least to our senior citizens who cannot carry water this is unbelievable you guys haven't thought about it yet think about you need those bags all right thank you
very much my apologies for but something I need to bring about thank you very much Alex thank you have a great day I think this guy wants to yeah on this you yes is about the rats on Sir you're GNA have to wait until the this I thought you had called
my name on that paper I had it off and you said you signed up for the wrong thing you no but it was for the rats too as well because I can relate to as well you so you on the rats so you would like to speak on the parklet ordinance most definitely if it's possible all right
thank you so we start can you spell your last name w i l l i s Willis yeah Mark with a K yes we hit five minutes on that please sorry yeah gotcha thank you this is new no problem and I love it too I really
appreciate it um I live in Hoban all my life okay and um rats and stens a whole lot of stuff I want to speak about it's a proposal and um a business contract um I will try my best to put things together because we as a people got to play a part to we just can't ask you
about the problems but I have Solutions just like everybody have Solutions and my main solution is by the um the light rail I seen over there it's I took pictures of it it's terrible the mountains where the rats all comes out
and a lot of other areas but that's the main area CU I used to play in on the mountains back in the days statements on the mountains when I was young and the rats do come from there and the summertime they come down in the winter time uh they they come down winter time they go up that M grade and they come
back however um my goal was to landscape to to scrape clean teach kids how to uh do landscaping how to um turn soil over to make it look different than what it's
supposed to because I know construction that we build things and we leave garbage fines fines we got to clean it up or we have to wear it we look bad cuz simple fact is no one don't fulfill everything you
start something looks good looks beautiful but we don't complete one phase two phas stay on top of it so jobs that should be in considerate garbage cans in areas that spray wash whatever before the fines come that well I would
propose on a lot of stuff that need to be in hoken because I know every every spot in Hoboken pretty much that where garbage and the Rats is a big plus here and um now I'm at this phase right now that I can do something about it but I will propose myself with a lot of
paperwork besides just talking I'm about action so I'm not here to look good I really don't like this here I like to speak individually however and um draw the picture up so you can understand uh the solution to the problem and make the best out of the situation for whole book
and and the younger generation and I got something for the Steven kids too I I I talk about that something later on down the line about interacting I'm I'm Sports whatever all that stuff I'm big on that Community is separating people look at each other I
don't like it I meet people hey how you doing I was born that way if I don't see something this here something's wrong so I got solutions for that God willing on that P but the garbage part I will propose you with the proposal and the job um contract
that where I could provide people to support that that not just throw it on your table and just leave it there something got to be done you know that's all I just want to share thank you for thank you sir okay uh no more members of the public
wish to speak on B 738 motion to close motion all those in favor council members want me to want me to go first yeah
um so uh just a few things one um this this isn't the be all and all for parklets um when we originally put the parklets uh ordinances um we voted on them to make them permanent uh it
happened very fast it was very rushed it was uh I think I voted against it a few of us voted against it um because it just wasn't it didn't really think about um kind of the future of Hoboken but it served a really important purpose at the time which was um all of our restaurants
a all of our restaurants were really hurting during covid and B really our community just wanted to go out and be able to eat outside just from a health and safety standpoint and I think um many people still want to do that um I did a recent rat or not a rat a I've
done rat surveys but I did a recent parklet survey to get some feedback and really there's only about 25% of our community wants to keep the parklets as is um most people want to see some sort of change um I think whether it's
parking related as as Rose mentioned that was the big one of the the bigger concerns um the question is you know do we have a limit on how many we'll have in Hoboken should certain roads have them we actually have spent some time uh uh on our subcommittee the North
subcommittee which is a zoning um subcommittee to start thinking about what a more permanent um parklet ordinance should look like uh to a couple people raised whether they should be just seasonal whether we're pricing them correctly um whether they should
rotate whether they should be a fixed amount of time and only have a certain number in in town Etc that that wasn't what um this exercise was this exercise is in response to we have a number of rat
situations in in Hoboken and one in particular up in my ward we've had a number of my neighbors I'm surprised are not here tonight um coming to every single meeting and just very stress that we are not doing enough to remove the food sources on our streets and we're not right and uh so in response to that
um our colleagues councilman uh Russon Ramos put up a ordinance that um was kind of started the conversation about making changes to parklets um I think we where we got to with this was taking the
spirit of what that was I mean these these ordinances are all just about cleaning they're nothing else it's about trying to figure out a way to make sure we have daily access to be able to clean them we have more um accountability more inspections um and we're holding the
restaurants we're we're putting a better framework in place to make sure that the restaurants are doing their part uh to make sure underneath um is clean so that's really what this meant to be I'm appreciative of um you know Mike and Ruben or councilman uh Ramos and Russo
started the conversation and put the first piece of legislation up and I think what we tried to do is just get a little bit more input from our businesses not all of the restaurants um some of the restaurants take the cleaning a little more serious than others and have done a great job and what this is meant to do is support
those um but put some additional restrictions in place so we have more compliance from more of the um restaurant so I'm hopeful everyone will be supportive tonight but we will be coming back at some point um my guess is not for a couple months but we will be
talking about a more you know some of the other features we just mentioned like seasonality Etc um at a later date sure I'll go next council president thank you um so yeah I'll just Echo some of the sentiments councilman Fischer um
just went through I appreciate uh the HBA continuing to Advocate uh and be a voice in this conversation um it's been very helpful to have your perspective on behalf of um several different stakeholders who are involved with your organization um for me I think our outdoor T dining program has been very
successful um in addition to some of the statistics that uh James had shared earlier with respect to us being a destination and a differentiating uh feature for Hoboken uh as you know a premier dining location um it's also an amenity for residents and there are
people people who are still concerned about eating indoors there's people who are concerned not just for covid reasons um but you know newborn babies and any other immune compromised um residents I think appreciate the opportunity to also have the open air uh option available uh
and it does make it more possible um to get through the really difficult times um this week has been very difficult on our small businesses um with the situation with the water supply uh a number of businesses have had to close unexpectedly and so how do you smooth that out over the lifetime of your
business to ensure that you can survive uh and ensuring that we have a really vibrant set of businesses open is a benefit for all of us uh in a number of different ways so um I'm very happy to have collaborated with councilman Fischer on this um I think a lot of what we learned out of the situation that you
have had with your neighbors is the lack of coordination that was happening across the different agencies involved within City Hall um so I think one of the benefits of this is merely being specific about who the different entities are and which part of the process they are in because there was some Fusion what was the Health Department's responsibility what was
sanitation's responsibility what is zoning responsibility um so I appreciate that this provides some clarity in that sense and then I'm excited to see that you know there'll be conversations moving forward certainly the technology around this as this has evolved over time um there's more uh available options in the universe modu or features
that make it easier to continue with sanitation um so I appreciate the collaboration that happened to get to this point thank you so much councilman Russo thank you council president um so I'm still a little concerned and
don't understand how this ordinance will achieve the overall goal of cleanliness underneath the the parklet itself um I think as you heard from a member of the public we Chang the ordinance from its
original to enclose the base now we're saying we're going to open the base we've talked about having trap doors we allowed that for x amount of time it didn't solve the problem um I don't
understand where we are in achieving the overall goal and even if you believe that this would achieve that goal what is the time frame that we're willing to wait if in fact it doesn't so if we
enact this here today and we wait 3 months and there is no change are we making a change after that to the parklet are we going to potentially come back to the city council and say well maybe we'll just make the trap doors a little bit bigger
and then maybe even a little bit bigger than that right so my question is how long are we going to wait and when and what metric do we have to let us know that it's actually happening how long are we gonna wait to
yeah if it doesn't in fact work how long are we as a city council going to wait before we enact something to change it it could be because we we've been waiting 18 months sure right 19 now you guys are so funny with your 19mon references we have had we
have had a rat issue across the city I'm sorry I'm I'm speaking but you by all me but you're supposed to be positive so you asked me a question asked was 191 say just simply answer no question no you didn't you asked me how that's not what you asked me you asked me how long
we would wait and you know what it could be it could be a month it could be two months if it works amazing because what this ordinance does is literally it allows them to do exactly what you recommended so if that is the way to solve for it and comply it gets to do
that so if if it's not working a month from now we're going to hear it we have I I respect your answer but in your opinion you think it allows to do what I was trying to achieve in the legislation that I put forward I don't believe that
I think it still becomes problematic and my question true is it says it allows it all right so you time the once go ahead Jim you get yours out I I just said please don't interrupt anybody else want to get one
in don't he said it to me look I I dis I disagree with you councilwoman and and this is my time to make sure that that the public knows that and make sure that you know that because the reality is that we've been waiting a long time we still have the issue and I don't think
this solves the problem so I'm asking a question to see how long we're going to wait how long you're willing to wait how long my colleagues are willing to wait if it's 3 months if it's 6 months if it's a year whatever that may be I'm not willing to wait that long what are we me I'm will I'm willing now to make a
change that's significant that's it what um I guess what when you say how long are we willing to wait what are waiting for what what it doesn't if in fact it doesn't work and how are you measuring it that's what I'm asking that's exactly what I'm asking but in your in yours had
we had we voted yours how would we have measured whether or not yours worked how would what what is the measure no rats anywhere in hobok no the the measure would be that the actual establishment would be cleaning daily and we had the ability to check that they would be
power washing winkly and had the ability to check that and we had the ability to lift the entire platform so that we knew that it was clean underneath so we and I'm and I'm asking you how are you measuring yours so we have all of the
you and I had this conversation already um we have all of the same check Provisions um we have the same goal which is to be able to get underneath it and clean it your your format to do that is to lift the floorboards the format
that is in here is allowing a wealth of opportunities to do that you had a requirement to clean daily we have a recommendation to clean daily and from an enforcement standpoint we don't have enforcement in City Hall that is going to enforce either one they're going to
go out and they're going to enforce and say do we have the ability to get underneath and clean and on a quarterly basis they're going to have to pass inspections and if they don't pass inspections they can't continue operations that is something that you didn't have you had just a random we
could show up whenever and see if they're cleaning daily where we actually have put a structure in place that is workable for our health department to ensure on a quarterly basis they go and they they check they lift them up and they will see if they're clean underneath and if they are not they will
not be allowed to continue so it's a there's a a positive a small positive in yours that we didn't have and there's other positives in ours that you didn't have and they basically get to the same thing which is being able to access underneath the the parklets clean on a
regular basis but have a more regular inspection and we we we've talked about this we have a difference of opinion on you know whether or not yours is stronger I don't believe and and the businesses didn't believe and nor did anyone hear that it was practical to
require that the very significant floorboards be structured in a way to be lifted every day so excuse me going back to the the sorry going back to the trap doors the trap doors on some of these
the way they're structured they they're they're there's wider space in between the structural beams some of them the problematic one that is often raised are um have um two beams and smaller trap doors that they've now cut a new trap
door in every single one of them they made it bigger no they didn't make it bigger they just made more of them so if you have if you have like this if you have like a stud wall that's laying flat they now have I don't even know eight or nine trap doors that go all the way across in between the studs that was
their choice but we we have worked with the health department um Berlin vcon who's kind of our our unofficial rats are you know she is ready to go day one to go out and inspect every single parklet and make sure that they are able to be open on a daily basis that doesn't
mean that you physically have to take 2 days to physically take your parklet apart it has to be able to be lifted up pulled off and and able to be clean every day and she is going to opine and give everyone a sign off on that and she's going to check that on a quarterly basis that is something new that's
something we don't have now and just for everyone's benefit we've not had any inspections of our parklets basically since they open because the inspections of this feature sat in a different department and they just weren't done so now we've actually officially put them
in the health department we've officially worked with the health department to come up with a protocol to do that and now we will actually have quarterly uh inspections so we feel good about it thank you councilman Fischer so so we still don't have a definitive date how long we're going actually councilman
Cohen is on the phone oh get himoun Council Ramos I don't know if you would like to speak but three months there's your date three months we'll come back I appreciate it month timeline councilman Cohen what start the timer yeah thank you counc
president can you hear me yes yes okay good so I think one of the answers to councilman Russo's question is in section B uh of the ordinance uh 381 D which says as of the effective date any
parkl not in compliance with chapter 138 must remedy non-compliant elements of the park within 30 days as of the within 30 days if the violation is not remedy within 30 then the owner of the parket must seize parket operations immediately
and remove the parklet from the public right away until the structure meets the new requirements under the section of the code so you know we don't necessarily have to fix the entire regime if there's a problematic parklet that it does not get into compliance
within 30 days they have to cease operation and remove it from the public RightWay and this this is a you know significant armor that comes with this in addition to what councilwoman Fischer is saying with respect to a new inspection regime uh which which will
you know hopefully be robust as we expected to be uh that that this this will be a major incentive for the parket that aren't right to get right and to get right within 30 days number one number two I think it is I want to thank
uh the business Alliance and Mr rle uh for working with uh the authors of this ordinance uh I gave input on this ordinance uh I think it's important that we balance Public Health with our businesses uh and
I think that this achieves that I think that you know with all due respect to the uh ordinance that we did not pass at our last meeting it was a one-sized spits all solution uh and I think what this does is recognizes that that freies come in different sizes and different
shapes but the goal is the same uh we have they have to be designed in a way that they can be cleaned daily underneath the surfaces and completely cleaned underneath the surfaces that's the goal that's what we've tried to do and hopefully uh this will work because we want to have compliant businesses if
they can't keep their shies clean then they can't keep stre that's the way this should be thank you counc president thank you councilman councilman you go so I I have a couple questions um that I don't think we we
thought about that one we don't know when the last time the businesses actually fixed or updated their parklets right some may have done done this I don't know in the past month I it is the winter I get it however what happens if suddenly in they
comply and they spend I don't know a thrown number $10,000 to do it and then suddenly we come back 6 months later change the ordinance they have to spend another $10,000 so I just have a question on that standpoint um I really don't think
finding them is the right way to do it you just increase the price per square foot that'll get the message right across you get if you're paying 225 or 250 or whatever it's up to now you turn around your first violation is $5 a square foot and the third violation is is $10 a square foot I think your
problems will be fixed and they'll be monitored from that standpoint but I think ultimately we need commitment from the administration and I saw Caleb run out opportune time um but we need commitment from the administration uh that uh are that
somebody is going to go out and inspect these right we don't even know when the last inspections were um I know there were short staffed in City Hall and so I've kept some of my questions back because there's a backlog of questions but I think ultimately it comes down to
are we going to enforce this we haven't enforced it over I don't know 18 19 whatever months you're going to call it we haven't enforced it and up here we're even fighting amongst ourselves but at the end of the day it comes down to we can do all we want up here I'm going to say it again unless the administration
enforces it the executive branch does their job we're blowing smoke I we'll end with this I sure hope you guys up here on this dayas all spend enough time or more time that you're doing on this rat and parklet issue that when we have
the budget come up I want to make sure you guys spend every ounce of energy you put into this when we talk about the budget that's going to be probably higher than we think thank you council president councilman councilman Ramos yeah thank
you uh I don't want to repeat what was said by anyone but I've had the pleasure of raising uh two teenagers that are now adults and now a current teenager and you ever asked them to clean their
room when they were teenagers right and what that process looks like when they clean their room right what do they do they go around the edges of the bed right the edges of the window and that's about it right then
you come into the room and you do the parent inspection right you go under the bed and you're like oh look at this look all this dirt under the bed let's move the bed right we go to the corners it's like the pile of clothes you didn't move
your your clothes let's move these clothes let's clean under the clothes let's clean this area here this is similar unless you're moving things around to have Total Access of cleaning what's under the
deck we're not doing much cleaning at all we're back to to square one and the whole thing of our ordinance is giving complete access to underneath the deckage that's that's what the goal is
the goal was to keep it simple stupid you want to do the best cleaning job as possible and that's removing everything out not opening up a trap door I still have to bend over to look under the entire access point get on all my hands and knees no lift it up move it off
clean it out put it back maybe it didn't have to be daily every day but a couple of times a week to do that power wash it once a week it's giving Total Access so I'm sure if you've had teenagers like I've had you know you give them the
first time right clean it their way and then you make you teach them to clean it your way the right way moving everything around get in your closet organize your closet put a couple things up no you have to take everything out of your closet to fix your closet back up that's
what we were trying to do keep it simple stupid this like I I we we appreciate the more uh inspection points of it but ultimately even more inspections are just going to say more fines are going to be given do we want to hurt the businesses that we're trying to help by
issuing more fines if not in compliance instead of giving them the ultimate opportunity to be compliant with giving Total Access to cleanliness that's that's what we were trying to do and as far as like 18 months 19 I've been talking about this for years when skunks popped up in our
neighborhoods years ago and this is just the the evolution the unfortunate Evolution that happened when we knew we couldn't uh euthanize skunks and protected species in the state of New Jersey had to be captured and moved 20 miles away from where they were caught from we been have that that conversation
since 2018 unfortunately but here we are and in a year from now we'll probably be talking about this again unfortunately until we address it in in its totality and we want to remove uh the restaurants from the conversation totally you know by giving them Total Access to clean it but unfortunately as long as rats are in
town the restaurants are still going to be part of the conversation unfortunately so I appreciate the council president the opportunity to speak tonight thank you councilwoman r or excuse me Cano no don't compliment me with the council R big compliment job
you know one day when I grow up um so you know I'm supporting this ordinance for all the reasons articulated by uh council members uh Jabor fiser Cohen um and uh you know the things that I like
in particular about it and why I'm supporting this one over the one that was on a couple weeks ago is is to paraphrase from councilman Cohen the balanced approach uh this is a balanced approach to uh to adding to the
solutions that we've tried to put in place for the uh Rat situation without being Overkill uh councilman Ramos you said keep it simple stupid which I agree but that keep it simple stupid was at an enormous cost and burden uh to our uh
our businesses uh in my opinion um then uh with respect to accountability this is adding two bits of accountability one one is on the administration I think the I thank
Council uh members Jabor and Fischer for identifying uh the miscommunication within the administration it seems like that is the main reason why inspections weren't occurring or weren't occurring as frequently as as as they have now that we've right sized and put and we'll be putting it the in the right place I
have full confidence in uh the health department uh being able to conduct their their inspections uh also accountability with respect to the business owners um now there's the clear expectation that they're not in compliance within 30 days and they have to see operations that's accountability
they're in the best position to mitigate this but let's also go back in time and kind of remember we there's a lot of hyperbole that comes up here on both sides of the deis and and and in the audience and it
makes it seem that these parklets were the sole reason for all our parking challenges and our rat uh issues and it's simply not true um about 15 years ago I used to live on Washington Street across movies and Jerry's and I remember
um we had a really bad situation every time it rained really hard we'd see rats everywhere and I remember the skunks too uh and I remember one time I'm walking out of my apartment um on the way to work and uh my girlfriend had stayed over uh and she walked out onto the
sidewalk and I was closing the door and she had the smile on her face cuz clearly a kitten was kind of nuzzling up against her her leg and I was horrified and I was conflicted because at the same time I
wanted to jump and push this person who I loved out of the way but at the same time I didn't want to get near that rat you know this thing was huge it was like Master Splinter uh so this rat situation has been around for a really long time yeah
it got way worse around covid way worse but not just here everywhere and guess what this Council put together a containered garbage ordinance which did a lot to help there's still problems greine View's got
big problems because of their situation with their management we got problem spots in the North End right but this idea that having this Draconian fix that was proposed a couple of weeks ago uh was going to be a material um thing that would kind of end
the situation it just in my opinion again my opinion uh is just not true I think if we got rid of every single parklet tomorrow we'd still have some rest would it make it a little bit better probably right and and so I am
voting in favor of something that will continue to make it a little bit better without overburdening uh our our businesses now with respect to parking I think I think not all some people just don't like parklets because they think parklets are ruining their parking
situation again if we got rid of every single parklet it would add a microscopic amount of parking back into our supply it wouldn't be material enough where anyone would really notice a fundamental difference um and not only that you know
I hear a lot of folks you know often complaining about our taxes yeah you know what I'm going to be the money guy in this situation these parklets bring in so much revenue far more uh per spot than our than our uh uh permits uh
parking permits and so you know if you're if you're if you're Pro lower taxes then then yeah you know what let's support more parklets but we also got to find the balance here so again my two sense uh and so I'm supporting this and
I hope everyone joins me thank you thank you coun can I just clarify one point please if I may yes thank you just want to clarify one one uh one point there is that at no point in time did any of us say that this would uh
stop the rat issue the only thing we want the goal was to remove the restaurants from the conversation to contributing to the rat issue with allowing Total Access to clean it we did not say this was going to be the Silver Bullet to end the rat issue at any point in time that we say that we just wanted
to remove restaurants and rats from the same sentence that was our goal that that that was it exactly right council president just quickly to add um we also didn't talk about removing parklets because there was a parking issue we also didn't talk about you know a lot of
the things a lot of the points that were brought up in this conversation I think those are all separate and apart from the conversation that we're having specifically about keeping them clean you know one of the problems we have here in Hoboken is that everybody wants to throw everything into one piece of
legislation instead of tackling one problem at a time and what we what we find more often than not is that we're Paralyzed by that indecision and we have to stop being paralyzed by the indecision pick one issue make a
decision and move on and I think talking about how we keep the park clean by doing one specific thing was attempting to do that so I I don't want the the audience here or anybody watching at home to be confused by all the other issues that were brought up in
particular about parklets none of those were ever discussed and none of those were ever trying to be solved for in that discussion so I just wanted to make sure we were all clear on that council president if I can just clarify the clarification no please Mr Mr lore
please call the vote voting on b738 councilman Cohen I councilman fiser yes councilwoman Jabor yes councilman pres Zano I councilman cantero I councilman
Ramos councilman rouso no council president d i passes b739 b739 there no members of the public signed up to speak motion to close public portion second all those in favor
hi hi okay Council I'll jump in delay um this is long overdue this uh director frany and uh the fire uh Marshall had approached us last year in our subcommittee in August we had bounced
this around a numerous times and I think uh councilman cantero and and U councilwoman Fischer when she was on the committee we did a lot of research on this and we know a lot more about e batteries I can tell you that much down to what a cigarette lighter has but I
want to bring uh something to light that I don't think anybody really understands and the the the Merit of this um legislation that we're putting forth um not many people know uh that the fire at
shambor was exacerbated by the fact and I'm going to go on a Lim and say pallets of hoverboard e batteries contributed to that fire and I think the fire chief or whatever can can comment to that and so I don't think people
understand that these are very dangerous items and the spirit of this legislation is to protect us in the common areas so that there's some accountability for things and you know there was some push back that we were
including Wheelchairs and things of that nature however wheelchairs fall under a special thing that they were not included but ultimately at the end of the day this is just the first pet piece of the legislation this is an issue that uh I've called some recycling companies I've called the county to ask what do we
do and how do we recycle these things and nobody has a great answer there's a bunch of these recycling companies however uh when you call them they don't want these things so we have I think and you can buy these things on Amazon
really cheap and not UL rated UL rated is about 20 to 20 to 40% High higher in in uh price because there is a little bit of of um more security or it's built better however if it gets hit a bike
falls to a ground a hoverboard crashes into something constant high temperatures constant low temperatures these things become unstable and in some of the old buildings um that's a real big problem not cement floored
buildings uh you know when when a Tesla fire happens I think and correct me if I'm wrong my fire professionals uh they have something called the turtle and it's like 6,000 gallons a minute of water that they kind of just keep the electric vehicle from spreading they kind of contain it until it burns itself
out not to mention the noxic the the toxic fumes that come off a normal sprinkler puts about anywhere between 24 and 40 gallons of water so a candle fire could potentially be put out this can't be put out with normal how the buildings are built today so this is the first
version and one of the things that made me uh really take a hard look at this was um councilman Cano is is a big bike Advocate and so when I saw a bike
Advocate telling me that he was concerned I kind of took a step back and I said this is a really a problem because it it could hinder some decisions that people make whether they buy e uh micromobility or not but what scared me is when he started to talk about some things that there is some
issue isues that is concerning for him and that's what made me take this more seriously because there's a lot of things that come up to us that we just vote Yes on because it's the right thing to do or you know it just doesn't mat what we believe in but the fact that I had somebody that I I Look to kind of
for some guidance on on this issue um and some other uh people that I I trust that are bike Advocates had said to me you slow roll it a little however what scared me the most was when councilman was like we got to do this we have to do
this immediately and in fact I was the one and I think you can say in the first meetings we had I actually said no no no no we got to we got to slow roll this we can't just do this all at once I and I was kind of overruled and again I think this is the first step to bringing some safety
because if we have uh one fire in this town it's one fire too much I also want to give the tools to our fire professionals that they need they're the ones that are trained the most I don't care about Consultants coming in here and telling me what's the right thing or not when my fire professionals and my
police professionals come up here and tell me they need something I've got to stand behind them so I'm really happy that this is uh I hope all my colleagues will join me in voting yes for this but I'm happy to see that we're taking a positive step towards safety in Hoboken
thank you councilman councilman Cano uh thank you council president and uh just to correct the record I am a bike Advocate but not as big a bike Advocate as is uh councilman Jabor and councilman Doyle for the boken people I don't need nasty grams coming at me uh and look I I
do like uh bikes and I like micr Mobility uh but I'm a I like I'm a bigger fan of uh not burning to death in a fire so that is kind of the impetus behind behind this and uh council president Zano is right uh I was
advocating for really strict approach in this instance because these things are dangerous this is an example of tech technology that developed really quickly before we could understand the risks and put in the mitigation efforts I'm a risk management professional uh for a living so I you know make my living judging
inherent risk and controls and seeing what's left and what's left is whether it's acceptable uh based on the dangers associated with these things I I was willing to take that approach a couple of months ago but there was significant feedback so apparently you know there's
members of the community um who Express that willing to take uh some more risk so this new approach that we're taking now is identifying the riskiest things uh the second hand um batteries uh the
uh the the the batteries that are not registered or UL listed uh that are less safe than those that are built to higher standards and we're flat out saying that you basically can't use those uh in Hoboken and then and then for those that are registered and are deemed
safer uh we're we're saying look you can't charge these things in common areas uh and you can't you can't um you know charge them in hallways can't charge them in basement that's just best practice so that you're not putting your neighbors in danger because even the
safest ones uh if you use them as instructed with the with the with the cords that came with them uh in perfect temperatures um no extension cords then then they're safest but not not
everyone does those best practices you know you have your cousin who you know loses the cord right away uh and then buys one on Alibaba can't even buy one on Amazon go to Alibaba and buys one right uh and and and these things are terrible right so so we this is not the
end we're going to look to see what other practices we can put into place uh to further further mitigate those risks and you know we're engaging the fire marshal um experts in the field and including our our bike Advocates uh so
that we can find a better solution to lower the risk as much as as possible even for uh those batteries that are deemed safer so I thank uh councilman prano for his work on this with me uh and look forward to working more on it
thank you councilman uh councilman Cohen I believe could you thank you coun president I just want to thank councilman Cano for his leadership on this uh I know that Hoboken initially has been concerns with the first iteration of this and that they're fully
supportive of this one uh there was a lot of give and take but I think everyone is on the same page we all care about Public Safety I also want to thank councilman preso for working on this as well thanks everyone and I'm on full support thank you Council mohen anyone
else I'll just go quick can I go quick um just a couple quick things uh one the takeaway that I think people should take from this from a practical standpoint if you live in any multif family building and you see um either an
ebike or scooter that is parked in your hallway and plugged into an outlet in the hallway um that's illegal now under this um and the whole reason is imagine if there were a fire and that either it
caused a fire or a fire happened and it got to uh the ebike or the scooter in the hallway and it blows up these things are like incinerate and create a very fast explosion if you're on the wrong side of it a you could die and B you won't be able to get out so think about
every every time you walk through your hallway and see something that's impeding you that's the focus of this is to have these not be plugged in in your hallway if you don't feel comfortable telling the management um you don't feel comfortable telling your neighbor the easiest thing you can do is just call
20142 2100 and the police will come and probably just give a warning the first time um um but that's really the main takeaway uh you know I'll the only other thing I'll say and and uh councilman quo um mentioned this is you know this there was a lot of urgency around it
um it's something that's been very important to our fire marshal and when we put the first draft I was still on the public safety at the time it just it wasn't perfect uh we put it up it wasn't perfect and the feedback that we got from um the community about how it
wasn't perfect it didn't really make sense it was to was really limiting our ability to have Mobility um in Hoboken uh we were able to get it crafted in a way that it made sense and supported responsible users with
highquality um uh Vehicles while at the same time providing these great protections um in some of the areas of Greater concern so I'm glad to see I wasn't I didn't take it to finish um but I'm happy to see that you guys got it there and we're voting on it tonight thank you councilwoman uh
Mr lore call a vote on B 739 councilman Cohen I councilman fiser yes councilwoman Jabor yes councilman pres Zano I councilman cantero I councilman Ramos councilman Russo hi council president Doyle
hi uh b740 is carried to the next meeting the planning board has not yet conducted its consistency review which will happen on February 27th I understand so we are on
to public portion on agenda items resolutions Katherine Williams you guys are tag teaming yes we are we are TAG okay Elaine Thomas as well yes so I'm going to go
first I'm Elaine Ellis Thomas director of All Saints Episcopal Paris at 7th in Washington I'm here on behal along with Katherine Williams on behalf of the Hoboken Pride advisory committee which was established as you know by an
executive um order over a year ago and last a last April we had our first meeting and by June we were ready to roll out a whole month of events and programs for pride month I commend you all on the ones that you appointed and
approved to this group it just shows what a group of dedicated people can do and we've had other events and gotten together to discuss ways to advocate for the lgbtq plus community in Hoboken and in Hudson County I want to thank you all
and the mayor and the administration for your support of this especially now when lgbtq rights are being curtailed uh danger to those in our community particularly transgender folk is um is a great concern so the more vocal you are
the more supportive you are uh the more the world's going to hear that because not everyone believes that everyone is part of the human family and deserves to be part of that family as no matter who they love or how they they identify so I
want to thank you for that and I'm going to turn it over to Kathy for her part good evening I'm Katherine Williams I'm chair of the pride advisory committee I want to thank you for acting so quickly to fill up our committee and appoint new
members um I do hope that you'll read the report that I circulated by email today you'll see that we were very busy last year and we look forward to being even busier in the year to come and as Reverend Thomas mentioned um you know it's no secret that the federal
government is doing it all it can right now to pretend that transgender and non-binary people don't exist and in the listening events we've held in the first part of this year the concerns we've heard are from parents and Hoboken who are really worried about their kids they're worried about whether their kids
are going to continue to be safe and included in Hoboken schools and elsewhere in the community and I hope that if these concerns come to you from any direction you will partner with us and see us as a resource to help address them we would really welcome conver
conversation with you um and I hope you'll continue to see it as a really a matter of safety for our community and and be able to address it um with the consensus that that we just saw with a battery resolution so I I really appreciate um your continued support of
the committee thank you thank you thank you very much uh Rosemarie Marco and Rose I believe you've signed up for just four all four no not all of them seven wasn't that bad
this month shocking okay A4 a resolution awarding a contract for an engineer for private property since two separate landlords have two different engineer reports why is the city paying for this engineer shouldn't the landlords pay for this and if not we have a city engineer
on payroll why aren't they doing it just boggles my mind that's little bit of fiscal responsibility here CD six um how much can or will this cost taxpayers since item cd7 is already costing
12,500 clerk item number three in the backup of the acquisition says 17,500 but now we're approving $29,000 why the $112,000 increase like that's a big jump T1 a contract for curb manager
software with absolutely no information in the background everything is left blank no disclosure documents nothing isn't this what we were paying Kimberly horn for I I'm really confused I mean how many companies do we need to hire to eliminate
parking um and imagine that I'm done thanks um yeah Mark Willis you didn't sign up to tell me what it it's resolutions any resolutions great
totally awesome thank you excuse me thank you you're welcome okay um trying to be nice about it trying to find the right words to select um I can't say we do need you
but if you don't know I have people I contract whatever with you or without you I can get contract to clean this place whatever but but what I'm trying to say is that dealing with the the kids and everything with the stabing I'm a motivator I love motivating kids I love
motivating people that's what I do I find Solutions I don't find problems I see it and I go get it why because my intention is to make a change and I don't believe in simpleness you know because life is not simple to me it's
always chaos I live in chaos I love chaos because I understand chaos but I know what part I got to play now before I didn't understand it now I'm living proof so I'm only here to help the Steven kids out with the
community so they can interact in a whole lot of different ever you know Sports uh intellectual challenge you know so I'm going to do my part with you or without you I'm cool with that but I will talk to them and I will talk to the kids I have a blow horn I get a blow horn I'll do that but my intention is to
bring people to together on the crisis we live in cuz I I remember the crisis that when we had welfare Chiefs but I was too young to understand it but these kids don't understand it did anybody explain to them what we went through I don't think so they don't understand a
struggle holes and sneak or some wear they don't know this stuff here and a lot of the adults act like they losing their mind just as worse than the kids it's insane what we are going through so I had to step back and I had to look at the role that I used to play
so I want guys to explain it to them so I'm going play my part regardless with you or without you but I do need your help I do need your support but if it's not there I'm cool with that too because I'm I'm with God regardless so I'm always going to find a way regardless I
made it this far it's a lot more work for me to do so I just want to begin so if you can you know keep your ear out you know I will have a poser if you want to participate if not I'll go the other way uh uh contracts that dealing with other stuff need to be brought to
attention uh churches or I'm going find something you know what I mean but I just want to let you know I still got 2 minutes 28 minutes you know what I mean but um am I'm speaking right on on that part I'm just letting you know cuz I'm seeing you trying to interrupt I just
want to make sure not being psychatric I just want to make sure that you understand that I'm here and I didn't speak to all the other time I was just being very humble about the situation thank you very much all right so I just wanted you know that we are coming you know kids everything all different nationality so we're going to
not take away from the future so I'm going to make sure they fulfill okay thank you uh Alex Garcia departed that's it for members of the public motion close second third all
those in favor I I agenda I thank you okay on to the consent agenda um A4 was it A4 cd7
C6 you know cl7 is is pulled right carried uh4 anyone else okay Mr Pino I'm sorry Mr lore um consent agenda everything other
than A4 A1 uh is off right yep A1 A1 is off cd7 cl6 P4 and as noted cl7 is off for the evening okay councilman Cohen consent
agenda hi councilwoman Fischer yes councilwoman Jabor yes Council prano hi councilman cantero hi councilman Ramos hi councilman Russo hi council president du hi
hey are you going to go through uh nothing see yep okay no I'm talking to Jerry um all right A4 yeah is uh I think Rose had a rose
had the right question which is why are we doing this the city doesn't have a structural engineer on staff um our engineering staff is not trained in that um there's a dispute between two property owners as to relates to the structural Integrity of their adjoining
wall and who is responsible for it um the Construction office has been out there a number of times and they would like to have a structural engineer assess who's responsible for the wall that shares the two properties and and that's going to inform some action that we're going to
take like potentially we're going to take the property down or who would be responsible for doing what to what wall making a determination from our construction code official they're competing engineer reports that point the fingers at each other and we need a
third party to right but B so basically the city has to the city has to make a decision so irrespective of if they have two competing reports the city has to make a decision and we don't feel as though we have either someone inhouse or
a report that we can rely on is that a fair that is correct okay so it's just that the city has it's our we're making some sort of decision that we have to so I guess a to rely on yeah council president could could you director could you get a little bit more in the Weeds
on that what would this this decision be like what what are we trying to achieve do you do you have that information or is it my understanding is that there's a portion of one of the structures I'm not sure which one that was deemed unsafe it's basically determining who is
responsible to remediate the unsafe structure right so why can't the city issue the same violation to both and let them deal with it so that we don't have incur an expense of
$7,600 so we are bound by the uniform construction code of the state we're required to make a determination on this I think issuing two summons for the same thing is not effective it's not going to change the outcome of what's going to happen in terms of who's responsible for
um handling the issue at hand so is it that the instruction office has no clear determination or are they just trying to validate what they already no they they do not have a clear determination this is a third party to
bring in an expert to determine what the what the issue is okay I don't know yeah director Freeman I if two people are are arguing are they going to pick up the 7600 or is are we but are we how
are we caught to pick up the 7600 because ultimately it's a determination that needs to be made by the construction code official based on the uniform construction code of the state so that's our responsibility based on what happen I believe at least one of the properties at least were temporarily have been displaced like it is it's been an ongoing issue with these two
addresses now for several months okay unfunded mandate uh Mr l call votee voting on A4 resolution Waring contract to flex Engineering Group the amount of 7,600
councilman Cohen I councilman Fischer yes councilman Jabor abstain abstain okay councilman preso did you break the wall Emily uh reluctant I I know too
much councilman cantero I councilman Ramos I councilman Russo no council president Doyle I pass inevitable 2 three four five six okay cd7 so can you cd7 not C can you explain
why we need to do this sure so uh probably a year or so ago maybe a little more the city acquired the properties at 207 209 Jefferson Street which are adjacent to hoboken's Firehouse uh fire headquarters um that building our building is in desperate need of
Rehabilitation it has been for a number of years I think some of you tour the basement it is concerning and a bit scary down there that I'm sure Chief peskin can um attest to um so we are beginning the process of assessing what our options are for that property um we
have not had we I think we bought 207 209 for about $3 million um we have not had the prop the the three properties or three address is assessed as one property to kind of understand what we're working with um the the fire headquarters is historic structure which
adds a level of complexity to it there's also the adjacent parking lot or quasi parking lot that the fire fighters use um so we're essentially assessing kind of what the value of those three properties are as one property to determine what the best course of action
is for the city to take as it relates to maximizing the efficiencies of our firehouses counc president so that wait goad sorry so that I still don't understand why you need to do an appraisal of it we paid we
bought these properties a year ago under shroud of secrecy which we've talked about um some of them we are two no we own one but we bought 207 and 209 we had to fight to get them to tell us what it was right till the very end we finally
were told that we were buying them um to you know we were told we had to be quiet about it because it was an off-market deal and we were buying it um to have additional land so that we can redo the firehouse we paid 3.2 million to a
family that acquired it six months earlier for 3 million um and so we know what the value of those two properties are we have a $3 million one a year ago a 3.2 million we're talking about our historic uh Firehouse I don't understand understand
why we need to do an appraisal of this what we need to do is an assessment of what we want to do for our fire department on this site and I'm there's a lot of questions around this um around the people that owned it previously
donations they're making to certain council members like this is everything about this is very fishy and I don't think we should be um doing any appraisal before we first decide what we actually want to do with this um fire department we own we bought it we were
told at the the the reason we approved it the reason given it to us at the time to spend $3 million on two Residential Properties was specifically um to uh consider expanding the firehouse so to me we should consider expanding the
firehouse and what we need and decide if it can be accommodated there and we shouldn't we shouldn't be voting on this at all I will be a no council president councilman Russo I and I I never want to put words in councilwoman Fisher's mouth but I think the question really is just
a simple one do we have an intention to sell off this property is that is that why we're appraising it or do we have a reason to borrow against the property what is the reason for the appraisal the reason that's really what
we what we as a council would want to know no understood I think the the overall reasons to understand what we're dealing with right again the the largest part of this property has not been praise and we do not know the value of it is on a corner it's a corner lot now
adjacent with two two adjacent Residential Properties that are now in the city's possession we want to understand what we're dealing with that I I'm unaware of what is Shady about trying to get an appraisal on a on a piece of property that the city owns but
um the reality is we try to leverage in any way shape or form we can what we're doing right the city owned a piece of property we just got it appraise and we are going to work with HUD to have them acquire that property for uh the Housing Authority Redevelopment that appraisal
came in Far higher than we initially anticipated so getting an understanding of what the real value is the present day value of these properties is something that I think is valuable to all of us to understand what we need to do moving forward or what we can do moving forward okay understood I appreciate
it anyone else council president I'll just add I think I think counsilman fer is not wrong to raise the question with respect to what the plan is to do with this information and I'll just add that you know from my perspective one of the
conversations that we have had is the need for the city to invest in a new Public Safety complex and so if that's the intention I would like somebody to say that and to understand that that's the purpose of this appraisal if there's another purpose you
know you know I understand you're looking at all the options but I would like to see that prioritized in the universe and I'm not really sure why this would be the focus as opposed to some of the other opportunities we also have um so it would be helpful at some point to understand where this fits in
terms of that larger landscape of how we're looking at the properties that we do have available to us for I'm very specifically interested in a new Public Safety complex but understand their other discussions as well sure I I I completely understand that and I think we've made it pretty clear we have interest in building a new Public Safety
complex Plus+ plus that wasn't well received by the city council and we're going back to the drawing board to figure out what that looks like there's absolutely a need you can talk to both our Chiefs about the need for a public safety complex what exactly that looks like and if that's the best location for
it I don't know the answer to that right so getting an idea of understanding what we can leverage in terms of property that we own that can be better used by someone else and we can leverage other property elsewhere not saying we're looking to sell it but the idea that we have property is not something that
comes across that comes across our desks that often and understanding what we're dealing with is important so to to glom on to what councilman Russo initiated at the beginning un understanding the value
here is just to be able to evaluate options of selling this versus building there because I don't really get if we are committed to building a facility there and expanding the existing or however you want to describe it why
would we need to know what the property is worth um you know it's if we were on the waterfront I might understand that we could get much more for a sale and then build a facility with that money and have a surplus of sorts but yeah I
think I think it's just the the options right understanding what those options are and and the council's not ever not always privy to what is happening uh upstairs so is it going to be a land swap with somebody are we looking to maybe use a different site for the
public safety um needs and then this site becomes something else like housing uh who knows right but I think understanding the option is what the entire Council would probably want to know so I'm just going to I'm just going to say the shadiness um one of the
council members was overheard arguing with the prior owner of this the one that bought it for three million and the prior owner was has an expectation of developing this site and I I just think everything about this is Shady we should not be doing an appraisal we
should be understanding what the needs are of our community we should not be thinking about special interests land swaps don't give I don't care at all this this was sold to us as we are expanding or fixing re redeveloping um
our Firehouse there and we should have that conversation first we don't need to have alternative uses for this site until we have a better understanding of what our own needs are and I I'm could not be more frustrated that this is even on air as a matter of fact I will make a motion to table this if anyone wants to
Second it um I just think we either table it or just we vote it down all right no one wants is there a second second councilman Ramos second it okay call whatever whoever wants no well
we have so so we just call a vote now call vote call a vote to table calling vote to table resolution CD 7 or is it six7 that's correct right okay councilman
Cohen no councilman fiser yes councilman Jabor yes councilman prano I councilman cantero no councilman Ramos hi Council Russo hi council president
Doyle doesn't matter I okay it's been tabled cd7 now cl6 um this is me too sorry uh I um this isn't personal I know she's
sitting in the audience at all and I appreciate all of her advocacy when she comes up and speaks passionately um on this topic um you know we're still trying to figure out what the role is of the Cannabis review board but what I'm
concerned about this candidate is she's just um she works in the Cannabis industry uh makes money generally off the Cannabis industry and I just feel like that is the kind of conflict of interest that we typically try not to uh
the the appearance of conflict of interest we typically try not to have on our Municipal boards um so I'm going to be a no on this for that reason not because of her advocacy or anything I just think we should have um and and I'm
okay with people that are pro cannabis or whatever but aren't necessarily working in that industry um so that's I just wanted to raise it and say that's why I'm going to be a no tonight okay anyone else Mr lore cl6 call the
vote councilman Cohen I councilman fiser no councilwoman Jabor yes councilman prano abstain councilman cantero I councilman
Ramos councilman Russo I council president Doyle I passes P4 so it's it it's uh I the reason why I raised it is I love the idea of having um instructional
tennis however this literally takes Monday through Friday 4:30 to 7:30 for from April till June for 100% instructional tennis and 0% recreational tennis and it feels like it's a time slot that people like after work might
want to just go drop in we have plenty of tennis players and and I am just concerned about that and whether or not we should consider like a different set of times so that like adults or whoever kids teenagers after school can come and
and just play recreationally um it just it seemed like it was too much of a commitment taking away from uh the public use council president yeah um so just my experience my children actually have participated in the program it's um
they typically only use two of the courts um so they have the third court that they leave open for members of the public to use certainly understanding that there's a large demand um but I've noticed that you know people are generally pretty accommodating I think of the kids programs and it's been very
successful it's very in demand it fills up within minutes every every season that it's offered um so just to present you know a different perspective I think um it's certainly something that is to the benefit of the community in that sense um we need more tennis courts
obviously we need more facilities is the bottom line of of of the takeaway there um but I do know that they're generally trying to be respectful about like consolidating their activity space to allow people um the opportunity to come and use can we can we restrict it to them because like the Stevens courts are
out of commission right now so we don't even have access to half of the Stevens Court could we make it that they if if they only use two to just say they would only use two and not three I know it's in you know this is this is it's not specified in the um in the language of the resolution but I just know that by
capacity they tend to only use and sometimes only one Court cu the older kids classes are even smaller because they right kind of need more space to play so it's the challenge that we're always faced with right which is we the demand for our public space exceeds the
supply of it by like 10 right a multiple of 10 um just to be just to be clear this we're we're applying to the county for a permit that the county can grant so us saying who can use the courts or it's like the county can give a permit to
somebody else and we're locked out no they'll give them we're securing space for they they'll give it to us if you ask I mean they they're pretty differential to the city for things like this I mean it that that was just listen I'm not I'm not trying trying to do we know if it's if it's 8 weeks or 12 April
21st to June 16 4:30 to 7:30 April Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thurs Frid middle of April to early June which is not three months I me you know I'm just trying to Y the scope of what we talking about here okay that was it two
months council did you no no no we've talked it out all right um Mr lore call a vote got4 P4 councilman Cohen he said yes councilwoman fiser yes councilman Jabor yes councilman Pano hi
councilman cantero hi councilman Ramos hi Council Russo hi council president Doyle hi okay ordinances for first reading okay all right uh me read it yep okay number one ordinance amending
chapter 19071 entitled municipally managed electric vehicle charging to add Volta charging stations to Garden Street you're okay with that uh Mr lure call the vote councilman
Cohen I councilman fiser yes councilman Jabor yes councilman prano hi councilman Cano hi councilman Ramos hi councilman Russo hi counc Doyle I do you want me to read these or do you thank you uh ordinance number two ordinance amending
chapter 192 parking for persons with disabilities Mr lore call the vote councilman Cohen n councilman fiser yes councilman Jabor yes Council prano hi councilman cantero hi councilman Ramos hi
councilman rouso hi council president Doyle I ordinance number three ordinance to amend chapter 190-11 entitled loading zones designated to add loading zones to Newark Street between Hudson Street and Washington Street Garden Street between
third and 2nd Street and River Street between Hudson Place and Newark Street Mr lur call the vote councilman Cohen hi councilman fiser yes councilwoman Jabor yes councilman prano
hi councilman cantero hi councilman Ramos Council Russo hi council president I ordinance number four ordinance of the city of Hoboken amending Hoboken city code chapter 190 vehicles and traffic to amend Viola Public Safety and EMT
parking Mr lore call the vote councilman Cohen hi councilman fiser yes councilman Jabor yes councilman prano hi councilman Cano hi Council Ramos hi Council Russo hi
council president Doyle I ordinance number five ordinance of the city of Hoboken County of Hudson state of New Jersey approving the garage B Municipal garage Redevelopment plan council president point of order um just a just a question I spent some time looking at
this and then I saw an amendment or something come in today with a bunch of changes do we know if there was like a bunch of changes do we have any idea there I didn't get a chance to look at it because it came in too late pardon it was a wrong thing on
there right it was the wrong thing on there yeah I I talked to director Brown and there is uh I think at the well again I'm this is what I I alerted him that on the actual ordinance at the bottom it had uh designated plan was uh
Fabian Art Center so I asked I told director Brown and then director Brown looked at this and some of the links actually didn't line up as well and he said okay I got to take care of it so I'm assuming that that's what it happened I don't know but you could maybe maybe
director brown brown should let us know I will say as he comes up that I reviewed this and had suggested comments with that director Brown considered um this is the version we got at five o'clock is that right I don't know whether the Fabian situation I don't
know anything about that that was so that was when we caught on the weekend yeah um so council president Doyle had a number of amendments or edits to make to the document uh and we made all of those edits and amendments as you proposed
many of the Amendments and edits that you that you proposed I I would say that there was this was not substance changes to it you missed the comma here there were some commas there were some there were some those that needs to be this there were you know comments that needed to be added periods that needed to be
taken away yeah and there there and there were some subsi of comments that we discussed and um and it it it was it ended up I think making the document better as always and we appreciate your your your your right I'm not looking for compliments but no give them to you coun
I think for you know if you had reviewed it prior to today you there are changes so you have two weeks to look at it thoroughly or you could we can carry it and we get
this red lined yeah is it no so the version we got was not red not red Lin it's like it's like I can send you my comments but I can't they weren't all Incorporated understand I understand we need do we need to vote on it tonight or can we just can we vote can we carry it
to the next meeting is there a rush or anything other than it's the disc people all over the country aren't house yeah no I think we're fine carrying this for a couple weeks as the sponsors so I don't have a problem with that to make sure we can see a Redline version great that would
be awesome and then if we can just get a Redline version that would be yeah do you have a the abil or two you send the two we we can do there's a way to do that comp we can do a compare do we I can I can share with you all um Council president's comments and edits I can
then share the word document that we made to address Council president's edits and you of course have the document that's in your packet I think we just want to see the difference between the old document and the new document we don't need to see councilman do I just make a suggest sure I'm sorry council president could I just make a
suggestion I mean it's on the agenda and And if every body is okay with any of those amendments we do lose two week right so I would just say vote for the first reading of this and then if we need to change it we just change it and it becomes first reading again two weeks
from now and then move from there but that's just my my two cents on the whole thing but I if I may ask you uh councilman president Zano was indicating something about different changes yeah
so I think what what happened was we there was an aella item it's an aella issue there was an item on aella that was from an earlier iteration and I think that when the agenda was posted it linked to that item instead of the item
that we had posted last week so it's just it's an internal asella issue that's and I appreciate you you flagging that thank you you got to read things before you vote on them of course especially something I thought you wanted in hard copy too I remember well I mean and I
do I the version that I read when I was inputting my comments to make your life easier into a Word version I realized there had been updates you know there were some things that were just chronologically modified so I I I leave
it to to you all is there a I'm fine voting on it motion to carry I'm fine with carrying it I'm okay with voting on it okay so there's we have a motion to carry is and I believe you second or sure I'll second it
that's all right okay uh voting on and motion to carry ordinance number five regarding the garage B Municipal garage re Redevelopment plan councilman Cohen the motion to carry
yes no councilwoman fiser yes councilwoman Jabor yes councilman prano hi councilman cantero I councilman Ramos no councilman Russo
no council president D all okay it's been carried okay and so uh we have there's a oh so there's no resolution to send it to the planning board thank
you um so public portion the true public portion uh3 Enrique Herrera they got a shot L down by 13 with an uh with an uh
an understanding about your experience with risk management this is just I I have a um a copy oh is it already starting yeah yeah of course so that would be more or less inclined to be given to uh Cohen right am I right no one's not here oh okay
fine yeah oh I know I feel you I understand well I really what I really am really bringing up is again I'm there in spirit I'm there in spirit well with your experience in Risk Management if it's possible for you to to really understand it um yeah for this advanced
technology to have advanced itself to this degree to real-time communication um there were issues involving sexual assault where women were raped is there a way we can actually end this type of charade where I'm not schizophrenic anymore this is
information I am not a medical professional I cannot still risk management would indicate that with the lithium ions and stuff like that and all those batteries that because the advanced technology advanced itself there was problems right and because that happened there were problems where people blew up cars blew up every the
world ended everything like that right now for this type of nurlink rufy to be involved with children all the way up to adults and for this to have been indicated in enforcement and for that to be the case why can't we actually address that as a constituents body that nural links are
real and that does pose a harm to the community um to for have that excuse me sorry about that gentlemen close the door please so time and time again I'm interrupted at least to some degree not necessarily on social media where I'm
shadowbanned or denied to some sense of access to community members like Emily jaor who I'm will be voting for not necess I haven't seen Russo really speak that much on the issue of anything but if I can get through to anyone I would get through to the women especially in education the Board of Education would
do better explaining this very quickly fingers numbers and magnets the magnets being these neural links inside people which cause real-time communication which is plagiarism that if in the event you cannot do your homework without a neural link or you got to figure it out Tech you know what I'm doing in my spare
times so by the time I walk into this city hall meeting you already know everything about me or vice versa like like you know it doesn't even matter who is the enemy here this technology risk management would indicate that even if it is a lithium ion battery or a nurlink ruy in the minds of every human on planet Earth to any type of extent if
this technology was black uh or dark net Tech we can address it now I've exposed it to the degree where not a single person can actually do anything about it this is something that's been destroyed by me I've already destroyed it completely frankly I've robbed people
and Broad day are so illegal that can't come forward that I'm pretty much contained to Legal vigilantism like how I robbed illegal storefronts that had illegal cannabis from illegal immigrants whose stores would lock me in then where I'll bring a Captain America shield and
beat them up steal their stuff I can say that in front of this cop and I did it legally I call it legal uh laundering trickle up economics if you will that I stole from illegal activity and gave to Legal activity and to the degree that I've done it to a degree where illegal
cannabis does not like me I am supported by legal cannabis dispensaries that can now breathe a little easier knowing that illegal activity does not enforce these types of these types of in you know anything and now with the
communication Factor being destroyed illegal activity further is disgraced with them not being able to snitch my legal vigilantism as a citizen of the United States is contained where not only am I frankly robbing them in broad daylight where I can say that in front of a police officer which it is
technically a crime but would you say that an illegal immigrant holding an illegal storefront with illegal cannabis would be more illegal than me walking in there and taking all your crap right would you agree that would be to some degree and a hilarious Jester Spider-Man move right there like that's something cool like uh Batman would love me man
because I can literally do that and literally look innocent until proven guilty in a court of law where if I can be just who would be more inclined to show up to a legal federally owned building with Federal protections of all your citizens then me doing that over an
illegal immigrant doing that I actually am okay with Federal protections being removed from immigrants I do not support any type of immigration in our modern grid systems that involve illegal activity like illegal storefronts like illegal rape or murder using nurlink ruies and if in the event anything has
been done I am the one who set the platform you guys can speak freely on it this norlink ruy will no longer be available for anyone and if you do use this technology please remove it refund it I can hear you in real time I stole it completely this new technology I have it in my possession and I could hear
people whenever I turn it on very simple I've caught everybody fingers numbers and magnets people very simple they run on numbered systems which is modern grid systems all of the United States does it maybe even the whole planet but I want to focus on this country I hope that we can follow a suit and brutally end this
once and for all thank you Jesus wow thank you very much that's a I was wondering what was going to happen when it comes George Weinberger hello
sorry okay now we got it hello uh hi I'm George uh happy to be a hob book and Resident for almost five years now um sorry closer than M I'm a teacher I have a loud voice I'm good um so I have uh twins in kindergarten and I know that
three years ago or over three years ago already June 25th 2020 sorry January 25th 2022 um there was a referendum to vote for the new high school to be built I believe on the football field that we have in Hoboken um I just want to take a
temperature check uh and see has there been any progress speaking with Hoboken schools and the council and the City of Hoboken about any plan uh to either build a new building or to find uh how students may move from the Middle School
um to the high school and what is the future of that because we have many students and families moving to Hoboken uh we know that the numbers will increase so I want to make sure um and encourage the city of hobokin to keep that dialogue open um two other things I
have off the agenda are um summertime sprinklers everyone's talking about summer camp I'm also thinking about summertime sprinklers um with my six-year-old twins um sometimes we'll start our day before the week Hawk and pool since I a teacher and I have the Summers with them uh sometimes we'll start going to a park and very often in
Hoboken uh the sprinklers are on in the morning but there are mornings when there might be some bit of a delay I don't know if uh someone who is turning on the sprinklers if there are rounds that start Uptown or down town uh would the council consider uh something that me many people in the community talk
about where Jackson Park on second and Jackson uh is a wonderful park it has the exposed brick it's already Shady in the summer when the trees have the leaves again um that's where people sort of uh come to hang out on a very hot day could that sprinkler be turned on around
even 8: a.m. um I have very early risers I I know many kindergarteners first graders in our student community and my twins friends who they're up at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. so saying 9:00 a.m. sprinkler is very late in the day um so something even like that would help a lot of
families again many congregate in Jackson Park to hang out in that part of the day knowing that it's going to get hotter in the day um so is that something that the council could consider um 8: a.m. sprink alert to turn on Jackson I think a lot of hoking parents be very happy that way
um a third thing um is the PATH train station um I am a teacher in atoria so I do get up very early and I get to a story by 7 a.m. for a meeting most days at 7: a.m. in my school um and I've been successful getting to work that's been
fine I've been able to maneuver I know some people might not be able to use the light rail or um other modes of transportation to sort of fix their commutes uh if they do leave hob excuse me hobooken during the day um but I would like to know is the council aware
unfortunately of any delay that might be occurring uh it is supposed to be finished the station Renovations February 25th I'm usually an optimist but I don't know if there might be something someone would like to share here if they know about a potential delay um also the Veolia situation has
that somehow put a delay uh to the reopening of the PATH station in Hoboken so those are my three things it's Hoboken schools continuing to build it's sprinkl Jackson Park 8: a.m. for the summer um and also the uh PATH train is
it really opening February 25 or do we have to wait a little longer thank you yeah thank I mean you could sit down we don't usually do it back and forth but I mean as a teacher you may very well be aware that we don't get a vote on the school whether there'll be a new school
we all I'm sure have opinions in that regard but um I would go to the school board meeting and ask them that question um and I can answer two of the other ones say the the hboe is going through a
long range facility plan right now so that will be give a little bit more clarity on that so some of the the meetings there as far as second and Jackson um head of the rec parks and direct I can speak to somebody to find out again turning things on and off and opening Gates sometimes are difficult
because some of our employees there might be pulled somewhere else but I can look into that for you if if you if I could exchange numbers with you um we can work on that and um I spoke with somebody from I spoke with somebody today how's this on the path uh it's
unofficial but they 25th still looks like it's it's a go uh remember when they give a timeline it's to actually open it back up it's not saying that you're going to have everything like when we when you go to your house and it's all finished there may be still still some things they have
to do but from what I understand they're actually it's it's looking good uh and and I think I want to reiterate that I it proves that we can fix things in the transit system because they've done a great job I think with the Jesus you're done Pa thanks for thanks
for coming they done with the buses on I like that this is Handy um council president I was just going to add I think there was a social media post floating around today about delays so I actually checked with the administration who checked with NJ Transit so there's a difference between potential delays with respect to some of the larger
Environmental pieces of this project the opening the reopening on February 25th is firm it is very firm and that is because all eyes are on that date and they know it there may some be some additional smaller projects particularly if they're more Cosmetic in nature that
don't require a full closure to do them so when people return to the path on February 25th there may be some work continuing but we have been very clear and the administration confirmed that all of the major construction that that required this closure will be resolved
to be on time so yeah the staircases have been closed for months you know one of the two and so forth so um so I think Michael uh michelo spoke earlier uh Dei
azmani um I was going to comment you have to come up to the mic all the way otherwise we can't hear you can you hear me now yeah excellent excellent um I was going to comment on garage B which got carried but can I still talk about it oh ex you say anything you want excellent
um so I've spoken at the community meetings as well um I feel like I should point out that a building affordable housing is very different than keeping housing affordable and my worry with
this project is that in an effort to build affordable housing we're going to make Hoboken less affordable for those who live here um and that's because rents are going to be capped from what I understand the the the proposal is um
which means that there will be tax breaks involved and when you give tax breaks to one entity just means that you're raising taxes for the rest um our tax rate has already gone up significantly as you pointed out C a
little bit earlier um I think the the goal to build more affordable housing is laudable however um it is important to know where are we going these projects tend to seem very ad hoc um and project
by project it would be lovely to see if there is a plan city has and a number of unit Target city has for how many units it wants to build for affordable housing State just put out a report um from Department Department of Consumer Affairs for 10year Target for all the
cities and it says that hoboken's present need is 126 units I'm wondering if that's the target city has in mind um because as you think about uh where you will be going in your vote on this
particular project just keep in mind that the decision you make also affects people who are already living here not just the people who would want to come and live here that's what I wanted to sayk you thank you uh Mark Willis I I believe he
was Kevin Davis you're sauntering this evening I was excited to see in my email inbox an Oprah response cuz boy do I love filing those Oprah requests and especially I got really excited because
I was on one of my favorite topics the kimley horn parking reduction study or as the city calls it the curbside management study so I opened it PDF 76 Pages I'm ready to go and then I
remembered oh shoot I made a big mistake I forgot to ask I requested all the emails between the city and the kimley horn Consultants but forgot to ask for all attachments to those emails and usually the attachments is the Smoking
Gun so I didn't get the attachments so I read through it and there there was an email from November 15th from Robert faren the project manager for kimley Horn uh of the parking study to the city and he was talking about an attached
spreadsheet with 37 recommendations in five policy areas for the kimley horn plan and you think oh November 15th that was before they came in December with their Tin Cup asking for more money because they ran out of money for the
original study and the that first vote you guys tabled it you met with them and sadly only two of you guys held firm and said no more money and you you guys could have said you know what how about before we give
you more money you tell us what those draft recommendations are all 37 of them and today it's February three months later since that email we have no idea what they're discussing uh for their parking study now I started thinking through all this
and I was like you know this seems familiar they're going to have a public meeting and they're not going to tell the public ahead of time what these recommendations are and then no one's going to show up at the public meeting and by the time it's on the the table for anyone to try and stop it it's going to be too late and that kind of reminded
me of the 2022 High School referendum where the the school board was proposing um a $240 million High School which would have been $300 million with interest uh would have had a rooftop
football field ice hockey rink would have raised school taxes 20% and supposedly no one on the council knew about it even though I found from another Oprah request that at least 40 city employees knew about it in early October that there was going to be a ref on the high school and then this
reminded me of an interview a council member gave during the referendum process with John heus and so I don't get accused of misinformation let me just read the quote that came out of it oh this is so good seeing all the back and forth and being at Board of Ed
meetings this week it's very obvious this is a widely debated issue right now for the residents of Hoboken it makes me shudder to think about how this would have gone if we'd given people a longer runway in terms of allowing this to go on it's similar unfortunately to a
political election how cute like you're scared of giving people a longer Runway is that what the city's afraid of giving us a longer Runway to comment on what kimley Horn's going to recommend I have no idea what's going to come out of their mouth
are they going to say let's increase parking rates let's have more parklets uh let's bring back the electric the E scooter program I have no idea because you know I did a follow-up op request for all the attachments to the emails with attachments haven't
heard back I don't expect to by the time they have a meeting but I I'm willing to make a wager if I do hear back before their public meeting with the spreadsheet of the recommendations then I'll spend one hour on Washington Street on the first 60°
day weather of this year in a banana costume biking up and down Washington Street and if the city loses this Challenge and I don't get the spreadsheet then I'll just go bananas about this study thank you very
much uh Alex Garcia is no longer in the room uh Terry prancis I think it's a bad choice good evening uh council members and members of the public who may be watching uh I'm here to talk about
garage B it was on the agenda it's been moved uh for two weeks but there's still a number of questions and no I have not read the updated um edits that have been done and I'm not sure anyone in the public has uh so I'm going to highlight
some issues because because I think it's been un underp publicized and that's the main reason I'm here tonight um whether or not there had been a vote so uh there meeting one was zo the other was in person the inperson
meeting the notice went out the the headlined notice as opposed to being buried as a fourth or fifth item went out the afternoon of the day of the meeting um so at that meeting there was a long
uh there's a long Gap in in what the public knew and why the public might be concerned about this many of us are concerned about the height the height there's a whole page setup uh in both
Nixels about the project that in neither one was the height the 250 ft highlighted so that's roughly 25 stories uh the words 25 stories or thereabouts
were not found at least in all the initial paperwork um and you really had to do your own calculation to get there so uh you also had to look quite carefully to realize that it's it's a border to
border takeover of roughly 60% of a block so it has no green space allocated there is a there's a roadway but the roadway is already there um there's no setbacks indicated uh or step backs um there's no
uh dog run and it infers there's a removal of public art uh before a major piece of public art before its 5 years of life the uh the fact of the matter is Hoboken is already if you look at
overall density and the issues this kind of new added residential density will add we're already the fourth most populous city on a population per square mile basis and considerably above New
York City itself so we weigh in at 48,000 per square mile the city has 29,000 per square mile the close in Heights around this project on the Block it is as a garage roughly fif five to
six stories it is the the tallest building so we're talking about taking something and quadrupling the height and it's already the tallest building on the Block everything else on that block is one to
five stories on the adjacent block South where you get in the historic uh commercial area also one to five stories in height uh you look at the uh Corporate Center even to the east which has the the advantage of sitting on the
waterfront it's only 2third the height of this proposed 25 stories uh and then the U Hudson Square buildings weigh in at about 12 to 13 stories and they're the immediate block
North of this so it is really not fitting it totally Towers over all that let alone Washington Street which should be only one block away the uh 80% which we should understand better
that are going into this Advantage um work force housing that really needs to be better explained because the uh the numbers that came up but were unconfirmed
despite questions the administration about the range of incomes being discussed uh 84 to 120 was put on the table in the inperson me meeting uh this is really middle class so when you look at this and think of
all the people who are in that income range paying full rent Market rent paying taxes already and yet a a limited number will wind up in this building and
other questions about do they have to work in Hoboken not answered do they have to be in the municipal for course not answered uh do they have to be teachers not answered so what are the what are all the restrictions and what happens if their job changes their
income changes Etc um I'm glad it's not moving forward tonight but it's not moving forward for the wrong reason it's not moving forward um because it sounds like of technicalities but I really urge you to
look very closely at this resolution in round one and round two share information on this Workforce allocation uh I know there's a a 20% allocation for affordable housing that
as mentioned earlier is admirable but the the harsh reality is we've been too successful on that so uh the city now has 21,000 people on the affordable housing waiting list we only have 27,000
households in the city Terry so it's too big it's wrong for the space please think harder about this thank you thank you Mr Francis uh nobody else signed up for the public portion motion close second all
in favor I I motion to close the meeting all in favor I good night everybody bu