Okay, everyone. We're about to get started. If we can find our seats, silence our cell phones as I'm doing. Close the back doors and side doors. I greatly appreciate it. I am sorry for the late start of the meeting. We had to adjust the link on
the website. So, we are now all good to go. Good evening everyone. We are on the record. Today is Tuesday, the 27th day of January in the year 2026. This is a city council caucus meeting of the Jersey City Municipal Council. We had a
400 p.m. start. The clock on my cell phone is showing 4:13 p.m. And we have a roll call for the commencement of this caucus. Council person Brooks, >> present. >> Council person Zupa, >> present.
>> Council person Ephro, >> present. >> Council person Little, >> present. >> Council person Gilmore. Council person Singh, >> here. >> Council person Griffin, >> present. Present. Can
>> only count you once. Council person Lavaro and Council President Ridley. >> Here. Test. We have all nine council members in attendance at 4:13 p.m. On behalf of
Council President Ridley and members of the municipal council in accordance with New Jersey public laws of 1975 chapter 231, the open public meetings act, also known as the sunshine law. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the posting on a bulletin board of first floor. annual notice which is a
schedule of meetings and caucuses of a municipal council for the calendar year 2026 and filed in the office of the city clerk on Tuesday, November 25th, 2025. This council meeting was also sunshine sunshined
um late Friday afternoon um because of the impending weather that was coming. So, we did have a meeting scheduled for Monday which got rescheduled for today and that was all done to satisfy the open public meetings act. Um, the agenda
of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Friday, January 23rd, 2026 at 9:05 p.m. to the mayor, municipal council, business administrator corporation council, and the local newspapers and posted on the city's website so I can certify as to our total compliance with the sunshine
law. Council President, I'm gonna turn it over to you. >> All right. Well, uh, I'll start by again congratulating our new council members. This is everyone's first council caucus meeting. Uh, so I know there will be
some questions. Feel free to ask. Um, I am going to ask if Sean would just review really quickly just some highlevel parliamentary procedures of how we conduct the caucus meeting just so everyone is on the same page. >> Yep. So, council members and members of
the public and people who are watching at home, we want to start off the year on the right foot. And when any council member is looking to address a member of the staff, whether it's during the course of the council meeting, that council member should be going through
the council president first and then then that person can address the uh person who's in question. These are basic Robert's rules of order. Um, just want to make sure that we're following that. And just not that the council
always has to let the council president where they're actually going, but if the council member leaves the room, so I don't have eyes at the back of my head, sometimes I miss you and I don't want to call your name if you're not here. So, if you can just let the council president or myself know that you're just leaving the room briefly, we would
greatly appreciate it. There's anything else, council president, that I haven't touched on, I'd be more than happy to do so. And you just need them to uh give their name before they speak until you get used to the voices. >> That's that's true, too. So, if I'm asking for a motion, if you wouldn't mind just stating your name after you
make the motion till I get used to the names, uh I greatly appreciate it. We had our first teams meeting and um I had to ask you all to identify yourself because we had issues with seeing you guys. So, if you could do that, I'll only need like a meeting or two for that and I'm sure I'll get used to your
names. But other than that, I think we're ready to continue the caucus as is. >> Sean, >> I actually have a question. Um, Council President, >> just make sure you're you're speaking into the mic. >> Oh, um, you go. >> This is Council Person Little. Um, Council President Ridley, how would you
like us to if if we would like to ask a question, how would you like us to ask to like get in line to ask our question? >> Yep. Just, you know, you just jump in. Sometimes it gets a little chaotic, but we just but we we give everybody
courtesy. Um, so if somebody's speaking, wait for them to finish speaking. I usually let the uh presenters present and then once they're done, the council is free to ask them any questions. I'll just call for questions and we just be respectful of each other.
>> Okay. So, we we just wait for you to say Okay. >> Let the presenter get through through their uh presentation of their resolution or ordinance and then we'll take questions at the end. >> Okay. So, once you open it to questions, we can just >> Yep. >> Okay. Cool. Thanks.
>> Any other questions from any council members? >> Okay, council president, I'm going to turn it over to you. >> All right. Well, let's begin. And I am going to ask if Director Pierce would start us off. The council did request
for a brief overview of snow operations. As we all know, we've been in the middle of a storm and director Kierce is here to present on that. And director, after you present on the storm and take any questions, I ask that you go into any resolutions that you have.
>> Thank you, Council President. And I would like to thank each and every members of the council for allowing me to be here this evening. This weekend, Jersey City experienced a significant snowfall already. Governor Mickey Cheryl declared a state of emergency on January 25th, stating, "This was not an average
winter storm, but a storm the likes of which we haven't seen in a decade. Snow began falling approximately 4:30 a.m. on Sunday at a rate of 1 in per hour. As the storm intensified through the early evenings between 3 and 5:00 p.m., snowfalls increased to 2 in per hour.
Due to the intensity combined with extremely low temperatures, we needed to use significantly more rock salt than we did under normal would do under normal circumstances. I want to briefly address the salt supply situation. New Jersey is currently facing a statewide shortage of
rock salt. One of our primary vendors, Molten Salt, failed to deliver a purchase to salt to us on time. We made large purchases on December 29th, January 19th, January 21st, totaling 4,900 tons, but he only received 650
tons before this event. As the storm intensified under the leader of the mayor's office, we worked with neighboring municipalities, state and county elected officials, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to secure additional supplies. This allowed us to continue saltering
operations across the city into Sunday night. I wish to acknowledge that there were parts of the city that we did not receive that did not receive the comprehensive street clearing because of our that our residents expect. As the mayor noted, because of what we learned
during this storm, we are currently working with the mayor and senior members of his team to identify gaps in coverage both technological and in our workforce to ensure that for the potential event this weekend and for any future storm, every neighborhood receives comprehensive service. We know
that there's room for learning and constant improvement. With large storms, we need to better deploy personnel plans and improve ways to track as it happens across the city while integrating live reports from field and residents. I want to thank the council for being eyes and
ears on the streets throughout this event, relying back to us, relaying back to us in real time where more work was needed. I also want to thank the men and women of the department of public works who put an incredible amount of for force into this rapidly drop in face into work in the face of rapidly
dropping temperatures and increased snowfall. Many of whom worked extraordinary long shifts and saw their little of their loved ones this weekend and Monday. They are truly heroes and deserve the leadership and structure that will give help them shine in their day-to-day work. Finally, I appreciate
the patience of the residents of Jersey City throughout this storm. During a large-scale events like this, it takes the entire city working together recover. Our primary focus is ensuring that major thorough thorough affairs remain so clear so vehicles can respond safely and get help to the residents who
need it. One small way you can help our crews is please avoid shoveling snow back into the streets. I know the snow banks are high right now, but every time every time snow is shoveled into the street, cars turn it into slush, and with these low temperatures, that slush freezes. Please help our men and women
out by keeping the snow off to the streets. Thank you very much, and I'm available for questions. >> Okay, Greg. Um, well, I mean, overall, thank you. I think you guys did a a fairly decent job. Um, I remember
working a snow detail. It is it's very complicated. Um, and I know many residents, they don't really understand the nuances of what's going on. Um, but I guess my bigger my bigger issue is really with uh landlords more so than
the city. But is there any we any reason we can have snow removal versus snow plowing? Um, because I get it. We don't want people to throw snow in the street. Um, but we also
almost don't have nowhere to put the snow. Um, so like how do we combat that challenge right there, council? It's actually part of our snow operations plan when renewal kicks in. Normally it's anything between say 15 and 18 inches of snow or above. Uh I actually
have a resolution before you tonight for review for uh hiring the company that assists us and do major removal operations. It's quite a complicated mission uh labor intensive and it's limited primarily to the commercial areas, major transportation zones and
things like that. We have started working with our partners in the county as today uh taking up different areas throughout the city. We started I believe in the heights. We were downtown. We're out in uh I think uh Bergen, I'm sorry, MLK and Boswick. And
there's one other location that uh we are physically removing snow from crosswalks and things like that. But as I say, for a large citywide effort, uh it takes a tremendous amount of equipment, a lot of manpower, and it's expensive.
>> Well, so it's a certain threshold that we call for the actual removal, and that's 15 in. >> Correct. >> Oh, okay. Director, this is uh Council Person Jake Efos D. Um I have a few questions.
First, I I do want to uh say, you know, thank you for being very communicative and responsive to my personal texts and calls throughout the past days. Um and to, you know, all the hardworking staff, employees of DPW, appreciate the work there. Just a a few questions I do want
to um you know, rattle off. one, will there be accountability for Morton for failing to deliver the salt on time? Um, and what steps do we as a city need to take to make sure that accountability can be in place? Is that at the state level? Um, and then, you know, the other
side of it is just the heights and slopes felt very neglected. Residents are extremely frustrated uh by um the result of the the plowing efforts. And um you know, a couple questions I have there. It seemed as though there were moments when plows would go, but the
plow was not even low enough to actually pick up all of the slush and snow on the ground. And so the plow would go, but it would leave a, you know, a good trail of of slush and snow on the ground anyway. Um, residents saw salt trucks followed
immediately by plow trucks, seeming to, you know, negate the entire purpose of the salt truck. Um and in addition there were intersections when the plows were turning where in those intersections in the roadways where vehicles would need to be moving slush and snow pile slush
and snow piled up. Um, so I'm just curious about those aspects. The, you know, the plowing height, uh, the salting immediately followed by plowing and those intersections are just some of the questions on the certainly counsel. Well, the the salting and plowing trucks
are one entity. The salt spreaders are on the back of the plow trucks. Occasionally, you will see a truck without a plow with just a salter, but that's based on information we're receiving that it may need additional salting. I will tell you this in my experience. I've been the director down
at public over between my 30 years on the police department, 15 years in OEM in the last six including uh public works. This is one of the most challenging storms I've ever seen. And I go back 2016 when we had no numerous numerous snowstorm amount of 22 25
inches of snow. One of the big issues with this is that intense freeze which for all practical purposes is that it's like trying to go through concrete when you're doing the breakup. Um the heights is a particular area of concern. Obviously our main areas are covering
when we do the initials and this is a good explanation I guess to offer to our residents too is that our primary areas of concern obvious, fire stations um and and and hospitals. We want to make sure we get the main areas open where those entities are contained so we're able to
respond in a in a fashionable manner. Um we have in the heights once again we also have are have concerns over the slope area and 90% of the five 95% or more of the operations associated with the slope are through what we call our
load off trucks. That's the big big trucks with the heavy duty plows and the heavy duty salters. So there may be occasion where you'll see a salter that shows up after a plow comes through, but 95% are one entity. They're one truck.
Um we had an issue today as you had brought to our attention earlier on New York Avenue and we sent equipment up there only to find out that on the Hoboken side a daycare center had plowed their parking lot into the roadway preventing full occupancy of the
roadway. So uh we work with Hoboken to get that cleared. So, um that's that roadway is now fully open. >> And then just on Thank you. And then just on the accountability for Morton Salt. Um maybe that's another uh member.
>> My deputy uh Marty Valente is responsible for the ordering of assault. What we're doing now, he sent out additional emails today, but what we will be doing is putting together a report for the corporation council's review. Uh at this point, they still owe us salt. Uh it's been very
nonresponsive. I was on a couple of uh um updates with the state police and this is something that's occurring not only in New Jersey but pretty much countrywide. Um as of Sunday afternoon um the county uh executive was in my office and he actually reached out to
the governor and the response was we couldn't get the s the was there was confusion as far as whether or not the port would open. But actually obviously that's under her control and if opening the port wasn't the issue. The companies being there to actually distribute the
salt was. So in our case what we do we reached out to a secondary sites Atlantic salt and they were able to supply us uh for emergencies. But we we will diligently follow up uh to our corporate council to make sure that that we get what's owed to us. And if there's
any funds that uh they're demanding if we don't get the salt they're not getting paid. Oh, go ahead. >> Uh, can you hear me? Yes. Uh, thank you for everyone working. It's DPW workers. Just a quick question. On the upcoming
weekend, we might have the similar situation or maybe lesser than that. Are we prepared for that? >> Yes. And uh, one thing I've learned is that um, we we have numerous weather uh, services that we we we work with. One of
our largest is Weather Works. They do long distance forecasting plus they give us correct snow totals and things like that. Then we also deal with a company called Harrison Weather which is local. Um and he tailor tailors his forecasts more to our needs. So right now there's
a storm in Q uh has not really come to um be fully formed. So depending on what I've learned over these many years is that the track of the storm is key. So if it goes 10 or 15 miles in either direction, we either get nothing or we
get hit. So right now we're closely monitoring it. You know, we're making an adjusting plan should we get additional snow. We went through this back in 2016 where literally every weekend we were having some type of snow. But I I just want to ensure too I I I sent I signed
all of you up for the daily weather reports. I hope you're getting my use your city email address. Weather Works is probably one of the best ones out there. and then we can do one-on-one cons consultation with them which we did with this store and I mean everything all the indicators were is that the only
thing they were off on was the timing but yes we are preparing sir >> thank you >> you're welcome good evening Michael Griffin here >> good evening council um first I want to thank you OEM and DPW for the hard work that you guys put in over the uh last
few days um I've been getting calls uh regarding crosswalks and um bike lanes. Do we anticipate do we do we have a timeline on when we can see those cleared? >> As I mentioned earlier, we're we started working today with partners from the
county to uh clear crosswalks. Um in my discussion with the mayor and his representatives this morning, one concern I had um was to make sure that we can get the schools open and a lot of that has to do with the accessibility of being able to access to school. Um, in
the past, contractors from the board of ed used to handle a lot of that issue that when they were clearing their sidewalks, they would also clear a crosswalk, but this storm, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. And there's also an additional issue uh with the bus stops uh there. Again, years back, New
Jersey Transit used to assist in clearing those stops, but I haven't seen any of that occurring here. So, uh what we're doing, we started in downtown and the Heights today. We have a crew down by NJCU University that'll accommodate the college and also the a the you know
school across the street and we had a crew up at I think it was Boswick at MLK. So as we move forward we're going to schedule actually I have a meeting down at public works at 6:00 to move that schedule through. So to answer your question we're we are doing that. >> Good evening director.
>> Good evening sir. >> Tom Dupa uh thank you and DPW and OEM and your staff for uh all your work. Thank you for your briefing on Saturday. Okay, I echo my my colleagues. Thank you. Uh, similar to what Councilman Griffin indicated was, I want to differentiate
my my questions between this storm and they're preparing for the next one. So, uh, in terms of this storm, 139 continues year after year to be something that is a complaint and usually only gets resolution when the ice melts or the snow melts.
>> Right. Uh what I've hear heard as a as a being in the community and now sitting on the council is well it's the state's problem but it's our residents who suffer. So do you have a plan to have the city staff clear 139 and the walkways
>> yearly councilman? It's a major problem. We have roadways that are obviously under the state jurisdiction. However, many times we have to take take up the initiative to clear the roadways. This occurs occasionally on the Tonley Circle, on the Charlotte Circle, on uh
Route 139. Obviously, um John Lynch, my chief of administrative service, is is diligent with the contact to the um New Jersey DOT. Uh we had a very good relationship uh with the previous commissioner. However, that commissioner has changed. Um but he is still
following up. Moving forward, we are going to get that. I saw it on the way down here tonight and it has to be done. I agree. director, if I may add to that, Councilman, the mayor office, big thanks to him, actually was proactive in contacting them beforehand and including our assembly delegation and our senate
delegation to try to get them to be more proactive with it. Um, unfortunately, you see the results of that. Um, but we are trying to put pressure administratively on our, you know, elected officials at that level to try to help us get the assistance with those roads as necessary. >> And director, thank you, Peter. And
director, there's an opportunity to do the work ourselves and build the state. That's something I would look into. Um, a great deal of Ward C's residents rely on transportation and they have to be able to get to it and and and so a lot of concerns I heard yesterday and today
had to do with 139 and across the cross of course the crosswalks and intersections that you already referenced. uh having been been out as a lot of my colleagues were yesterday with the team, we know the difficulties. Uh and I believe you said we were the eyes and ears, which is a good way to do it,
but we also rely on a lot of information we get back from your staff and and one in particular, I heard that the east and west streets and the hilltop were were plowed and they were not. Uh so it's very important that information that we get is accurate because I'm I'm relaying
that to our constituents. uh and and I would hope you'll look into uh whether it was a mistake or miscommunication that that information was given to you and then relayed to the council to me specifically that certain streets were plowed when they were not. Um >> and I I did follow up on that with my
folks and in the years past that's always been an issue largely based on the vehicles that are parked the way they park. Uh the smallest plow we have is on a what they call a P truck which is like a pickup truck. Um, unfortunately, the one operator is is
one of our more experienced operators on several occasions tried to get down there, but was prohibited from doing so by parking. It single-handedly the the parking of vehicles, I mean, I know parking's premium to begin with, but a a vehicle that's parked on a in an
intersection, a vehicle that's parked on a cur a curve, that significantly impacts our ability to plow. And you know, some of the staff last night, we went out with the plow folks and you can see how hard it is. I mean, in a perfect perfect condition, u we have the speed
bumps, which is another issue. So, there's a lot of nuances that go in and and the sad part about it is that a lot of the experienced plow people have since moved on and retired. And you know, the newer people, we're bringing them on. Uh even though we give them as much uh initial training, the only real
firsthand training you're getting is when you're out there plowing in a snowstorm. Uh we will I will ensure I I usually vet the information. I'm a firm believer that um you know, they all say it. You can't unring the belt. Once the information is out there, it's inaccurate. It's a hard time getting it
back. But I will guarantee you, you have a question, you have my cell phone. It's on 24/7. text me with the information and a question. I'll be happy to respond to you. >> Thank you. And just the last two points briefly are about the future preparation of for storms. Uh can we do something to alert the community that they are
responsible if you are on a corner lot to uh clear through the inter to the intersection to the crosswalk? A lot of people are unaware of that. Uh and then director, my second last question is uh the resolution you have for snow removal. Can you just differentiate the scope of work between
what DPW is doing and what this company does? Uh certainly basically what the snow removal that's that's where the company they have assets including tandem trucks, rolloff trucks that far exceeds the capacity that we have. The operation uh was is very intensive. It
what usually what we would do we would start and these are councilman limited to the major commercial bus zones in the city. Um it's a usually a fornite operation. Um what we would do is collectively with police uh fire they also join in to help us with assist with
traffic diversion. Um we have to move cars uh which there again most people are cooperative. The ones that aren't it requires the hiring of tow trucks. So what we try and do is relocate the cars to an area or even get them to a point where they they operate pretty quickly.
So we pull a pull a car, plow it, put the car back. um that usually kicks in 15 18 inches of above. The last time we did it was I believe back in 2016 as you've probably seen from the resolution. It's very costly. I believe
this particular uh resolution is for $2.4 million and that's a 4-day 40 operation. >> May I just ask a quick follow up on something that Councilman Zub brought up? This is Councilman Eris. Um, yeah. If if we can I mean, is there any way
that we can pair the next alternate side parking street sweeping day with a plow to make sure like is is that in the works because that seems like one of the big obstacles. Cars can get out of their side of the street, we can just go through that side of the street with a
plow. Is is that in the works or something? >> We explored that years back, Councilman, but it didn't seem to make a big difference. I'll be very honest with you. Um, one of the problems that we have, uh, and this time we were able to get some, um, assistance with it was the
availability of offsite parking. You know, we we've made a lot of notifications. We've done that through the city uh, uh, emergency alert system for for, you know, all of our residents. We've done it through the media folks. We've done it through on our web page. Um, I was out the other night and we
were down by the Hudsonburg light rail and that was the one down by um, Liberty Science and I want to say about 10:30 that night there was maybe 30 cars down there. So, for whatever reason, you know, people don't want to take advantage of that and and we've had
issues in the past where uh, we'll have restrictions from the different entities that assist with that and they put restrictions you can only have the car between this time and that time. So, it's it's a it's a challenge. I can tell you that.
>> Director, uh, with that, I think that um I don't know how we could change the communication with the community cuz there were people who did move the cars. Of course, we're always going to have people who don't, but I believe that because we asked for the cars to move
and we don't usually do that, the impression was that DPW was going to shovel curb to curb and that wasn't done. So last night at 5:00 when everyone had to get out the lots, the council was hit with a bunch of calls because they're like, "Where do we go?" And as I'm riding through, particularly
in the Bergen Lafayette area where, you know, I had to fight with NJ Transit to let us in the lot, there were a lot of parks on the street, but they were all filled with snow. So there was nowhere for anyone to leave that lot and then put their cars. So, if we could either
not have people move or if we're going to have people move, definitely remove the snow, that would be helpful. >> And we have uh shortly with in the near future, we'll be doing an afteraction plan that's going to completely cover this entire event. Uh we will definitely
make sure that's covered. Uh one of the other challenges we have obviously is the bike lanes. So years ago when the JCIA prior to bike lanes, they were trained to do curb to curb, but that's challenging now. And obviously the way the plows plow, the blade is normally
tilted to your right. And when you're going down a roadway, if there's a bike lane, the snow ultimately winds up in the bike lane. So it it takes specialized it there. Again, in this type of a storm based on the ice, it's like chopping through country. Oh,
>> so I sorry. Um I I had a question about how you know how the routes are determined. So I mean I guess first of all I also you know want to echo others concerns about the crosswalks and the bike lanes. That's something I've been hearing a lot
about. Um but what I've also been seeing is um streets you know in downtown we saw this a lot on the east to west streets. Um they may have been plowed once or twice earlier in the storm, but then there was, you know, a several inch
layer of slush afterwards um because the snow kept falling, right? And it seems like some streets were plowed, you know, multiple times before other streets got plowed a second time. And
and that may not be true, but this is this is the perception and what people have been telling me. Um, and what I have seen as well having gone out, um, some streets are substantially clearer than others. And I'm wondering if there's a specific route that the trucks
follow or if they're kind of just like going where they get complaints or I mean ideally I would think in the future maybe we could have some sort of like automatic tracking system if we don't already have something like that to determine what streets have not gotten a
second pass yet because um you know I I observed a great deal of discrepancy between you know the snow levels on different streets and you know just just seeing in historic downtown it looked like the north south streets were more clear than the east west streets but um
you know I know that varied across the city and so yeah I just wanted to hear more about how the routes are determined and how we make sure that you know streets are not skipped >> right all right each one of the vehicles are equipped with GPS okay >> that's monitored real time at our snow
operations role so um one of the questions that always comes up. We we start just to give you a little as I said earlier our primary roads are associated with police stations, fire stations, hospitals and things like that. And then and they're also our
primary routes which are area routes of transportation bus and and things of that. One of the biggest issues and the reason you see that I've seen it myself is that many times you'll see a plow going down a street for the second time simply because when they complete the
route some we'll get a report that there's snow covered again and that's largely based on people throwing snow into the roadway. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it in my day where you know you stop and and unfortunately common sense isn't so common many times.
Um, we had a person the other night that was actually shoveling a car out and they were burying a fire hydrant, you know, and they take offense when you stop, but you know, it is what it is. I mean, we we're trying make a pile, you know, give us the act, give us the leeway to get down that roadway so we
can clear it. Um, we've been following up. I have some equipment in my office, too. So, if I've been getting complaints, like Councilman Efro had had called us on New York Avenue, uh, I had one of my people free and we sent them right there, you know. So, um, the only streets that really get priority
attention, that's day one of the of the of the plan. I mean, the whole city gets plowed, but priority is is main, secondary, and tertiary. >> Okay. And thank thank you for your answer and thank you to you and your workers as well for working some long
days. >> Would be counseling. >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Joel Brooks, Wardby. Um, yes, thank you, director, uh, to and thank you to all the staff. Um, made the rounds with
Commissioner OD to OEM. Um, also thank you to our Hudson County uh, park staff uh, that were out there um, clearing the parks as well. Um question um if a property has been uh has not taken care
of their sidewalk, they've received a summon and they still remain uh unrepentantly un unplowed. Um what would be the recourse there? >> Well, basically that's done through uh the mayor's task force. The sanitation
inspectors are assigned. So if a an issue comes in, it's reported to us. they assign an inspector. Then what has happened is what they call an NOV notice of violation is issued to the property owner. Uh we will do the cleanup and this is councilman this is if it's if it's an abandoned property if it's if
it's an abandoned house that has to be boarded up. Um unfortunately based on current circumstances it's a low priority. I mean eventually we will get to them but we work pretty much hand inand with director Barrow and his folks to uh ensure that the no residents are
notified that they have to do the cleanup. It's posted on our city web pages. Many of the issues we have with those types properties are out of town landlords. Um I know for the last couple of days the uh mayor's uh resident response folks have been up and they
also have inspectors embedded and in my operation up at OEM in the in the operation center and I've been collect getting a lot of the calls back and when I the first thing I questioned I says were you call by resident response or an inspector and 95% of them yes related to
heat complaints and we have a good portion of the property complaints too. So be off doing the their due diligence in getting making making sure that these uh areas are clear, but the process is the process and it's going to be slowly but that will come into play once we get
walk uh crosswalks and things like that cleared up. >> Thank you. And then second question, um, and I don't know, maybe this is a question for our BA, but years ago we had the senior shoveling program and, um, a lot of our residents thought that
we still did. Um, we did our best to get out there and help them and, um, special, uh, shout out to Kismmit of Kings. Had a couple young men out there with me yesterday working hard. Uh, but uh, there's a lot of need. I just
wanted, you know, this is, I think, probably across this the city for seniors um to, you know, who may not who may be of limited means um and limited physical capacity uh to clear or just to get out of their house. So, um I imagine that
might be um a financial uh obvious obviously an obligation on the city that we we may need to um introduce an ordinance, but if I don't know if Peter you could speak to the history there. >> There's two parts to it, Councilman. Um
there is a financial component, you know, with this previous senior shovels was both volunteer and some paid individuals um plus paid equipment and things of that nature. So there's a marginal financial component to but additionally there's also a liability component. Um what we found last time
was uh one making sure people were paid correctly and involved the city and a lot of issues of that. Um additionally there was a liability liability where if a person you know hurt themselves while working was there you know claims against the city were there liability on the city's behalf also if things were shoveled improperly the city now have an
obligation to you know anyone injured on that property because of how it was improperly shoveled and that they were employed to the city. So, there's a lot of nuances there that ultimately um the program became very difficult for the city to administer um and keep the cost, you know, beneficial to the residents. Um it's something we can look into.
Maybe there's a volunteer type program that might eliminate some of those liabilities. Um but I'm happy to explore that. Councilman, >> thank you. Yeah, I would like to look more into that. I don't anybody else on the council would like to help. Yeah, >> thanks Peter. I think definitely we can explore this more like high schools we
can reach out to the volunteer programming where we can issue some credit and then of course liability and all that most of the kids here especially I'm talking about if they volunteer there can be some perks and if we can figure this out I would love to
work with you on this project >> absolutely be happy to >> thanks Peter and director um thank you again um so I feel the issue about the parking. People were parking on the stop sign and it has been happening regularly
all over Jersey City. Once we enforce parking rules, regulations, I think this situation will get better soon. Um so that would be in coming days. I think it's going to work in our favor. And
council president your um question you were suggesting we have to figure out some ways to inform people. I was thinking something to explore. We should explore it that we can work for um cell phone service providers to send some
alert not emergency alerts alerts like in a situation like snowstorm it can be uh even if people do not sign up for it if they can get alert and I don't know what is the possibility I'm just suggesting alerts like parking uh trash
around storm areas or if there is any emergency I think we can explore for uh it more if possible. >> Can I jump in now? >> You were going to respond. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Um director, pleasure to see you
again. And um I'll start by saying thank you to all the city workers uh for the yman's work and the mayor's office and everybody I know working round the clock on that um and tirelessly. So, thank you all for for all your hard work. Um couple of questions and then a final
comment. So, I'll uh um the salt supplies you talked about um the the it seemed like we we fell short on the salt supplies because of a failure of shipment. Um but but our special council meeting which we had on this subject, I was under the impression and coming away
from that that we had adequate salt supplies. Um did we have enough or did we underestimate what was what was the question? What what happened there? And then I have two other questions and then final comment. >> All right. Pre- storm councilman we had approximately 2500 tons citywide. We
have three depots. The biggest one being down at public works. That's 1,500 tons. The other two serve which service respectfully the 13th and Mammoth location that pretty much handles the heights and downtown. And then the other
one we have down at uh Grand Street and Pacific Avenue that handles the lower sections. At the time of the storm, we had 2500 tons in place, which is more probably about three quarter full. The difference between previous storms and this storm was the intense cold that
necessitated an area that we would normally clear a plow and salt would require a second layer of salt just based on the slushy. We were deal when the change specifically when it changed between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. At
some points we were getting between two and two and a half inches of slush per hour and when it hit the grounds the ground temperatures were in the low teens. It was immediately freezing. So under a normal storm we probably would have been okay. But with this particular
instance we we we were down at the end of the night to about 750 tons at which point a decision was made to do one large run of the city and the hilly areas just to ensure that we'd be able to open up the next morning. Okay. Um, so it's the conditions itself
that necessary more. Um, the, um, second question is, uh, schools are reopening tomorrow. Um, who's responsible for like school drop off zones and things of that nature? Do we do that? The schools who's, uh, >> the cleanup >> I'm clearing those areas.
>> The school has a responsibility for cleaning the property like any property owner would. U, in the past, they've always assisted by further opening up the crosswalks. I have not seen that yet. So that's creating additional work for our people. But >> I'm not referring to the um the
property, the sidewalks or um so there are designated drop off zones. There's a daycare up in the heights. Uh Councilman uh Efro said to brought to my attention on Palisades Avenue. They have over 100 kids getting them going to be coming in tomorrow with the school opening. Um and
it's that drop off zone is filled with it's piled with snow. announcement. I have a six o'clock meeting down at public works to discuss further plans. I'll I'll make sure that's part of the >> I'm that's just one example. I'm just guessing that's a a daycare. There's daycarees throughout the city that are
designated by the Jersey City public schools and then obviously the schools themselves have drop off zones including charter schools, private schools, and public schools. Right. So, um I'm not sure what kind of coordination we have on that, but to the administration as well. As I say, we've been dealing uh uh
Hudson County has been uh loaning out a small um it's like a bombardier they call it that assists us for those those type areas. Um and we've made some good progress today and we'll be continuing that as we move forward. I'll mention at tonight's meeting.
>> Okay. And then um I just wanted to bring as we were sitting here talking I got a text that uh Barthali is still not plowed going down to uh going down to Our Lady of Mercy and the daycare down there. Barthali all the way down there. So if we could uh >> I'll make sure
>> maybe get some some plows on that one. I'm appreciate from Kennedy down to OM as she tells me right now. Um and then um when with the new contract with the snow removal um which areas are we looking at um getting snow removed? Can you
actually if you could just provide us with a list of those areas? That'd be great to know where where >> on the contract side >> um that that will be designated for snow removal like is it specific areas or is it just uh >> that's what I'm asking. You're talking like full scale snow removal or ones
what we're we're doing like bits and pieces now a full-scale operation would be primarily limited to the major transportation areas any uh of the bus routes uh any of the main thorough affairs the emergency snow routes >> like pretty much all the snow routes
correct >> yeah okay um and then the last thing is really just a comment I'm looking forward to your afteraction plan I'm not looking necessarily for a response on it but um I' I'd love to how the parking lots worked out for us and if and would like to know if there was any cost to us. Um, how were they
how many of them were filled to capacity? Again, those emergency snow routes. Um, did we tow cars and how many cars did we tow? And then to piggyback on what the council member for Wardy the prioritization so um of of different areas as well as the tracking of what's
going on. I know we have GPS. Um, but would be interested to know if we could just tell us in the future whether every street got passed through three times or twice or something like that as opposed to once um or or or not at all.
Um, and if we can be able to have that kind of clarity and level of clarity on that as to the numbers um that would be helpful to know in terms of going going forward. Um, and I would like to also be involved with the whole seniors senior shovel. Let's bring that back to Jersey
City. All I have to say. >> All right. Council >> motion. >> Everybody has has had a turn at a question. >> Um, if you have any other questions, I would ask please uh send it to uh
Director Kirst directly and uh he will have an afteraction report ready at some point for us. Um but any other questions please take to him offline. Just one more thing director we just to confirm we are inspectors are out and actively ticketing in areas where
>> yeah the locations resident response has been up uh Mr. President as uh when you stopped up yesterday you saw that they were fully operational in there. >> Um they are h handling the complaints and immediately assigning the complaints to respective expected. So there is
followup there definitely. >> Thank you director. Uh we'll move on to your resolutions. >> Thank you all. I appreciate the time to uh be with you here tonight. >> Um I have three resolutions for your consideration. The first one is
resolution number 1013 260 26-021. This resolution will authorize an open-end contract to persistent construction to provide snow removal citywide for the DPW division of sanitation. The city through open
competitive bids solicited vendors to provide assets related to citywide snow removal operations which resulted in the receipt of one proposal from persistent construction. Based on past occurrences, citywide snow removal consisted of four 12-hour days totaling 48 hours. Total
contact amount would be $43,850* 48 for a total contract of $2,14,800. Should we have to initiate this uh this type of an operation, the money is available in a DPW sanitation operating
account and the period of time for the contract would be January 1, 2026 through Jan to December 31st, 2026. >> Questions? >> So, I mean, I guess one of the council
members spoke upon this earlier. Um what like what what specifically are they going to be doing versus like I see the crew out on MLK and Baswick today. So what specific are the individuals in
the contract um going to be doing versus what we're doing as a municipality already? They would provide for instance and I'll use a generic number say 40 or 50 uh of the large payloaders which what they use to
pick the snow up and in tandem to that they would also provide the trucks that's necessary. They would it's a load and go operation. You load the snow into the truck and then goes down and dumps the snow at our designated locations. >> Oh, okay. All right.
>> Okay. Next. The next one is 26251017. >> One second, director. >> Um I I just wanted to ask um you know, I don't know what the going rate for snow removal is uh off the top of my head, but you know, it is a little I guess it's a little concerning that we only
got one proposal. And um you know, I also wanted to ask um you know, if if this seems reasonable, like a reasonable number based on other contracts or if it's worth opening up the RFP again. Um, and also I wanted to ask, you know, you said it was from January 1st to December
31st, but are we getting a prrated amount for January because most of January has already passed and and would it make more sense for it to, you know, begin at a later date than January 1st? >> I defer to the BA on this an open-ended contract, meaning we don't pay unless we
use it. So they put it in the budget so the money is there in case we would need to pay it, but they don't charge us, you know, practically until we actually employ the service. At the end of the year, if we haven't spent it, we can either roll that cost over into the next budget or we can do an appropriation transfer to move it somewhere else in
the city. >> Okay, thank you for clarifying. >> The next item is uh 107. >> I had another point of information on that. Um, is this a one-time use spend >> yearly yearly contract? We put it out, but >> it's the same amount of money.
>> It's an open-ended, meaning that up to the certain amount of money for the resolution, and then we can, you know, every time we use a service, it'd be, I think it's what, $50,000 an hour or something to that effect. So, we can spend $50,000 an hour on the whole operation until we hit the maximum
that's allocated, if we need more, we can go about that by 20%. If we need more than that, then we have to go back to council and get an approval for any additional money needed. >> Understood. Thanks for clarifying. >> Okay. I'm sorry, I'm still struggling with Mike. If we don't use it, it roll
over >> either be offered a roll over to the next year's budget or we do appropriation transfer where they take the money from one location say hey we went over here didn't use over there move the money to where it's needed. >> Thank you. Greg, I I mean I guess um I
guess the BA or someone from the administration is there was there some some political contribution disclosure form attached to this is >> Yeah, I I checked into that. It doesn't require one because it's an open bid contract. Um the law department can give you specific details about it, but I
check with purchasing. There's nothing attached to it because it's an open bid contract does not require that. >> Okay, >> any other questions on 1013. Okay. The next item 101726025. This resolution will authorize the
public sale of 213 motor vehicles through the public surplus.com uh onto an online auction which have salvage value and are no longer suitable for use. >> Questions. >> What's the anticipated revenue from from
that? >> It varies, Councilman. They usually do a bulk bid. Um it you know there again it's most of the cars are cars that are coming out of our car impound. Uh there are vehicles in the from when we're moving from the Jersey City fleet based
on age and use and things like that. But um I purchasing I guess would be the best person that could you know give you that number but it varies from the amount and if there's one bid two bids. A lot of these are scrap vehicles too. It's not sold for actual working machines or anything. Also, there's a
minimum bid and then depending how that bid goes, it could be under bid, over bid, but we have a minimum threshold we require based on the value of the the value of the vehicle at the time of sale, whether it's scrap or whether it's an operating vehicle. >> Should we expect a significant purchase
of vehicles to be necessary soon or because it's mostly for scrap, we already have vehicles that these would have been used? >> Yeah, these are mostly replaced before it even gets to this point. The city generally, the different departments will try to order their vehicle beforehand. Um, additionally, the bulk of these are not city vehicles. The bulk
of these are impounded vehicles, abandoned vehicles, things of that nature. Um, the city historically has gone to a vendor to deal with a lot of this. We took this in-house for our inbound operation last year. Because of that, we have to basically get rid of these as quickly as we get them in or
the pound quickly fills up and we can't continue operations. >> Thanks. Final is uh 2602610-18. This resolution will ratify an emergency contract award to Atlantic Salt Incorporated for the purchase and delivery of rock salt for citywide snow emergency for the Department of Public
Works. The city's contracted vendor, Morton Salt, failed to deliver pre-ordered rock salt as promised, potential potentially endangering the health, welfare, and safety of the citizens and our city employees. DPW secured a vended Atlantic Salt which provided salt deliveries as requested in
preparation of the impending snowstorm commencing Sunday January 20 January 25th 2026. Total amount of this contract is 190,000 which is available and available in a DPW operating account. What we did was
that is that we engage with the co-op. It's called the Hudson County Co-op, which is the majority of the of the cities and counties have been utilizing with Morton salt. Um, for whatever reason, uh, even even the salt that we were able to get from the port, we had
to send our own trucks out to to get it. So, I don't know whether it's a delivery issue with them or what, but uh, Atlantic used to be our main supplier, but malt and mort and salt come in at a lower price. And by purchasing and
bidden laws, we're obligated to take the lower price vendor. Um, and unfortunately many times in my experience, when you go with the lower price, they normally don't deliver the services as promised. >> Questions?
All right. Thank you, director. >> Thank you. >> One second. >> How much how much salt was delivered >> last delivery? 2500 tons. Thank you. >> And that 2500 tons was the $190,000.
>> It's approximately I forget what the I know the difference between Morton and Atlantic is about $15 to $18 more per ton. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And when um when each uh
director or department member comes up and speaks, can you please just state your name and your title so that the uh new council members can get familiar with everyone? Uh Robert Baker. >> Good evening, council president, members of council. I'm Director Baker. uh he
runs public safety, IT and very serious cyber security and a citywide uh radio system. I have one resolution before you today. It's resolution 26-027
and the agenda number is 10.19. It's a resolution authorizing the payment of a claim submitted by AT&T for providing mobile cellular service for the Department of Public Safety. It's in the amount of $30,683.
Um to bring you up to speed, the present council, this is a part of we transitioned from AT&T mobile wireless to Verizon. That means every cellular phone, every iPad, every tablet, every
computer, every public safety vehicle that has a computer or a modem in it. It was a a year-long transition, a little over um,00 um mobile devices. To date, by doing
this transition, we have reduced the bill $160,000. So, so this claim that's been submitted by AT&T, it's for services already rendered, correct? >> Yes. Was there a contract? >> Yeah. We what we what we couldn't do, council person, is we didn't know what
we were going to we knew it was going to be so long. The original contract for this was way over $600,000. And we didn't want to go in for that and then we wanted to sit and wait. So the negotiation was well let's see what's going to be finished by the time we
completely eliminate AT&T and that's how we came to this to this number. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you director. >> Thank you >> James Carol. Good evening, Council President. All
council members, congratulations on your installation. I look forward to working with all of you. Today, I have uh two resolutions that I'd like to to uh present for your approval. I'm just going to go a little out of order. I'm going to start with the the second one first. Uh item 10.29
uh which is resolution 26-037. Uh this is a resolution authorizing the award of a professional service contract to Shrewitz Garjulo and Twin Burough PT Associates to provide uh PT physical and occupational therapy for all of our city
employees who are injured on the job. The amount of the contract is $275,625 with the term from January of 2026 to January ending in 2027. Um the details of the agreement on this
particular resolution where there were four particular bids that were presented in this bid had the uh most cost effective and professional services based upon a review of the committee that uh made the presentation.
>> Any questions? >> I mean does a cost effective mean cheapest? No, we don't necessarily make the based on the cheapest, but we look at his years of experience. Uh the overall comprehensive package that they provide. Uh we use capitated services. So we basically look at and we can
provide also I have my team have them just send you over the terms of the contract so you know what the cost of each capitated service. In addition, we've been working with with guard julo for several years and we find their services uh to be uh excellent. One question on uh has PT ever been
covered in city health insurance? Um has it always been outside of city health coverage? >> Uh this is just for workers compensation councilman. So anybody that's under under that's injured on duty uh they would go through a separate structure for workers comp and workers comp insurance the city.
>> Thanks. uh just now to reverse and the reason I did it this way. If you go back to uh the original resolution, it's a uh claims resolution for services performed by Charlottes and uh Guardolo uh during the same period uh which is
um 20 item 1020 uh resolution 26028. Um we provided a service contract for $125,000 which was expended. Um at the time we only had u two bids but they we were
instructed to go out with uh for further bids and of course we still have to continue to provide the services for all of our employees during that time frame uh to do a rebid and to get further bids takes a little additional time. Uh in addition when we ultimately got to the point of recommendation we were facing
uh election and transition changeover. So um this got delayed during the process >> question. >> Oh you got a question council. >> All right I think it's working. Thank
you for your time. Pardon me if it is a stupid question, but when is the time? Do we open bid for all the local businesses or when is the time they can bid for the better pricing? How does it work?
>> I'm I'm better deferring to our friends in the law department to discuss the bidding process. >> Okay, >> I don't want to misstep on that one. >> I'll give a brief overview of the council. When there's a bid, generally what happens is prior to the bid is for awarding a contract essentially. So once
an RFP goes out, members of the public can respond. It's publicly posted on our website. It's also advertised on some partnership websites that have a bigger reach than we would just locally. Um, anyone that provides that service could, you know, potentially reply to the RFP and and uh get a shot at getting the
contract. Once the RFP is received, we have an internal committee that reviews those proposals. They have a fact sheet that they have to respond to. Um those things cover like cost, you know, the the closeness of the services based on the RFP responses, um you know, the historical ability to provide those
services, things of that nature. Once those uh fact sheets are completed, it's done anonymously, they are tallied up and a score is awarded to each of the vendor and then based on those scores from the collective group and a contract is suggested to be awarded for the vendor with a higher score. Once it happens, it gets brought back to
council, present to the council, council makes the ultimate call on it. If they agree with it, it goes to, you know, the contract is approved. The law department goes over it. They might go back and forth about any terms and conditions that might need altered and then the city would sign that contract. Most of those contracts are any from a year up
to 3 years with options to renew. Um, those options are if we like their services for 3 years and we decide want to continue with it, we continue for an additional year or two. Usually when it gets to that point is when we start deciding whether or not we want to do a new RFP um and see if there's other vendors out there because we're either
unsatisfied with the services or we think we can get a better price or something to that effect. >> Thanks Peter. >> So So Jimmy, I'm going to the administration. I'm going to sound like a broken record on this stuff. The claims these uh claims this is for
services rendered. >> That's correct. >> Is there a contract? Is there a >> No, there's not. claims come in and then we take a review of it and uh at that point we'd make our recommendation but there is no contract. >> So why why is it that we have I look I
mean we I raised this when I was on the council four years ago and it was a problem then of like services rendered without the council approving them. Um and I would gather to guess that it's caused um fiscal
problems for the city of Jersey City. Right. So um and so the these expenditures that are not um overseen or accounted for um and the city council is not able to exercise its um uh fiscal
oversight in these matters. Um it should be budgeted in the budget and then there should be it should be charged against the um whatever the the budget accounts are and coming to the city council for approval before it comes to us as a claim. That's my understanding of the process. I would clarify there is a
contract because if a contract ends, it goes into a month-to-month basis. >> Yeah. >> Till we, you know, a new contract is awarded. So, there practically is a contract between us and the vendor. Generally speaking, it's whatever terms. >> The contract ended, >> it ends, but then it goes to a month-to-month basis. We couldn't have a
service between the city and the vendor without having some rules or agreements to what we're providing to them. So it still stays effective based on a month-to-month basis while we select a new RFP or go to a new process of selecting the individual. Um in this particular case the issue was like you
know director described we're in a transition period. We did not have the same number of council meetings. In addition we didn't want to take certain actions at council meetings because we had new membership here. So it did cause some delays. Um going forward we'll make those corrections so it doesn't continue.
So, do the council then I mean does the administration when you're going through this a contract expires and I I don't want to belabor the point but um what are the what are the controls council controls around this that uh ensure that uh the the money is budgeted for um
because is this is this currently budgeted uh um because these are 2025 expenditures from the 2025 budget essentially right so we're now picking it up into our 2026 budget >> not necessarily so if we have expenses from 2025. If we have surplus funds, we
can still make those payments under the 2025 budget. So, it wouldn't count towards the 2026 budget. Um, particularly with this case, uh, even if it's not budgeted, we would still need the service. So, money generally is in the budget for these procedures without having an exact dollar amount. Um, of
course, to your point, Councilman, if you know, we could find a service for less money, then potentially we would, you know, go over what we could potentially budget for that amount. But there is some money budgeted because no matter what it's an essential service we have to have that available for workers comp. So no matter what we would have a
vendor paying something close to this amount. So >> So is this money coming from a particular account or is it surplus money or to pay for this or >> I would have to have finance describe exactly where they're getting it from. But my understanding is they would use surplus funds or unexpended funds to
potentially cover this so it could get counted towards a 2025 budget which I believe we have to get done by March. They give us by statute a little swing there. Um, so that would be coming to the council in the next month or so. >> Is the account in this resolution?
>> The account that it's charged against I believe is in the resolution >> and is that account a a surplus account or is it I'm just trying to figure out whether this is budget or not. Right. So are we spending the taxpayers dollars
responsibly? Um or is this again on monies that were not uh budgeted for in 2025 and so now we're um trying to find money for it in 2026 to pay for it. >> Well, there was a budget force in 2025 again because an RFP is awarded
potentially we could have had less money because we found a better that could provide the services for a cheaper amount theoretically. Um we could have got a better price for it, but we did have that money budget I believe up until the end of the year because the services were needed throughout the end of 2025. It's an essential service that we'd have to have regardless of who the
vendor was or what the circumstances for that would be. >> If I could jump in on this, Council Person Brooks, um, so this was um an issue in our our first council meeting as well. So, and I don't know, Madame
President, if you could answer this or Sean, so we in kind of Q1 of 2026 are um approving bills to be paid from the previous quarter. Um, and we're so
kind of the process is we're approving bills to be paid from a previous budget year because our predecessors are not here. Um, and these are expenses that may not have been um
uh invoiced, so to speak, until now. Is that correct? >> And Peter, I'll I'll lean on you for this, but I mean, I guess in some instances, we might have received late invoices, but there might be other circumstances of why we didn't get to
certain uh 2025 invoices in 2025. >> Correct. So there there's a mix there depending what specific item or or uh piece of legislation we're talking about. In this case, my assumption is we did receive invoices previously, but it has to go before council would be paid.
So once that initial RP period ends and the original contract ends and you go to that month a month or you know interim kind of section I would describe it, they do invoice us regularly. we would potentially pay them, but now we have to pay them through the resolution because as Councilman Lavaro indicated, that's
the control that the council has that if we're spending things that were not originally anticipated or not originally approved by council ordinance, we have to get your permission to keep on spending that money. In this case, because there's a transition, you know, the council didn't get the approval as timely, which is why you're seeing it now versus why it could have been
approved, say the very end of 2025 or, you know, last council meeting the meeting there before. And if I can ask too, just to to clarify, our goal then to be able to accurately budget and allocate money toward this again essential service
should be to get away from this month-to-month contract and actually have a standing contract that we can actually anticipate how much we're going to spend each year on. Correct. Precisely. So when the RP comes back, that gives the new terms for any bidder that would have bid on it. It says how
much they would, you know, cost or how much the service would cost it, you know, for their, you know, providing them to the city. Um, and that's what you're really awarding on. And then we also have an encumbered amount for that. So it might be, you know, x amount per hour up to a certain amount of money. And then if we decide to go over that
because services are utilized more frequently than anticipated, then it would go back to the council and potentially increase that amount. >> And and just because I'm still green, I appreciate getting caught up to speed here. Is the director or you know other
staff in each department responsible for actively seeking out RFPs relevant to their department or is that kind of centralized in another part of the administration? Generally it's encumbered upon the department or division that has control of that
service. However, our purchasing department does keep like a master list of it and you know does very good does a very good job at reminding the department saying hey x amount of dollars left over you got to take action or x amount of time left over in the contract you should start taking action
and reminds that into the department to start the process for a new RFP and they help them and purchasing works hand in hand with each department to help them with that but really would rely on the departments themselves because they know the services best so whether it be healthcare or police or fire anything
they should be controlling the actual uh provisions to that RFP and then purchasing just helps get the actual process rolling. Thank you. >> I'm just going to make one more point about it and that's not really a question. Just looking at the the resolution, um there's six months of
billing from July 1st through to December 31st. Right? That means somebody didn't budget for 6 months of this contract when this contract was initially awarded or somebody didn't renew it um before it
needed to be renewed when it expired July 1st and and now we're 7 months from the time that it expired. Right? So, um, so my my point being, and this is, you know, to be clear, it's not not the current administration, which just stepped in office, uh, January 15th, um,
but the need to be able to be more accountable to this and the taxpayers of Jersey City around this, um, to ensuring that we're budgeting and that I mean, for my part, when I was on the council, I voted against these things. I'm going to provide some grace around this this time around because it's a new
administration. Um and it's not they they're inheriting this. Um but to be clear that uh these kind of practices in my estimation can't continue. Um we owe we owe more and better to the people of Jersey City >> just want to make one comment on that.
Um the new administrators have been very proactive to address these items. We have daily budget meetings where whether it be a claim, whether it be capital, whether it be any kind of expenditure from the city, we are every single day reviewing those items, especially things that came from the previous administration the previous year to
determine is it absolutely necessary to pay it. How can we improve it going forward so it doesn't continue to happen and better those processes? We're not in the same position as the councilman mentioned. >> I was say may I also recommend monthly billing from our vendors the way law firms do. That way our department directors can stay on top of their
budgets and if there's an issue they can alert the administration. >> Yeah. And I'm sorry uh Mike Griffin. My my question um I'm going to piggy back off of uh Councilman Zupa. What what are our businessto business uh standards?
Are we net 30, net 60, net 90? Like what do we ask for from these vendors? How to pay our bills? >> It depends on the vendors themselves. you know, different services require different kind of payments. Um, we've gotten better where especially for the larger payments that have interest
requirements like health care, dental, things of that nature. We generally ask for a 60-day grace period to make the payments mainly because we ran into an issue where a lot of them wanted payment within 7 to 10 days, but because the way council works, if a bill comes in at a certain point in time, we might not have a meeting until 2 weeks from now. So
it's unfair for the council or the taxpayers to pay interest on a bill that physically cannot be approved by the council and be paid in a timely manner. So it's very dependent upon the individual contracts, but especially for the larger ones that have high interest, we've moved them and the law department's done a great job of this moving them to have a grace period of 30
days to 60 days to make sure we can pay that timely and not incur any interest. >> Okay. So follow-up question. And um my colleague uh Tom Zupa is suggesting that if we can do it every 30 days, is that something that we can do?
>> We can explore it. Um again, it's a lot dependent on the contract, the vendor, and the services they're presenting. Um it's certainly an option we can request for them, but again, you know, I'd be hesitant to say yes to everything depending on the nature of every the individual vendors.
>> Any other questions? Thank you, director. >> Great. Thank you, everybody. >> Anar Woodson. >> Afternoon, council president and council members, and congratulations to all the new members. My name is Maynard Woodson. I am the division director of the
director of the division of commerce. Uh tonight, I had uh two resolutions that are on the three resolutions that are on the agenda. It's 10:14 through 10:16. It's my understanding that they're going to be pulled um until the next meeting
just so I can spend a little bit of time today just explaining more about the cannabis. Um, all those resolutions were cannabis related. And just to answer any questions just to uh familiarize you with some of the things that were going on for the
last uh two two and a half years is when we start we opened up the applications for cannabis. At the time of opening the applications, we didn't have a cap when a number of applications and for that reason we received a quite a few applications over 80 applications. Um uh
to date 54 um of those applications were approved by this uh city council and we have 26 that opened within the last year and a half, two years. Unfortunately, three have closed since then. Um so total I the CCB which is the cannabis
control board um heard 80 applications and right now we're only sitting with approximately five to be heard uh moving forward and that includes the three that were scheduled for tonight. The three that were scheduled for this evening were um two for two retailers and one
for a delivery service. >> Council person Brooks Wardby. Thank you director. Um so could you recap um how many or so initially when the process opened there was no cap on licenses >> correct
>> and now there is a cap >> was a cap added um April of last year of 48 >> 48 and >> anyone who applied before the cap was initiated was allowed to move forward with the application >> okay and there are 26 licensed dispensaries currently in operation in
the city >> um actually it's down to 23 it was 26 six that were open. >> Got it. >> Three have closed. >> So, there are potentially 45 spots open under the cap.
>> 25. >> Thank you. Sorry, a lot of shoveling yesterday. Electrolytes are low. Thank you. Um, so, uh, thank you. Thank you for that, colleagues. Um
so the uh is there a schedule for the cannabis uh board? >> Yes. >> Yet >> unfortunately we had to cancel uh yesterday's meeting. >> Okay. All right. So that that board >> we meet once per month. >> Once per month >> normally on the third Monday of the month
>> and um historically was there an issue with quorum but now we have enough board members. Is that that's been resolved? >> We have quite a few months where we did not have a quorum. >> Okay. Um, that's all I have. Thank you,
>> director. Thank you. Um, I I thought our cannabis board should have been more discerning, not because of the product being sold, but based on the locations and the and the competition that each was offering uh to where my community office are located, both are struggling. Uh, and I know some
closed on Tunneling Avenue. My question is for the law department. Once the cannabis board moves on an application, what are the council's uh what's this council's oblig u opportunity to reject without the
applicant taking legal action against this? >> Sure. Um Britney Murray. So um the council can take into consideration whatever they wish when they're voting on um the resolution of local support. Obviously, it goes to the cannabis
control board to start. Um, if there is any reason that is not arbitrary, comprecious, uh, that the council has for voting against it, they're able to do that. We can't guarantee that somebody might not sue us over that. Um, but the council can take into consideration what they wish. So,
there's no um, if it gets through the cannabis control board and it ticks all the boxes, that doesn't mean that you have to vote it up. Um, you could have your own reasons for voting it down. >> Thank you. I have a couple questions. This is Councilwoman Little from board E. Um
it sounds like um my question is specifically with the Warrior Weed LLC application. Um I have received an email uh stating basically that um
the new limits are also so 48 citywide but it also caps eight per ward and um this is saying that there are already eight approved for ward E. Um, can can you speak to that? And and is it something like maybe
one of the ones that closed was in Ward E and and that's why that's why this is mo moving forward because otherwise I'm I'm I'm not understanding why it's moving forward. um if if we're already at the cap for the ward, >> if the application was received before
we um instituted the cap, they're allowed to continue because they had already started the process um the expense of having leases for properties at pro more than likely had started the the process of going through planning. So that decision made board department
that anyone who had started the application process before the cap was put in place that they would allow to continue. That's why in some of a few of the awards we were over the eight. >> So just to clarify originally when there was no cap we received I believe it's 67
I think was the total it was about 67 applications and at that point in time we decided that those would have to be grandfathered in. So they're able to exceed both the 48 cap as well as the eight per ward cap. So say that these are applications that were received
before we made the changes. If WD goes up to 12 based on um applicants that were before the changes, once we get through everybody that applied before the um new portion of the ordinance went into effect, the next wardy applicant
would have to wait until it drops below 48 and eight per ward. So technically we could get up to 67 as um Director Woodston is telling us a few have already closed. I don't think we get to that point. Um but that's how it would operate. So technically we could have 60
um and they would be above both caps and then the next person waiting in line would have to wait till we get to 47 or seven in the ward. >> Yes. I mean, that's the the the issue I had with the canopist in nutshell is
that um you move the goalpost on the cost of the game and then essentially you really can't penalize the people who apply under a certain set of rules because we decided to come up with the cap. Um, so
that's that's the problem in a nutshell, but I guess really not a good thing because people are going out of business. But nonetheless, it's opportunity for us to really try to home in on the APA ward and then the 45 throughout the city because I mean at
this rate there's there's no way these businesses are going to be able to substain. It's too many of them opening. >> Um, okay. Um, Council Person Afro from D. I just want to uh maybe this is a conversation we can have offline um
director but uh yeah two uh cannabis shops in war d are closing or have already closed um and it just my understanding is that there have been a lot of issues with our city following
through on the kinds of uh signing off um between the city and the state that needs to happen for these businesses to stay open. Um, so I'm just curious. I I have a a few questions and and again, maybe this is another time, but you know, the CCB cooperating with the um
economic development corporation and the city because there's a lot of different entities that these shops have to sounds like, you know, check all their boxes with. Um, and so it seems, you know, to be a shame that two have who have gone through a lot of the processes already
in WD are now closing. Um, and I see another one in WD is opening up. So, I'm just wondering besides this first step of the kind of providing that initial local support to get them opened up, are we doing our due diligence and following through with all of the other paperwork
that we need to get done um to make sure that they can actually continue to operate? >> I feel as far as the cannabis control board, we've been very efficient in as far as, you know, even keeping multiple applications on the agenda to process them as quickly as possible. I mean,
when they're dealing with other funding, I think there may have been some delays there and possibly there's some delays on the state's level because we're not familiar with exactly what happens when it hits the state level, but they have to go through a whole I know we they have to go through a whole process and then start their buildout. Um, and this
that's we're not involved in uh the buildout where the state does their inspections before they're allowed to open. And we've seen that process after we've given them full council approval take at least a year. we really don't have any control over.
I'd be more than happy to to speak with you off. >> Thank you. Yeah, I would like that. >> What is the um the tax that the city gets from cannabis sales? >> Two 2%. >> 2%. Do do we have numbers on
>> we've collected since we started we started collecting tax taxes in 2024 through 2025 we've collected $982,000 >> since when 2024 and 2025 >> two years 984,000
>> why is that there are couple of blogs there are two and three dispensaries why Do we maintain a distance between two cannabis shops or we don't follow any rule like that? >> Originally we did we had um the 600 ft
rule. Um there were some where we were dealing with some legal issues and we can speak about it but the time of application if two applications were put in at the same time uh we allowed both applications to proceed through the process and that wound up with some of them being within 600 ft of each other.
So we did change that rule. Now, it's not an absolute prohibition, but the applicant is required to provide any cannabis shops that are within the area um for the CCB to take into consideration as well as for the council to take into consideration. So, we did
have several lawsuits pop up um initially when the cannabis shops were opening up near each other and it was >> a legal issue that we worked out and decided to get rid of it so that the council and the CCB can look at it more holistically and decide whether or not
something should be um close or not to to another cannabis shop. We still have uh I believe the 200 foot prohibition from a school. >> Yeah. Thank you. and councilman Gilmore, I 100% agree that we need to again talk
like all council members for new laws and are we really looking forward to too many as we have lot of young families. Thank you, director. >> I I had a couple other questions as well. Um sorry, this is Councilwoman
Little in Ward E. Um, so I I have the most information on the Warrior Weed LLC because um of the constituent petition that was submitted. Um, can you speak on um where the other two are located and
if those wards already have eight or more cannabis? >> I don't know that information right off the top of my head because we have so many applications, but I can definitely get that information. Um, and my other question was, and I'm not familiar yet with the different classes of licenses.
Um, the title of all of these, um, in the agenda is class five. Um, but >> there's one error. One's actually a class six. >> Yeah, I I saw that um in in the
resolution and that this is um Beverly, Inc. is actually class six. Can you speak to the difference between class 5 and class 6? And >> the class 6 is actually just a delivery service. >> Oh, I see. >> They don't really they don't even store any of the uh product in this similar to
like an Uber eats a pickup and drop off service. Director Woodson, can you uh send the council an email and just uh with the breakdown of the different classes uh so they can understand what the different classes are and also um if
you could give us a list of all the existing uh marijuana shops that are currently operating. If you have it by word, that's great. But if not, the name of the shop and the address. >> I have it by word, please. >> Okay, great. >> Sure. >> Thanks so much.
Any other questions for Director Woodson? And we are uh withdrawing these three items tonight. Correct, Peter? >> These three items are being withdrawn. >> Yeah, at Wednesday's meeting, we'll withdraw the items to give the council more time to understand how the cannabis stuff works and, you know, fully vet out
the procedures there. >> Thank you, director. >> Thank you, >> Joan Ecklesen. Joan, you must have missed me. You told me you weren't going to make it tonight. >> I know. I had to see you, Denise. Um, my name is Joan Eckleston. I'm director of
the Division of Senior Affairs. You'll happy to know that I have a very simple resolution. It is 109 resolution 26017, a resolution authorizing the city of Jersey City to accept a gift for the
Department of Health and Human Services, Divisions of Senior Affairs. You all remember Michael Yun. His wife wanted to donate $350 worth of pastries to the senior center for a party. So, we're just doing the legal thing and declaring
that we received the gift. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Um, Delta J. >> What type of pastries were they? Are they induced or did you bring some with you? They're
for the seniors and not for the council. Sorry. >> You can count council as seniors too. >> Okay. And I invite all of you to come to see the two senior centers. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Director. >> Okay.
>> Or for Cohen >> who said we can't laugh and learn at the same time, right? Good evening and congratulations to the council president and city council. My name is Ofer Cohen. I'm the director of the division of food and nutrition at
HHS and one of two staff registered dietitians. We have one item for your consideration this evening. Resolution 26016, item number 10.8. This is a grant award from Hudson County for our peer grouping
program in the amount of $40,000. For those of you familiar with Meals on Wheels, this is a senior nutrition grant award we received from Hudson u from Hudson County for specifically grant guidelines seniors that are 60 and over. This opens the door for um individuals
that are homebound and under the age of 60. >> Questions? >> I have a question. um $40,000. That doesn't sound like enough money. Um are there any other grants
you're seeking? I mean, this is this is always at the top of the line as far as items that we need because obviously we get a much larger award for the seniors. We get an additional award. I think this this past year was $10,000. Prior it was 15. But yes, anything that comes along,
this is at the top of the priority list because obviously it's a technicality. These people need the service, but they're under 60. One positive is that if they're close to 60, then we can transition them over to traditional senior meals on wheels.
>> And who who's the uh food provider? >> Witson's food service. >> Thank you, director. >> Thank you, Heath Denith. Good evening, council president. Congratulations. Congratulations to the
rest of the council. Council aids, welcome. Uh my name is Keith Donath. I'm uh acting director of uh parks and wreck uh otherwise known as uh the department of recreation and youth development. I'm here for one resolution, resolution 26-
uh 036 number 10.28. This is a resolution authorizing a month-to-month extension not to exceed three months affected January 1st, 2026 with Clark Moyahan Landscaping LLC for the general maintenance and um uh
maintenance at Bayside Park, Autobon, Leonard Gordon, Hamilton Park, Berry Lane, Columbia, Riverview Fisk, uh for the Department of Recreation and Youth Development. This is this is for landscaping.
>> Is that for >> landscaping? >> Landscaping >> and from January. So that would be January, February, March, right? >> Yeah. We're in the RFP process right now.
>> Okay. I mean, my my whole issue with I typically I don't like the fact that we outsource um these type of services. Um I remember working in recreation and working at DPW. Um we had these machines to do this
stuff. Um and I just think that as a as a city, we have to find out a way where we can keep as many services in house for us to perform. Um, so I guess my bigger question is what
specifically will they be doing in January, February, and March seeing that the weather is really if it's not snow, the grass is going to be too hard. Um, so what specifically are they going to be doing?
>> Uh, there's planting, there's cleaning, there's all the all the above that normal park maintenance goes through. They've been doing this for this is I think the third year of this contract. Um, as for what you just said, I don't disagree. Um, I just think that we've been in this contract. It takes time to build up a new uh parks department. Um,
so we're in the process depending on if it's the administration's uh wishes to to move ahead like that. >> Okay. So, >> so there's a lot of work to do. There's always work to do in the parks and also these guys also are on the snow contract. So, all these parks were also taken care of on the snow cont.
>> Okay. Well, when they going to do Ottabbon? Cuz I ain't even been >> Autobomb was done. I have pictures >> when today. >> It was done yesterday. I have pictures from it all day today. >> Autobond Park was done yesterday. >> Autobon Park was done yesterday. >> What time?
>> Peter, what time did they uh text you? >> I don't recall. >> Sorry about that. >> Quite a few times yesterday. >> Quite a few times. I'll get I'll get all that information for you. I'm putting together a report >> because well I know in the daytime it wasn't I don't know if it was in the evening or the afternoon but in the
morning time definitively it wasn't done. >> Okay. I'll I'll check into it and we'll talk to them and I do have some discussions I want to do with the with the uh with the vendor as well um because it wasn't 100% satisfied but we'll we'll I need to have a separate conversation with them. >> Okay. And it's month month to month for
three months right >> for three months as the RFP is being done. We also there's also another one on top of that that takes care of Persian and um uh Persian and and uh and Gateway Park. >> It was I mean does it makes I mean does
it make more sense for one vendor to do all of them as it relates to having a reasonable price? >> They do they do both of them. It something happened between uh before me uh where they added on two more parks. So then the uh contract was kind of
split. Um, so they've just been kind of going forward with it. That's why we're actually wanted to do one RFP for everything, but we had to renew the Persian and the gateway at that same time. So, we caught up in the little time thing. Well, I mean, I guess for the administration, if we can um at
least have the uh conversation as it relates to trying to bring it inhouse, um I I can't imagine, and again, I don't want to diminish anyone's services or anything, but I can't imagine them doing
anything out of that's special that people in DPW can't do. >> I'm open to it, Councilman. We are in the process of doing the budget and everything. So that'd be a time to have that conversation. >> Yes, >> this is Councilwoman Little in W E. Um
I, you know, I would I would like to agree with uh Councilman Gilmore about uh the potential benefits of bringing this in house and I'm really encouraged to hear that uh that's something that you're already looking into. Um, you know, I I I think it probably makes
sense to do 3 months in the meantime to allow, you know, time for that transition. Um, I can't speak to the other parks. Um, but I I have met with members of the Hamilton Park Conservancy and uh they expressed an interest in um
so so this is a landscaping company, right? um they expressed an interest in having um people with more knowledge of horiculture. And my thinking is that if we were to bring it in house, we could have um we could be more hands-on with
sort of like what their area specialty is. And you know, I I know Hamilton Park, for example, continuously has um issues with the grass and um you know, just it it feels like not only could we have um these B city jobs in the future
potentially, but also we could maybe have um greater greater oversight over exactly what it is, what we're looking to get out of it. >> Sure. That that all sounds great. Uh Don Jimo is now on our team. She is a specialist in that area. Um, we take a
lot of advice from her as well. Hopefully with building her team up that way we can beautify all the parks. Uh, there's a lot of work that we can do in there. These can be all award-winning parks from Southside all the way up to the heights. So, anything any support, any of that, I am definitely happy about
that. >> Thank you. >> So, um, this is Councilman Lavaro. Hi, Keith. >> Yeah, >> welcome back. >> So, this is monthtomonth the um, is there a bid out currently? is that uh >> the RFP is uh it's still in the process.
Uh uh yeah. >> So uh I have the information for it, but yeah, we're we're there. >> Right. So So I'm just setting resetting kind of level setting expectations. So, um, there'll be a there's a bid, there'll be a contract award and then
we'll be probably in a in a service contractual service for the next year for good amount be able to build our uh >> opposed to inhouse at that >> which we need some time to definitely build up though. >> Yeah. >> Have to hire people who still need to >> we're looking at about uh 12 months to
12 to months before we could even talk about >> that's that's the safest bet. >> Yeah. Um, and then my other question is really to the to the BA and um, so this is monthtomonth. We were talking about the last monthtomonth for the PT. So are we going
to be seeing a claim coming before the council at a future meeting on this? Um, and I hazard the answer is well I'd like to hear the answer. >> No, there wouldn't be a thing coming >> because you're authorizing it.
Well, they'll be >> my point. The difference is we're actually authorizing it here. If we if we pass this, we're going to authorize it, but the other one was not authorized by the city council. And that's why we went monthtomonth for I'm sorry to beat a dead horse. I'm going to beat it till
it's dead dead. And uh um we need to not be approving those uh those contracts. This is the the appropriate way to do it. We're a little a month about a month behind, but that's okay. I mean, it's month to month at this point. Um, but uh, I just wanted to to flag that and
make sure that we clear about that. >> I appreciate it, Councilman. >> Thank you. >> Good to have you back, Councilman. >> Thanks, C. >> Um, I I do want to just say one thing. I just want to acknowledge the uh, Division of Parks for um, uh, for the work they've done over the last three days. We're a little bit separate than
uh, DBW. Um, uh, it's been three days in the parks and the crews were out early, stayed late. Um they did all the parks and the paths and uh on all the public spaces and I just wanted to make sure that was on record. >> Yeah. I say thank you. Thank you so much. >> Have a good night. >> Well, director I think you have uh
>> Thank you. >> You have a question. Okay. >> Park neighborhood. I'm sorry. Were you saying >> Oh, go ahead. >> Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association specially uh shared that you have been proactive and doing exceptionally well. So, thank you so much for your work. >> That means a lot. Thank you.
Um, yes. Th Thank thanks to the uh parks employees. Uh, just quickly, is this the same contractor uh that a couple years ago was responsible for cutting down a ton of plant life in at Riverview Park? Because I know uh folks at Riverview
were really really upset when landscapers just did excessive cutting and trimming. Um, so I just wanted to see is this >> Yeah, the answer is yes. Okay. >> Yeah, I think this was the same one. There about three years ago. that was their first year on the contract. Um the uh Riverview Park made sure that it
wouldn't happen again. >> Okay. So, actions have been taken. They they know what to do. They know their parameters of what kind of Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, director. >> Okay. >> All HHS. >> Good evening. Council President, new and
returning council members, uh congratulations to all of you and looking forward to working with you and uh working with you for the first time to looks like most of you. Uh so uh I am Paul Kate, director of disease prevention for health and human services and acting director of injury prevention
for health and human services. Uh tonight I have uh agenda number 10.30, resolution 26038. This is a resolution authorizing the renewal contract for uh Dr. Gonzalez, our chief medical officer uh doing
business as Lifod LLC. The term of this contract is one year commencing January 1st of 2026 to 1231 of 2026. Uh just as from uh background, this essentially allows the city clinic to perform its SDI testing, HIV testing,
immunization services, and our civil surgeon exams through uh immigrant affairs uh under his guidance and through his medical license. >> What was the number again? >> Resolution uh 26038 agenda 10.30.
Any questions I can answer for you? >> Questions? That was easy. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> Laura, tax assessor's office. >> Good afternoon, council members and council president, and congratulations
to the new members. I'm Laura Takuri, the city assessor. Um I'm here for one resolution item number 10.3 resolution number 26-11 resolution granting the veterans exemption on black 29404
60 for the property at 60 LEC for the property local property of taxation pursuant to the NJSA 544-3 properties owned by 100% disabled veterans are eligible for 100% exemption on their primary residence. Therefore,
I'm requesting the municipal council to authorize the tax collector to refund or cancel the amount in taxes of $1,220.82 for two months of 2025. Any questions? >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you,
Drew Bankard. Good afternoon, Council President, council members. Uh, congratulations to everyone. My name is Drew Bangart. I'm the acting director of the Department of Infrastructure. I have two items for you
today. The first of which is item number 3.2, 2 ordinance 26-00002. This is a first reading ordinance for disabled parking. Um, just to maybe familiarize you a little bit, there is
always a committee that's set up to vote on these things. Um, for the disabled parking per applications made to the city, um, the committee met in November. This didn't have time to make it through the first and second reading with the
last um administration. So, these are going before you all today um just to be codified and and put into the city ordinance as legitimate spaces. >> Questions? >> Next.
And the next item is 10.7 resolution 26-015. This is an amendment to the agreement with the New York waterway for the um Port Liberte Ferry service. Um based on
the original authorization, the level of service has increased. Um we do have a grant to cover the amount $325,000 to continue the services through um basically June July 3rd it would end.
>> Any questions? >> Yes. Uh this is council person. Um is this grant specifically directed exactly toward um this service or is it a a grant that could be used in other places? Uh this one in particular is is only for this uh ferry service.
>> Okay, great. And um I just also wanted to know uh going forward because grants that's okay council. Um you know because grants are oneoffs um what's the plan for NYway's long-term financial stability? Um, also if we plan on
increasing funding for them as a city, whether through grants or otherwise, can we get some guarantees in terms of fair stability for riders? Um, you know, is the next contract that we have with NY Waterways already underway? I know I'm giving a couple different questions
right now, but yeah, I'm just curious about, you know, what's next for this contract? >> Not a problem. Um, I will admit that I'm kind of taking over the role of um the transportation planning director who uh just finished up with the city on
Friday. Um there are are plans in motion to, you know, obviously go for more grants. Um, we've been looking at teaming up uh with the Bayon um potential Bayon ferry service and and
adding that to the route with uh New York waterway to help stabilize you know the fairs and you know keep this something that's sustainable and I could definitely get you more information from the team back in my office. >> Thank you. That would be great. I would
love any information that transportation has. >> Thank you. director, what is the ticket price for uh Fort Birthday Fairies to New York City? >> I think currently it's it's less than $10, I think, down at that location.
It's somewhere between $6 and $9. >> Okay. And um so what happens in case of fairies going from downtown Exchange Place and Hobukin to the city and then portly birthday fairies? Why are they
just getting grant for that? particular area. Just trying to understand why we need grants for just Port Liberty, not downtown and Hobukin and other places. But a people are special. No,
>> because why? >> Um this this ferry terminal ceased to exist um when New York waterway solely operated that. So the city looked into ways of reinstating it, you know, as a
viable option for commuters down there and sought the grants and and kind of made it happen with uh agreements with the actual property owner that still owns the the terminal slip itself. So that's why this grant was focused on that one location.
>> So you're assuming this is going to continue for years to come? Uh definitely not assuming that but definitely looking into ways to make make it exist in in the >> population is increasing there a lot of people are moving to that part of the
city. So we feel that there will be lot more people commuting so will that change they will be independent enough or any idea or if no that's fine just curious to learn about that. No, we I we have plans to,
you know, keep that a viable location. Um we're talking to the developer about allowing there's going to be a parking deck in the area to allow public parking there likely at a fee, but to help um we're looking to add city bike stations proximate to the ferry so that there's,
you know, other ways of getting down there, multimotal and and then, you know, hopping on the ferry and taking that over to New York. Director um Michael Griffin here. Um are we looking to continue to seek these
grants? I see um we received a grant for $4 million for this. Are we looking at um going after that again? >> Yeah, this specific one may not be available, but anyone that we could use to to help subsidize subsidize this, we
would look into. uh this this grant was more focused uh related relation to COVID but you know anything that we can get we will go for. >> So is this American Rescue Plan dollars is it unspent at this point? Are we
still spending COVID money? Is that this is federal money right? this this grant still has funding in that grant account. Um, beyond anything else with my department, I I don't know.
>> Can Can we get balances on that that account to see where we where where that stands and and and what what is the timeline for spending this? because I I read in the news that uh the our pre president is use that term loosely but
uh that he's trying to take that money back and claw it all back from our local municipalities. So can we get some details on that? >> I can get you the this account for sure. >> Yeah, for the new account I'll have uh director Bangard help with that. Um,
additionally, we have been very diligent trying to spend any previous or uh any money that was linked to previous years from federal dollars. You'll notice that there's two resolutions, I believe, on this agenda tonight um for CDBD funding that we're trying to spend as quickly as
possible for that exact reason. >> Um, this is Councilwoman Little and Ward E. I am just trying to understand better the nature of this subsidy. So it sounds like we are not actually subsidizing the
ticket prices for commuters but rather we are helping New York waterway make a certain threshold of profit such that they operate this port liberte station. Is that a correct understanding?
>> Uh to my knowledge yes. Um there is a subsidy. the the ticket prices are less than they were prior to this city, you know, kind of rein or working to reinstate this ferry terminal. So, um there there is a portion that is subsidized
and and it is a smaller fair than what existed in the past. >> Okay. And thank you. And the vision is that, you know, we're doing these other things like the city bike station and and things like that so that
in the near future hopefully this subsidy is not required and that New York waterways will be happy to run the Port Liberte Ferry without subsidy from,
you know, I I understand it's a grant right now, but you know, I'm I'm I have, you know, serious reservations about using taxpayer dollars to subsidize this very serving a very limited affluent portion of Jersey City, um rather than
potentially other transit options throughout Jersey City. So, um do we have sort of a timeline on, you know, when those other factors might make it possible for this ferry station
to operate without needing a subsidy? Um, I'd have to look into some of the construction down there to see what those timelines are for um the parking deck and agreements that would need to be made, things of that nature. Uh, this particular
um agreement with New York Waterway does end July 3rd. So, I mean, that paints a little bit of the timeline. And the the city bike station is already ongoing. uh because we don't own the property, we'd have to enter into an agreement
with the property owner to site a location down there. It's the area is also in flux with, you know, future streets that would be dedicated to the city but haven't been done yet. So there there's, you know, a couple hurdles that we need to clear first.
>> Thank you. Yeah, the overall goal is to increase ridership to make it, you know, sustainable and stand on its own without any um involvement with the city subsidizing. >> Thank you. >> Do do we know what the wrership is at currently and what it needs to get to
for us not to use subsidies? >> Uh I don't have that exact information. I do know since the inception um we're at around 100,000 rides. annually. >> That >> is that rides like trips or ridership
numbers of people? >> Riders a month, a day, a week. >> That's since um the inception of the agreement. So that was May 2023. So a little less than 3 years. 100,000 rides.
>> 100,000 >> in the last >> boat rides, not not number of people on the boats. >> That's based on the ticket. 100,000 purchase tickets >> tickets. Okay. Oh, >> so if you can get more clarification on
this that will be great. Director I also feel there are developers they are developing and their unique selling point in that area is you get fairies right from Port Liberte to New York City. How are they contributing? Are
they contributing something towards this? because um I'm new so trying to understand I feel instead of taxpayers money we should ask developers who are developing left right and center there
and not giving back to the community and selling on this point a major point that transportation is right there so just when you dig deeper if you can get answer that would be wonderful thank you director >> certainly and the last question and I I
know you're full of uh questions that you're going to help get us answers to. So, I appreciate that. But um my understanding is that part of the uh request for more money that NY Waterways has given us is due to ridership increasing 38%.
Um I think I have that number right. I'm just wondering what the relationship is between that ridership increase and the need for more funding. Is it cuz they needed to bring more boats because the boats were so full that they had to increase rides or is it just they need
more staff on each ferry per because of the increased riders? So I'm curious like what the where the need for more money is coming from exactly. >> Okay. I'll have to get clarification from the team. I know it it's derived from the original contract from 2023
that the language in there in included this level of service. So in 2023 it was you know this base level of service because that increased. That's why you know this extra money came into play. But I'll have to get you the exact details.
>> Thanks director. If I'm understanding correctly, we've got a three-year contract. Um, it's expiring in July and we have we paid for the entire three-year contract
and now we're increasing the amount today with this resolution uh because of some other costs related to the cost of service. Is that >> Yeah, it's the the level of service we're we're at today
has triggered this increase, you know, and to fulfill from now until the end of the contract, we need this extra money to to keep the level of service where it is. I I would request if I can get a copy of
the um original authorizing resolution um and any subsequent amendments to that contract and the amendment um as well as uh um how they were funded which should be in the resolution. But if you could
just make that simple for me by just clarifying, was it all paid for through American Rescue Act uh Plan Act money or is it uh did we use other sources? Yes. To to my understanding, getting caught up on on this item. It was all funded through the
grant. Um this $325,000 will also come from the same grant and there's still additional funding left in the grant um that was planned for you know ferry terminal upgrades and things of that nature which you know can can then be programmed into something else
if if we want to continue the service. >> Okay. If you can just verify that for me with where the funding came from the past. >> Yes. Um, and then if I can to the to the BA and your office at the again on the American Rescue Act, the balance, but also if you can give me pastic past draw
downs on that, what we've what we spent our is our $4 million allocation. Is that uh >> double check, but I I don't off the top of my head, but yes, I could. >> Yeah, if you could provide uh detail on that. Thanks. >> Any other questions?
Thank you, director. >> Thank you. Director Anderson. >> Good evening, council president, members of the council. My name is Deja Anderson and I'm the director of the division of community development and that's housed inside of the department of housing,
economic development, and commerce. I have three resolutions for you today. The first one is agenda item 10.5 and that's resolution number 26-013 and this is a resolution to authorize the business administrator to execute
the discharge of a mortgage encumbering the property at 422-424 Holiday Street here in Jersey City. Um, this item was actually brought before council previously on September the 10th, 2025 via resolution 25-589.
Um, after we came up with this number, um, the attorney that was representing the buyer did ask us to recalculate the payoff amount. So, I did send all the information to the real estate appraisal
company um that our office is contracted with and they did perform a new appraisal and provide me with an updated report and therefore I'm making a change um for the repayment amount which was
initially $110,13759 to the updated number of 911 $1,13759 >> so initially as I understand the the first calculation was also done by the same people right
>> um no it was not in my review of office procedures and the staff that were working on this task it seems like they utilized the previous procedure of using the assessment ratio that we were getting from the tax assessor's office and they did not forward this
calculation to the appraisal company as required by office policy and procedure. So it was a internal glitch. That is correct. And it So it went from 107 to now 90. >> It went from 110 $110,13759
to $91,13759. >> Okay. So I guess the bigger question is how many how many um deduction properties that we did do the discharge on follow that same
formula versus following what the current formula is. Um there will be a distinction in the time that the office did contract with the appraisal company to begin providing us with an updated appraisal and allow us to come with this
calculation. I do believe in my research and my work with the compliance team in the office that this was an one-off error. >> Okay. Now, Deja, just for I mean, I'm privy to these departments, but just for the other council people, mainly the
atlarge uh people, um if you can just explain briefly um the situation with these 955 houses, uh where where are we at with the reassessment and recapture amount?
In the nutshell of me doing a very high-level explanation of what this 955 process is, this was a situation where the state has a mandatory recapture program in reference to their affordable
housing projects, mostly in the home ownership realm. um where the city did adopt some of that language and co-mingle those documents with um items coming out of the division of community development from federally funded
affordable housing projects. um where we stand right now in reference to that. We are in communication and working with the law department based on information um coming out of the state of New Jersey allowing us as the municipality to have
greater control and decide how we are going to calculate and recapture any repayments due. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So my question is we're still doing recalculations with the 955 homeowners
>> at this time. Correct. Yes, we are. >> Okay. And do we have a anticipated time when we can reach out to the homeowners and let them know what the recalculations are? Because I I you know, just from personal experience
dealing with homeowners, they're like it's a big headache for them. and and you know, you got some people that want to sell their properties. Um but you know, if they do, they're not getting anything really for it. So, do we have a timeline? >> So, understood. At this time, we do not
have a timeline. Um we're waiting just for conversation with, you know, new council, new administration coming in, um corporation council to decide what the path forward on behalf of DCD is going to be. Well, we have we don't have a exact
timeline, but we have made some headway as it relates to um meetings we had with the specific ratios and stuff like that because to to to Mike's point, we're doing one now um
that had we not interveneed, the calculation would have been different. >> Correct. um which is emphasized by this corrective resolution that we are doing today where the number is less in what
uh the residents had to recapture. We also know via that court case that the city was involved in that it did change. So the city of Jersey City did use a far more favorable recapture calculation than what the state required in the first place. All homeowners that were in
properties where their restricted periods have expired were eligible to come talk to us in the office for us to conduct a recapture um analysis and provide them with a tenative repayment amount would be. Again, given this new
information coming in from the state and allowing the municipality to set our own policy and procedures, that again could change and become even more favorable to the constituency here in Jersey City. And and also um what we found out was happening um working with some of these
homeowners is when the contract was up, they were being assessed at full market rate. Um is that something you can speak to or >> um that is not and would likely defer to the law department because tax assessments is out of the realm of DCD.
>> Okay. Thank you. law department. Y'all ready or no? Give John the mic, Britney. Come on, John. >> And and and um just just to to um clarify what I'm talking about, I did work with um a family. We went to the
county to do a tax assessment and they told them to come back because they were working on recalculations. I think we might be talking about something possibly a little different here. You're talking about the 955 restricted units that were getting assessed at their full market value for
the purpose of paying taxation. Is that what you're asking about? Yeah, we have been working on that. That there was litigation on it. I would have to check with our tax appeals council to see if that's actually been resolved or not yet. But yes, we're we're aware of the issue.
So, can we um I guess just maybe send a memo around to the council on where we are with that because we're starting to get the questions again with the uh new council coming in and we need to be able to respond to residents and let them know what the statuses of the whole 955 situation.
>> Sure. So, the 955 situation because I think we might be conflating potentially two different things. uh the HMFA just updated their regulations that gave municipalities the ability to decide whether they wanted to continue to take back the full 95%
difference or if you wanted to take nothing back. So, we would need to adopt an ordinance on that to put it into our code what the the calculation is going to be. Um, that's a discussion that we should have with the administration and amongst yourselves. And soon as you're
ready to know to move on that, I know Councilman Gilmore has been very eager to do that and I'm available to all of you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Deja. >> Deja, I want to thank you. Um, I know I've been pestering you a lot with this
uh with these calls for like the last um three years. Um, but I am I I'm glad. I think we've seen a lot of progress. Um, while everything isn't always worked out, I think that the homeowners are
going to be way more happier with where we at today versus where we were when we started. Um, so thank you for that. >> Um, you're very welcome. And I just want to note uh your outreach to our office
is never a pester and we appreciate your advocacy on behalf of the constituents of Jersey City. >> Um the next item that I have for you is item 10.10 and that's resolution 26-018. Um and that's a resolution awarding
community development block grant funds under our public facilities category out of fiscal year 2022. unallocated funds. Um, and also authorizing the execution of a subreient agreement with St.
Joseph's School for the Blind for improvements um, at 761 Summit Avenue in Jersey City. Um, so brief highle explanation, they were in dire need of a lighting project at the
Concordia House. So, this project includes installing LED recess lighting, upgrading the electrical system, and rehabilitating the interior of the facility. Um, which is going to provide bright, effective, and efficient lighting throughout the interior of the
property for the clients who are all visually impaired and multi-disabled residents. Um, and this project does is eligible. It meets our national objective of benefiting low to moderate income persons through a selected
limited clientele criteria. Okay. Um the award amount for this project is $142,827. >> Okay. Question. >> I have a couple of questions if I may. Um first of all, you're you're the director of H um community development. Yes,
>> that is correct. all the documentation saying Jade Wyatt just so you know. So >> um I was out on a FMLE she was acting director at that time who did sign and put forth this documentation um with appropriate signature. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. that um the second thing
with regard to this is uh can you just explain to me um um the process by which uh someone's funded or awarded grantees and this is more for the public and um and how how you arrived at selecting St.
chose school for the blind. >> Um this is a very lengthy selection process. Um what I'll say twofold. First fold is we are looking forward to reaching out with each of you as
individual council people and your aids and providing an in-depth tutorial on the division of community development and how we make these decisions, what our funding sources and amounts are. Um and we do host monthly openhouse to educate the community on our processes,
procedures, and how we go forth. Um so there is five-year consolidated planning that's required. There's annual action plan that is required. There's public consultation that is required. There's public survey that's required once all of that information is put together. Now
for our public facilities funding specifically, that is done on an open rolling application. So at any time any agency or my internal city partners that are looking for funding for public facilities projects that will benefit
the community as a whole um are entitled to apply. Um once they apply based on the availability of funding and the scoring of their project, recommendations are made to DCD to our director of HEDC and then we move
forward and bring these recommendations to you after consultation with the administration. >> Is there a committee or is it the who's um involved in reviewing those applications? >> Um we use a platform called Neighborly. So it's scored online and our initial
scoring committee is done by the team inside of DCD. >> It's the DCD staff team. >> Yes. For specifically for our public facilities projects, we do have numerous processes for our different funding sources.
>> Okay. Um, and is there like um recommendations or like do they after they review and do their assessment and whatever rubric they use, do they do you have records of that to to show and do applications get denied? >> Um, applications are denied. Typically,
we deny applications based on thresholds. Um, if they don't have those items, we don't move forward with the application. Um, also applications can be denied based on the availability of funding. someone comes and asks me for $8 million and there's only one million in the account, we will deny the
application. >> I'm gonna defer to my colleagues and then I'll come back at the next one, I think. >> Sure. >> A brief question. Good to know these improvements are going to get made at at the um at St. Joseph's. Uh is this all an internal project to the building? Is
there any kind of construction that would be on Summit Avenue? any kind of improvements that would need to disrupt service on Summit Avenue um in terms of like wiring and things on the outside. >> Um there this is all internal work to the building, nothing to the outside. Um
and then we do do an in-depth review from all funding sources here in DCD which does require a comprehensive environmental review. So we check all other impacts associated whether that's noise, pollution, all of those things and that's documented and I can provide
that information upon request. >> Hello. Thanks so much. >> You're welcome. Now, do you do you know what um impact this may have on the kids or are they looking to do this work when the kids are out or that's out of your
>> um that is not part of the scope that was reviewed in reference to how they're going to remove the kids. Likely they're not going to be able to do that construction with them there. But I can follow up with the team at St. Joseph's to provide you a direct response to that
question. >> Thanks. >> Um and the last item that I have for you is agenda item 10.11 and that is resolution 26-019. Um, and this is a resolution to
authorize unallocated funds coming from fiscal year 2023 of our community development block grant for public facilities. Um, and for the execution of a memorandum of understanding with the department of public safety, division of
fire for the purchase of one skeer highwater rescue vehicle. Um, the amount for this is $515,000. >> I have two questions. >> Yes. >> Um, and this is more to the to the BA.
Um, you mentioned earlier that these funds like the American Rescue Act that there was some timing on having to spend these dollars. Does that is this the the grant you're referring to that we have to spend these dollars and is there a
timing issue here? >> I would say I I'll jump in there and provide that clarification. Um we do and uh to you know Mr. Horton's credit have timesensitive funding in the office currently. Um we do have community
development block grant titled CV for corona virus funds that are in our possession. Um we have about $68,000 of that funding that has been um currently unexpended and unallocated. However, we
have identified a project to allocate those funds which would mean 100% of our CDBGCV dollars have been allocated and we are online to spend them timely with our deadline of September 1st, 2027 to have all of those funds expended. Um,
we're also in possession of home ARP, that's the Home American Rescue Plan dollars, which have a deadline to be expent by September the 30th of 2030. And that's $6.5 million for housing for homeless and connected services. Um,
these >> this funding is not that >> these fundings are not that funding. This is coming from our CDBG public facilities from our 2023 grant year. Um, and just for me to be clear on this, this isn't necess this is
us awarding them the funds. We did reach out um to get some ideas so we would ensure that we are engaging in cost reasonleness when trying to decide how much we wanted to allocate for this project um to public safety's credit and
in collaboration with us and trying to close gaps here in the community. We wanted to ensure that we had a rescue vehicle that's going to meet the needs of our ADA community. So this would allow in areas and us undergoing these environmental reviews and sustainability
reviews. We understand that flooding is going to be a major issue in the city and we needed to be able to ensure that we can evacuate our um disabled community members just as effectively and efficiently as we can evacuate anyone else out of the community. So the
need is grounded in the data and the services that we're currently able to provide. Um, this resolution is what is going to allow us to set up the grant account line and allow public safety to draft and issue their RFP to go out to
get bids for this service. >> So, I I'm going to I made this point before in the past that um this is fire a fire vehicle fire apparatus of some sort, right? ADA compliance. Yes.
Um, you know, while it may technically meet the requirements of the CDBG program and the public facilities program, um, the for all other types of public safety equipment um, and capital
costs, we generally use uh, capital dollars, bond dollars on that. And um and we do it for uh for vehicles and other places that are not in uh W F W A I'm assuming this is W B here. So it
meets kind of the eligibility 255 Carney um Avenue around that. Um and and we don't use that to because it's not eligible to use those funds if if we housed it at uh Marin Boulevard firehouse or something like that. Right. So which I think is gone now actually.
I'm not sure where that stands, but um but uh that that that being said, uh um I would I would advise and urge the administration to look at using capital dollars um for these types of purchases.
Um it used to come up where parks would be funded through CDBG dollars um if it was in Ward F or Ward A. Um and I advocated against that, not because it shouldn't be funded. It should be funded, but it should be funded in my estimation just like every other park and treated the same like every other
neighborhood and resident with capital dollars. Um those do these dollars in my estimation can be used for other purposes that more directly serve the purposes of CDBG which is um addressing
essentially poverty amilaration um and addressing the the the needs of uh low-income communities uh more directly. Um, we could be building, and I I remember making these arguments before, is we could be building a job training facility. We could be building youth
recreation centers, $500,000. Um, we could build, yeah, the recreation center in W A, right? This could be a lot of different things that we could do um with these dollars rather than use capital dollars um rather than using CDBG dollars um for this, we could use capital dollars. Um that's just me and
my my high horse. And uh I'm going to um I'll end it with that and just urge the administration to take another look at this. Um if it's if it's not urgent to spend the dollars these dollars right now, I'd ask you to consider reconsider that and look into um reappropriating this to other projects that might be
more worthy um or may may more directly affect and impact the lives of Jersey City residents on on uh on a low-inccome resident on a more day-to-day basis in that sense. >> Yeah. And I I just want to jump on that high horse with Rolando and um you know
say that you know that we have a lot of um nonprofits in the community who are running on shoestring budgets that that um you know need the assistance um >> and and you know to to to make sure they're running their programs and and
to take care of the community and you know community is in the title. Um so when it comes to uh buying equipment you know for for city services I I think we should be looking at uh capital expenditure.
>> Guess the bigger question Peter is um one I mean I don't what what is a sker high water rescue vehic what what is it in a nutshell? In a nutshell, it's a vehicle that can
kind of I guess travel through high water or flood zones and pick up or res be used to rescue individuals that may be trapped in flooded areas and traverse through flooded areas should we have an incident like at the medical center when it flooded. Um I know the medical center has taken some precautions about that but there's always a concern where
because a lot of dur city are in a area subject to flooding because of the changes in the environment and global warming you know we just always want to make sure we're prepared as possible to have access to the equipment like that in the event of some kind of you know tragedy or disaster or anything that would occur.
>> So we we don't have access to this type of vehicle right now as we speak. >> We'd have to have fire to confirm that but my understanding is we don't have this specific vehicle. Um, I'd have to get confirmation about what kind of equipment they might have in general to address those situations. Um, but I can get that from Councilman.
>> They have I'm sure they have something. >> I'm sure they they have numerous vehicles. I just don't know what the specifications are, what you know, what kind of environments they can handle. I guess the bigger question is I mean with public safety budget what it is why like
why can't they get why why do they have to utilize >> this wouldn't be through the public safety budget if we were to purchase this like the councilman said it'd be through most likely through capital dollars bonding things of that nature um I'll defer a little bit to Deja on this
but I think part of the intention was um as the councilman kind of said earlier and I want to be kind of limited what I put on the record with this but There is a concern that with the changes in Washington and things happen around the country that if we leave funding on the table for too long, it might get taken back and we won't be able to use it for
anything. Um, so I'll have a conversation with the director and see if there's anything else we might be able to devote this to and a quick I mean I just I don't know how to cut your account. >> I thought you needed help. My bad. >> No, no. I'm just saying I know a lot of CDB funding there's specific
requirements on it. I'm sure there's notice requirements. He has to go through a process. I just want to make sure that we could do that in a time period where it would not jeopardize the funding or would in a situation where the money might get taken back. >> No, I mean $500,000 can go a long way in in in the community with with with the
nonprofit serving it. >> I'll get you an update by tomorrow and we'll determine if we make any adjustments and we could draw it. >> I just just want to say Peter is it timesensitive grant >> timesensitive grant to my understanding and da please correct me if I'm wrong.
Um the concern is I think to a degree will that money be there if something in Washington or nationally would change. >> Thank you. >> So um all of this will be covered when we go in our individual meetings and go through in-depth tutorials on how all of
this grant funding works. Each of our different grant lines have different periods of performance and different times to spend. So theoretically all of our grant funding is timesensitive. And then just in reference to the note about nonprofits because I think this was a conversation that came up a lot with the
last council and there was a lot of education and conversation that needed to happen around this. Our nonprofit funding is capped. So we cannot just expand or spend all of our CDG money towards our nonprofit community. But I
can go in depth and provide you with further information. And all of these ideas are great and we actually welcome it and want your input and your feedback. So please feel free to read our five-year consolidated plan and our annual action plan and provide us with
feedback in writing so that we can include it in the plan. >> Thank you. >> Director, a question. Did the what was the origin of the the Skeer High Water Rescue? Was that something that the fire department requested? Um I think it was more of a collaboration meeting and
conversation of us reviewing um through DCD. So our lens here is about community partnerships, community resiliency and community improvements. And we were noting areas where we weren't meeting our objectives to focus on our LMI
disabled community. So, for instance, over in our other boardroom where we're located in annex 2, we made sure that we have hearing assisted technology. So, when you're having meetings like this, residents who are using hearing aids can hear what you're saying directly from
the microphone into their ears. Those are the things we want to encourage civic participation and civic engagement and us just acting as active advocates for our LMI and disabled community in the city. >> Well, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. I'm just reading up on the Skeer
high water rescue vehicle. It's designed to evacuate populations during high water rescues, emergency transportation situations, evacuations and rehabilitation and extensive scenes. So, just wondering what what the need was that the city had for this vehicle uh and and highlighting both what
council people Griffin and Lavaro stated about better use of the money. >> I I can share additional information and reporting later. >> Great. >> Yeah. Other questions? Thank you, director. >> You're welcome.
>> Director Mariam, I didn't Oh, >> is that Tanya? Oh, yeah. That's You got your It's cold in here. >> Sean, why it's so cold here? >> Wanted to wear my best for today. >> Hi, Tanya. New administration not taking
care of >> Tanya Mar planning division. Just so you know, city planning and zoning have been playing Guess Who of the new city council. So, anybody in zoning should be able to know who you are at any time. So, I'm ready today. Um, I'm here for an
ordinance, but uh I am also being told that the administration would like to pull it so I can talk about it. That's ordinance 3 item 3.3 on your agenda. Ordinance 26-03
for the Liberty Harbor Amendment. >> Tanya, can you give us a quick overview? Is it We're planning to bring this back? >> Yes. So, the intention is because there's a lot of moving elements to it. We have a new council. We want the planning department to have a more in-depth conversation with the council members. So, we'll do a brief
introduction of the item tonight just so you can hear what generally it's about. Um if anyone have any opinions of it or think that might affect them, then we have the next two weeks where I'll pull it um at the council meeting tomorrow and we'll reintroduce it at the following council meeting, you know, depending on the council conversations.
>> I'll ask the council members to hold any questions um and we can discuss with Tanya offline, but she'll give us a brief overview of the changes now. So, um I actually want to I I believe we
met with some of you and hopefully we'll meet with um you a little bit further, but I want to kind of give you just a primer as to how redevelopment plan how we'd get here. So, the council has to authorize the planning division to create an amendment or even to create a redevelopment plan. A resolution was
issued by the council last year, 2025, I believe, early 2025. Um we then go ahead we study we propose the amendment working typically with the person who's requesting the amendment. It can be council who requests the amendment or it
is typically an applicant developer. Um then that amendment will go before planning board and the planning board will approve to recommend or not recommend to the city council but ultimately it is the city council who votes in the legislation zoning
amendment. Um, this is the first reading. So, it has already gone to planning board. It went to planning board in October of 2025. This is the Liberty Harbor Redevelopment Plan. And it is um to basically take an area that's the residential area of the
Liberty Harbor Redevelopment Plan, which for the most part, if you're not familiar with it, is industrial, the um park itself, Liberty Park itself, and the golf course. Um, and this is one area that's uh designated for residential. It's been designated for
quite some time, at least 20 years. Um, this proposal is to move one tower closer to the water where there were currently townhouse structures proposed. Um, so they will not be doing townhouse structures any longer. Instead, it will
be replaced with two towers. Now, they'll go down from five towers to six towers, but it goes from 11 structures to six. So they're taking all of the floor area and the units that would have been from the townhouse and the other
tower and kind of making it more efficient. Now the trick is that of course the number of units and the gross floor area that are permitted within that plan are not being changed. So there's no trigger for the inclusionary
zoning ordinance per 187. Oh, Tanya, if you can just speak to the actual >> I'm glad I'm here. Last one. >> The just so the council members know just if you could speak to the actual area
like the location wise. >> This is right I guess it would be north of the golf course. Um it's area it's very much directly adjacent to the golf course. I believe it's a parking lot now. >> What a store. Wait for
>> No, it's in the park. It's It's not It's not where that storage thingy is at, right? Because that's directly across storage. >> Maybe the storage is across >> across across from the storage if not mistaken. So >> So is it >> in the same area with the golf course is
the golf course property. It's on that same side. >> Okay. >> Is it directly next to that um walkway that sort of goes next to the golf course? So >> yes, this is that >> is this firemen wanting to put a bunch of tall buildings right up against that
walkway basically. >> So right now the proposal for that area are town houses. Um and yes, the proposal will be to take the town houses that were um being built further east,
I'm sorry, further south and move that to the to further along the along the water. um basically creating kind of a more efficient there's there's other things that are happening in Yemen. So the tower structures there's
about five towers now. Um there's an entire base that was supposed to be parking. So now the base of that parking will be removed and will be put as a singular structure parking garage where the towers would have been where the tower would have been. Um they they
thought that Liberty Park was going to be crowded because of a stadium. >> Way do we get a load of these buildings? >> Is that the one with 300 apartments? This is No, this would be the the plan itself allows for a maximum of 2,000 units. Not the
>> Did you say 1,000? >> 2,000 >> 2 and a full build out is two. We could not find any information online about it. So, we're just curious. Um, >> does does planning have any concerns
with this proposal? >> Or are you not allowed to draw and is just doing an overview so let's not put her on the spot right now, but she will be contacting each of the council members to discuss further. I mean even al although the the units and
and the square footage is not changing, this is still um an undertaking. And for the IC, for the ICO not to kick in would be
embarrassing for this administration, especially when we um are here to make Jersey City more affordable. So, uh yeah. Um if this is Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's meet offline. We're taking this off, right?
>> Yes. >> Okay. >> T just a point of clarification. It's a redevelopment plan. the council can write in an affordability mandate. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. And uh the other thing I saw there was a maximum two two parking spots allowed per studio apartment.
>> Um I don't know if it was studio. I know that they're increasing the maximum. >> Yeah, it's 0.5 per each minimum maximum two including for studios, onebedroom, two-bedroom. Obviously, this is not in W C, but I did want to chime in given my own experience with the redevelopment plan on mandatory affordable units and
also I saw that about parking. So, just wanted to bring that up. Yes, the the maximums are being raised now. >> Just a follow-up question. This council person Nephos um when Councilman Zuba says that we can amend uh to make sure
that we get affordability requirements, is that for the entire redevelopment zone or is that specifically for each project that we would make that amendment for? So you are only able to view the scope of what basic I'm only able to review the scope of what you asked me to review which is this
district within the redevelopment residential district within the redevelopment plan. >> So the write in of affordability requirements would be for this district of the redevelopment zone. Correct. >> Should you should you wish to do it. Yeah. >> Thank thank you. >> Um this is Councilwoman Little. Just
just to clarify, they are seeking to move um from town houses further away from the nature walkway to more um high-rise buildings closer to the nature walkway. um given that they're seeking such a change, I I want to piggy back on
what um council members Griffin and Zupa said about, you know, if if they're asking for this change and, you know, I think this would be pretty obtrusive to the enjoyment of the
waterfront walkway and it seems like they're getting out of the ICO on a technicality. Um, so if if we are amending the redevelopment plan, I would propose that we write in mandatory minimums, percentages of affordable housing. So, thank you colleagues for
for raising that. >> Okay. >> And and just to be clear, you know, uh, for the public, we're talking about 2,000 we're talking about 2,000 apartments units. So 20% is 400 affordable housing
units. Thank you, director. >> Facing New York City. >> Okay, that's all I have. Sean, we can uh take it from the top. >> With pleasure. >> All right, our onto our first reading ordinance. Item
3.1, city ordinance 26-001, is an ordinance amending chapter 3, administration of government, article 11, Department of Public Safety, sub article 1, Division of Police, and chapter 160 fee schedule established
subsection 7 fees for the Department of Public Works of the Municipal Code to reform the offduty and public works rental for nonprofit and cultural events. I've been hogging the mic tonight, so I'm going to let our law department give a little brief explanation.
>> This is actually Isaac's, but we're here now. Um, so, um, for introduction, this is, um, what the mayor spoke about. Um, the city will cover a percentage of the cost for all offduty police, traffic enforcers, andor crossing guards, uh,
for specific cultural events. Um, we will cover the administrative costs. Um this excludes marathons, 5Ks, or other runs. Um the cost that the city is proposing to cover is if the event um
total costs are less than $10,000, the city will cover 25% of the cost. And if it's greater than $10,000, the city will cover 50% of the cost. This also adds an administrative fee which will be at the bare minimum $22
um or 10% of the costs of offduty. Uh this excludes from the administrative fee uh nonprofits using city property and also the Jersey City Housing Authority. um they want to simplify as well as
presenting one single invoice so that uh the community groups will not have to go back and forth and have multiple updated invoices. Uh there is a second addition where we're going to do some cost sharing as well along the same vein to cover the percentage of rentals of
equipment, floats, bleachers, and and things like that used for parades. um with the same parameters. If the costs are less than $10,000, we'll cover 25%. Greater than $10,000, cover 50% of the cost. And again, one invoice from the
Department of Public Works. Um some of the items people rent beside the floats, dumpsters, litter patrol, shovels, garbage bags, things like that. They're all listed uh in that portion of the code. So that is what um is being presented. This is a first reading. So
if you have any questions um we can discuss with the administration but those are the major changes. >> Okay. I I have a question. Is this it? >> Okay. Thanks. Uh um can we get clarity on the crossing guard pay that's in
this? Um there's some confusion about whether the crossing guards would be getting $10 an hour for this. Is that $10 on an hour on top of the normal pay as overtime? I'll clarify. I I highly doubt it's $10,
so we'll check to see if it's >> just wanted to make sure. >> Yeah, sorry. >> We were just reading through and and caught that and a little confused. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay, sure. Next.
>> Okay. Items 3.2 and 3.3 were touched on earlier. Item 3.4, 4. City Ordinance 26-004 is an ordinance authorizing the acceptance of block 11612 lot 3, more commonly known by the street address, of 95 Morgan Street, from 95 Morgan Street
Development LLC. >> Questions? >> Is this This looks like a development and then a private street. Oh, the attorney's here. >> Good evening. Uh Tom Lane from Connell Foley. Uh this is related to the development of 107 Morgan Street. Uh
this piece of property, it's a 50 by 100 at the corner. >> Oh, sorry if you can hear me better now. Uh it's a it's a vacant lot that's currently being used by the Boys and Girls Club as their community garden. Uh it's owned by the developers of 107 Morgan Street, which is within this same
block. It's essentially an undevelopable piece of property. It is next to an existing condo. if somebody were to build something there, it would block all the windows on that uh on that that condo building. >> So, in working with uh with city planning to develop 107 Morgan Street,
we agreed to just simply convey this property outright to the city. It's my understanding that the SID is going to take it over. The Exchange Place special improvement district is going to take it over. Um I'm not exactly sure what the intention there is. Uh but it's going to be for a community benefit because
essentially piece of property can't be uh actually built out under the redevelopment plan. Did >> you So my question is if if the Boys and Girls Club is using it for a community garden, why not convey it to them? >> That's a great question. Um I I would I would speak to to I would ask the city.
Um you know, I mean, my understanding is is they're working with the Special Improvement District. nothing stops the city from outright leasing it to the Boys and Girls Club. I know there had been some talk of possibly putting a uh a playground there or even a pocket park. Um but essentially it's just
something that we worked out with the prior administration that uh we have no problem conveying it to the city and we think it's a benefit to uh to the area. >> But the ordinance conveying it doesn't designate whether it goes to Historic downtown or >> That's correct. It's going outright to
the city. what the city with it does with it afterwards. Um that's going to be an act of um the city council. You're going to have to enter into a lease with whoever you want to uh send it to. So, but as of right now, it is our understanding it is going to the SID, but that's up to that's up to the city
council once they >> which SID >> the Exchange Place special improvement district. >> But I mean ultimately it's going to be up to us whoever whoever ultimately gets >> That's correct. Did you say what the land can't be developed?
>> The it's it's a very small par parcel at the corner. Um and it's really en wrapped by an existing condominium building. So there's there's lot line windows on it. Uh if you were to build anything there, it would be to the great detriment of the people who who live in
that building. There would be massive setback issues. I I don't think you could actually under the redevelopment plan as it's written create a developable parcel there. >> So developers care about people views. >> That is interesting. >> I know this is shocking.
>> Yes, that is interesting. Okay. >> Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Item 3.5, city ordinance 26-005 is a franchise ordinance granting
permission to 20 BW LLC by managing member Hanguan Zang allowing the installation of concrete stairs to extend into the right of way beyond boundary lines of lot 38 block 12003
and for and and are for the benefit of lot 38 block 12003 commonly known as 20 Van Wagon Avenue in Jersey City. >> Yes, I have a question. Uh the stairs already impose the public right away. Is
that why there's a franchise being granted? Because it's a narrow block there on wagon. And so I looked at the plans. It didn't look like it was extending beyond where the current stairs are. >> I don't know if we have a members a representative from the organization here. This was not brought by the administration. This was a petition.
>> No, this was actually brought on by my office. We taken all of the >> we taken all of the um franchise and vacation ordinances. But to answer your question, council person, yes, it's because it's a painting on the public right of way. A franchise ordinance is
therefore necessary in order to have that. And unfortunately, the attorney wasn't able to be here today because of the rescheduling of the meeting and then the weather. >> Yeah. My my question would be is do do the stairs that currently constituted
already impede on city property? Otherwise, these stairs are going to be extending into the sidewalk, and it's kind of an odd odd configuration. So, I would I don't want to get into a habit of pulling things, but I'd really like to talk to the applicant. >> Well, we can always uh withdraw it and
bring it back on to the next meeting so we can make sure that the attorney is here for the Africa >> and we can follow up if they're not able to get back to you before introduction, then yeah, >> pull it at that point. >> Just tomorrow, right? >> Better work.
>> Tomorrow is Wednesday. Yes. Just for clarification, will the councilman words just say to pulses one last time so we could, you know, hear that? >> I'm hearing someone else's voice in my head right now. >> All right. Next, Sean,
>> there are no second reading ordinances. Moving on to our public speakers at this time, we have 42. They're still signing up. um are off uh petitions and communications. Council members, especially the newer council members,
these are communications that either come in by via mail or email to my office that I share with the members of the public and also the members of the city council. So, if anyone is looking for a copy of any of these communications, all you have to do is
just let me know and I'll provide you with a copy. And then I'll always ask you if you have any questions or comments on those petitions or communications. There are no officer communications. Office communications would be communications between two city
departments or divisions. Report of directors. Sorry. >> Sean, may I make a request? >> Sure. >> Has there ever been just uh for ease of reading through board uh labels on the different communications and petitions?
So that for instance, you know, 6.6 6 91 Sherman Place. Uh that could have word D labeled on it just for the ease of word council people to be able to identify which petitions and communications pertain to the district. >> That's something that we'll we'll we'll
discuss a little offline. You got to remember councilman these are coming these are communications coming in from you know outside entities not in in inside the city. So that would be a task that would you would create work for my
office in order to try to put these in categories which you know sometimes we have like almost near a hundred of them. So >> understood. I just saw this for some of the resolutions so I was wondering but understood. Thank you. I'll do my reading. >> Thank you.
>> U reported directors. So you see here there's three reported directors. These are executive orders that were issued by the mayor. Sean, can I get copies of all the executive orders? >> Absolutely. I'm also going to have them posted on the city's website under the mayor's office, which which they belong
once the mayor signs them. So, I'll provide copies to all council members, department directors, and obviously place it on the website. Also, you'll also see here if you ever see a letter from a department director, that's what
they'll be listed as. Okay. Claims. And then on to our resolutions. First resolution, item 10.1, city resolution 26-009, is a resolution introducing and approving the 2026 budget of the Jackson
Hill Main Special Improvement District, directing the city clerk to publicly advertise the budget and schedule a public hearing, and directing the tax assessor to prepare an assessment role of the properties within the district based upon the budget. Any
questions? No. >> Hearing none. >> I have one question for Jillian. >> Jillian, if you can just identify yourself for the record. >> Jillian Sergeant Allen. >> Who is Who are you, young lady?
>> I'm the interim executive director for Jackson Hill Special Improvement District. Pardon my hat. Oh, that's Jillian. Oh, how you doing? >> All right, Mike, what's your question? >> So, Jillian, um, in the budget, I saw that, um, there was a you had a line
item for reimbursement from UEZ, >> correct? >> Um, have you guys received any reimbursement? >> Not as yet. There has been a delay um with the state uh dis dispersing the UE
funds funds to EDC, Jersey City Economic Development Corporation. So we were expecting it last October um to begin our reimbursements, but we um it's about 4 months late. >> Okay. Uh, I guess Peter, I can ask you. Do you
know anything about how that works with the state and EDC and >> yeah, I think the best to have the EDC updates you guys or update the council directly to give you all the information. Um, but generally these are funds that release from the state to the EDC and then the EDC then acts as a pass
through to give it to the, you know, SIDS throughout the city. Um, historically there's been a lot of I don't want to say issues but delays at the state level. um changing allocations to the state level. Um so unfortunately we've put we put pressure on them as
much as we can from right you know the municipality but we're somewhat subject to the state and their you know allocations >> and I will say that um director princere has been extremely communicative letting us know as as she's getting information
she shares it with us so we're not in the dark we just expected it a little sooner that's that's it. Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Anyone else? Nothing. >> Any other questions for the director? >> Thank you.
>> Next item 10.2, city resolution 26-010 is a resolution of the city of Jersey City authorizing the cancellation of unexpected grant balance from Johnson allocation of the national opioid settlement.
Item 10.3 was touched on earlier. Item 10.4 Four, resolution 26-012 is a resolution observing and celebrating the 3rd annual Muslim Heritage Month in Jersey City. >> Sean, I'm sponsoring that one. I was just asking we could do at the top of the meeting. I believe there's members
of the community joining us tomorrow to uh celebrate. >> If that's the case, Councilman, I would ask you to read the um resolution into the record for me. And what we'll do is we'll make a motion to move it to the front. Uh we usually what we do is
introduce the first reading ordinances. After we do that, that's when we will ask for a motion to uh defer to that resolution. >> Uh Sean, I have a question on 10.2 actually. >> Okay. >> Um we are we are cancelling funds from
the national opo opioid settlement that um we have not yet spent yet. Is there a reason why we are not looking to find ways to spend them? Because I mean, surely there >> $30 is a need.
>> $36. >> Oh, it's $36. Okay. Thank you. >> We can just say on resolution 10.4. Congratulations, Councilman Zupa. First to the key. First council person to get something on the agenda. Congrats.
Okay. Item 10.5 was touched on earlier. Item 10.6. Resolution 26-014 is a resolution authorizing the submission of strategic plan or the Jersey City Municipal Alliance Grant pursuant to the Governor's Council on Substance Use
Disorder Grant Year July 1st 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Hearing no questions. Items 10.7 through 10.11 were touched on earlier. Item 10.12, city resolution 26-020
is a resolution authorizing the city of Jersey City to apply and accept funds from the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, Division of Criminal Justice on behalf of the Department of Public Safety Police to purchase body
armor 2025 body armor replacement fund. Just a quick question. This is council person at first. Is this fund I was just trying to look at the numbers real quick. This fund has money in it now, but it's insufficient for replacing body armor as necessary. Is the fund
totally depleted? I don't believe it's totally depleted right now, but it needs to be supplemented in order to make the the payment. I believe it's in total $68,000. Let me just double check. Yeah, I believe it's a grant funding in the amount of $68,000 in order to make
this purchase. >> Okay. And uh the grant is applied and for and authorized. We just need to do the final step of authorizing. >> Correct. So the grant is built out ready to be applied for. You have to authorize it. Then we can accept it, move forward
with it. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Okay. Items 10.13 through 10.20 were touched on earlier. Item 10.21, resolution 26-029,
is a resolution updating the award of a contract building automated system controls for city-owned buildings to Stark Tech Services LLC, the successor entity for the Jersey City State Jersey State Controls Company. Sorry, it
has been a long weekend shoveling. Um, item 10. Does anybody have questions on 10.21? 10.22, resolution 26-030 is a resolution authorizing the payment of a claim submitted by Whipple Azerillo
LLC for providing various litigation services. >> And Sean, I can take the next several just to >> Okay, that appreciate that. Brett, >> go through them. Um, council, I did send um a confidential email to all the council members, but for Councilwoman
Little, I sent it to your assistant because I don't have your email yet. Um, so uh I also apologize. These are all payments of claims. We are trying to clean up. Uh these were contracts that were um at some point not renewed throughout the year for litigation services. Um, we are going through this
now to make sure we get everything updated and that our new contracts moving forward um are are in place. Uh, we're also going through putting out our RFQS as well to try to make sure that all our contracts come due at the same time so that we're not going back and
forth. Um, but for 1022, this is a payment of claim for legal services. This is litigation services. Um, these are ongoing matters that we're going to continue to have to defend. Um these are lawsuits involving the alleged um sexual
assault of minors. So that is why we have them with outside counsel. Um for I'm going to skip over 1023 right now because that's a a different settlement. I'll come back to it. Um 1024 also a payment of a claim for legal services. That case has been resolved. So this
will be a final payment to the law firm who handled it. Uh I do hope that we um hire them in the future. They have done a good job for the city. Um, and these are all law firms that responded to our RFQS previously. Um, 1025. Uh, this is a one-time payment in the amount of
$2,852.50. We saw it outside legal guidance on a bankruptcy matter that also had some tax implications um that we needed that outside guidance on. Um, 1026 is also uh payment of a
claim for services rendered in litigation. Um, I did provide a few details about the case. It is ongoing. Um, and a case that we're going to have to continue to defend in discovery. And then 1027 and 1031 go together. It's a
payment of a claim for legal services to the law firm of Antella Caner and Rivera. They are representing um, uh, defendants in a lawsuit stemming from the termination of police officers that tested positive for cannabis. Uh, it's
ongoing. Uh, and we're going to that's why we have 1031, which is putting on a contract so they can continue to represent um a defendant in in that case. And then to come back to 1023,
um this is a settlement we've put on. Uh I apologize, usually we give more advanced notice, but this one is basically payment um of gas and electric service that the city received. There was some back and forth. Um this was
some overlap back in 2021 and 2022 when we were changing providers. Uh the city did receive these services. So we are on the hook to pay for them. Uh we tried to work it out before law uh litigation was
instituted, but then it was. And as part of this settlement, we're able to pay the money owed in installments. Um, so the first installment would be $270,000 and then the next two additional payments in May and August of 2026. Um,
if the council needs more information, just please let me know. >> So, Britney, is it Go ahead. I'm sorry. Uh, is it safe to say that we we don't have a litigation department? Because I mean, I just see that we're paying for a lot of litigation.
>> Our litigation department is down to three people right now. used to fix. >> Um, we also are paying for some of these attorneys, our conflict counsel that we're going to have to hire no matter what where we can't represent all the defendants. But yes, we are very very low on litigation attorneys right now
and we have over 110 active litigation cases >> 110. the the settlement uh agreement. Um what was the total bill on this uh that we >> It was 670,000.
>> The bill itself is 670,000. We're just getting installments on it. >> Correct. And not paying any interest or any fees or things like that. >> And and the failure to pay here was or the reason we didn't pay. Is there an
explanation or is there a >> So the explanation is that um originally this was done through a cooperative. Um unfortunately the person that was handling it at the time is no longer with us. We've gone back and forth trying to figure out what exactly
happened. Um but uh yeah, it was through the cooperative. They thought they had the authorization to continue the service and then they were never told to cease services when we went with a different provider. Is it I guess um did we get bills
and then were they ignored I guess is my question and uh someone just decide not to pay them. Is it >> the bills were going to Steve Miller who' passed away and no one was catching this and there was a lot of confusion around this one for unfortunate reasons.
Um there was a cooperative that we were a part of. we had the full intent of signing on to the contract. It just seemed that somehow it never got communicated to the council and then we found out that we'd been provided all these services. They provided them in
good faith but there was discussions on how much they were actually owed. We came to the settlement amount of uh 760 and called it a day 670 sorry. Then on um 1027 or 26-035,
is it about the uh you said the officers on the uh who sued on because they were uh smoking marijuana or about >> so so what happened at the time is there were officers that tested positive for
marijuana. Um there we had four officers test positive. One tested positive before cannabis became legalized. three tested after. So, there's been a struggle as to whether or not um that should have occurred. Their termination should have occurred. We actually no
longer test for marijuana as part of um the legalization and moving forward and also attorney general directives. Um the United States Supreme Court is actually taking up a similar case in terms of whether or not um people who have
firearms are allowed to um participate in engaging in cannabis activity. >> They were tested before uh before they were employed. is that >> they were employed and they were tested as part of their um general
>> they weren't found to be on duty or anything like that like I >> well I think it's a further discussion as what when the test reveals when you're tested and when um you test positive for it how far back that goes in terms of the exactness of the test
which again this is not going to occur again because we no longer test for it but um we can go through a little bit more of the details about um about it >> how How much can can we get a summary of how much we spent on this and how much we >> I can get that for you because we do
have um a few different attorneys on it because we need to get conflict counsel. So, we'll get you the totals >> and they we're looking to settle with this Britney or No, it's still litigation. No, we can talk about it more offline, but there are a few things that are stalled at the
moment and then um we'll let the council know in a more um substantive substantive memo um about what's going on. >> So, are they looking to get their jobs back? Uh >> oh, okay.
>> Maybe we can uh initiate a close session soon just so we can go through all of the uh you know, current litigation and things. Yeah, if the council wants to do that at some portion, >> right? >> So, >> we'll take it offline.
>> This is I I did have a question. Is it is this still okay to ask or we're moving offline? >> It depends on what >> depends on on the things we shouldn't discuss uh publicly in terms of litigation. >> I would recommend specifically if councilman have individual questions,
you can always contact the law department. they can obviously respond to you individually or if they want to have a group session, you guys have a group session as a special session um which has more protections for that. >> We'll schedule a close session and then we can get more in detail on questions. >> Just just to keep in mind in order to go
into close session, we need to have a resolution to do so. So correct >> when we are ready to schedule a close session, we'll have to have a specific date and time ready. So I'm going to assume that'll be at the next meeting we'll have a resolution on for a close session. Correct.
>> I just had a question about the settlement. That's okay. 1023. Is the law department representing the city on that case? >> Direct energy business. >> Yes, we are. >> And is the amount owed 670,000 the same amount that they build us or did they give us any kind of a discount?
>> It's reduct. It's reduced. >> Okay. >> We can get you the number that it was reduced from if that's helpful. Do >> does Direct Energy Business LLC still provide service to the city? >> Yes. One last um followup just with all the
litigation out there. Um do do you have like a our top 10 hits that you can share with us? That's that uh >> Sure. That would definitely be offline, but absolutely we have those um prepared for the administration and we can share them with the council as well.
>> Thanks. >> Okay. Good. All right. So, we went from 10:22 all the way to 10:27 and we hit on 10:31. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> All right. So, we already touched on 28
and 29 and 30. Now, we're going to 10.32. Uh, I'll leave it to the business administrator. >> Quick update for the council on this. For 10:32 and 1033, we will be withdrawing these just to give the council more time to consider them. However, I did want to have a quick introduction with the individuals being
considered. Um these are the department director positions. So they require council approval. Um so individually for each department as the administration goes forward you will be voting on that prior to the you know administration being permittently. Um tonight we have
Sarah Lavine who is our cor acting corporation council and auditioning for the role permanently. Um and I'll let her do a brief introduction. Uh oh I went out of order. I apologize. I have Bill who's been patiently waiting behind me. Um, so I'll let him do a brief introduction and then uh if you have any
questions, you can answer them here or offline with you prefer. >> And council, I would ask that you um set up some time to speak with each of them. Um, I know some of you have already and they've reached out to the entire council. So since the administration is
withdrawing, you do have until the next council meeting to make sure you get all your an your questions answered and you review resumeums. But they did want to come and introduce themselves tonight. Good evening, council members. Thank you for your time and for your consideration. I think we've had a
chance to uh meet briefly in the past and I've tried as best I could to reach out during the snowstorm or I know everyone was busy, but to make myself available to you and I I will make that offer again at any time it's convenient for all of you. Happy to meet in person
or uh over the phone, whatever is more convenient. Uh more than happy to share my background with you as well. uh whether it's directly or uh or through uh the business administrator or the or the clerk. So you please uh whatever um
way I can best uh advise you um let me know. Uh I am very excited uh to be working with the administration and with all of you uh for uh on and on behalf of Jersey City and I'm really looking forward to uh doing that. >> Hey Bill, if you can um I mean you've
reached out. I know you fairly well. Um but if you can um because the public is watching um if you can just give us like a brief background on like the work you have done thus far um in your career. >> Certainly. Um I started my career as an
investment banker with Meil Lynch um where I I focused on broad range of corporate finance uh strategy and mergers and acquisitions. Um, after Meil Lynch, uh, I ran, uh, built the emerging acquisitions group, uh, at Lucen
Technologies, which is a spin-off, uh, from AT&T. Um, and I was promoted to treasurer at Lucen Technologies as well. I've held the position of CFO at a private venture capital backed um, telecommunications company uh, in the
past. Um, all of that being on the private sector side, I uh transitioned uh to working in the public sector. Uh took on the role of CFO and treasurer at New Jersey Transit. Uh and then most recently I served as a senior adviser to
the Gateway Development Commission uh the entity that's responsible for building uh the Hudson Tunnel. >> Can you um speak a little on your education? >> Sure. I have um a bachelor's and a master's degree which I earned from the John's Hopkins University uh
concurrently. >> Um Bill, uh can you reach out to your connections at NJ Transit and tell them to come out here with some shovels and plows and help us out? >> I I I have expressed my willingness to help with my former colleagues at New Jersey Transit as best I can. Um they um
Well, I'll leave it at that. I have on a couple of occasions already reached out to them. I still have a lot of friends and colleagues there. I am more than willing to try to help with New Jersey Transit. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thanks, Bill. >> Welcome. Thank you.
>> Good evening everyone. I want to start by saying congratulations to all of you. I am profoundly honored to have been appointed for your consideration by Mayor Solomon. I also want to express my gratitude to my predecessor, Britney Murray, who has very graciously
volunteered to stay on for a term to help with this transition, including leading all of the talking points tonight. So, I'm very, very grateful for her assistance as I quickly try to get up to speed and slurp from the fire hose that is the law department. U my name is Sarah Lavine. I am very lucky to have
crossed paths with every one of you previously. I look forward to setting up a time to speak with each of you over the next week or two, among other things, about your legislative priorities and how we can make sure that that is a priority for the law department. And I'd like to share in more detail for you, both why I want
this job and what I imagine the law department can be and how I think we can get from point A to B. So, I hope that you will ask me detailed questions about all of those things. For those who don't know me, who may be watching, if you take a look at my resume, which is attached to this resolution, it will
give you a bit of information about my professional background. But the top line is this. I have spent my entire career as an attorney in public service. I have never entered the private sector and not for lack of job offers. I have only ever engaged in public client
representation. So representing cities and states because that is what I believe um that is where I believe the forefront of change is happening in our country currently. I have significant experience leading complex civil litigations leading large teams of investigators and litigators across a
variety of subject areas. I've primarily limit litigated as an employment and civil rights lawyer, but I have plenty of experience in antitrust, consumer protection, anti-fraud matters, and a bevy of others. I also have significant experience designing and implementing large-scale enforcement projects that I
would be happy to talk about with you and that I hope can be a model for things that we do in the city moving forward. Uh, if you look at my resume, what you will not know, which is equally important to me, is I am born and raised in Jersey City Heights. I lived there until I graduated down the block from
McNair Academic High School. After graduating, I tried for about a decade to get away from and stay away from Jersey City and I abjectly failed. I lived in New York City. I lived in San Francisco. I lived in Washington DC. I lived in Connecticut. Along the way, I
picked up a law degree and in 2020, uh, in 2021, I finally accepted that nowhere would scratch the itch of my hometown. So, I came back and I came here to stay. I plan to be here long term, which is all to say I am deeply, deeply invested in the project of
governing in Jersey City. I believe any mayor and any council would need a very strong law department to be successful. I particularly believe this mayor and this council will need a very strong law department, particularly because of the ambitious and exciting proposals that I
have heard during all of your campaigns. So, I really look forward to the opportunity to talk to you about where I fit into that. Uh Sarah, uh can you speak to any um legislation you worked on in the past? >> I have significant experience with legislative drafting both at the local
and state level, but particularly locally in Jersey City. I am very proud to have been involved in enacting the right to counsel legislation. I am excited that if with your blessing, I have the opportunity to stay in the law department. I will be in no small part
responsible for helping to implement it. um the implementation of that has been delayed and many of you who are involved with the advocacy for that program have some understanding of why that is the case but I really hope that this administration can invest in making that program a success. I have also been involved more recently in a series of
housing reforms including the mandatory minimum um penalty ordinances with respect to our housing code. Additionally, the ban on rent fixing algorithms that was recently led by then Councilman Solomon. Um, that is just a small example of the things that I've worked on locally.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Peter, I think more. >> Yes. So, we have one more item. I know it's not on the agenda, council. Um, this is a resolution that would pertain to the switch of healthcare providers for the city. Um, normally when there's
a late item, it requires a vote by council. I know we have some newer council members. I just want to kind of go through the process. Um, generally when there's a light item, it's because of some urgency by the administration why we need to have it on for immediate reasons. Um, in this case, because with our healthcare, any month we delay this,
it's going to cost more to the city. Um, as I'm sure some of you are aware. Uh, so in this particular case, I wanted to do a quick overview of the legislation being proposed. Um, once the council is aware of it, we will have a resolution drawn up. It'll be added agenda. It'll be codified as late. So if any residents
see it and they have questions about it, they know that's going to be presented at tomorrow's meeting and then we'll have a vote on it at tomorrow. Um in the interim, I want to call up Laura Busamante, chief of staff to the mayor Solomon's office who's going to do a quick introduction and then we have our consultants here to provide some more information.
Hey >> everybody, happy first caucus meeting. You guys are doing great. Um uh as Peter mentioned, um I'm here on behalf of Mayor Solomon. We wanted to bring this council agenda item to you. The time sensitivity here is that we are going to
see uh significant cuts to our cost. Um and so if we delay this one more uh an additional two, we would see a additional cost of $2.5 million. Um so that is why we're bringing this here before you. Um we really think that this is a win-win for Jersey City, both for
the city and for our employees as it will reduce costs for both the city and our employees. But with that being said, I wanted to turn turn it over to Rob, who is our health insurance broker, to give you a brief overview of exactly what the plan looks like and uh what the numbers are going to look like. So Rob, I'll turn it over to you.
>> Thank you. Good evening, council members, congratulations and best wishes to all of you. Uh as introduced, my name is Robert Paresi. was retained by the city of Jersey City in November of 2024 as an employee benefits consultant to represent the city and how they manage
and administer the active and retirey employee health and prescription coverage. Uh with that as part of that process working with Cadia McNair and the benefits department we did an RFP process in June of this year uh to get proposals for the medical and
prescription. The city council after the review has already re renewed the prescription coverage for another three years. What we're talking about tonight is the medical portion of the employee benefits coverage and after uh the review process of the RFP submissions uh
and a thorough analysis of how they matched the benefits and what the potential savings could be. Uh it was our recommendation that the city in fact move from Horizon Blue Cross for the medical TPA services to Meritane Health or Etna uh TPA services for
administering this plan. Uh the review showed that better network utilization as well as better negotiated discounts under the Etna meritane platform compared to Horizon uh can provide both the city and all the employees who contribute to their healthcare uh you
know savings moving forward. So, we all know that healthc care costs are difficult and sometimes difficult to manage, especially you'll learn as council members that it's a it's a large portion of the city's budget each year. But we believe that this is a way that
we can provide the same benefits that the collective bargaining agreements promise all your employees uh and do it much less expensively. So, we're asking the council to consider this resolution. As um the acting business administrator Peter mentioned, it's a little bit short notice, but we do believe that each
month that goes by is more cost to the city and we also want to be respectful of our current agreements the city has with Horizon and give them a proper notification as well. So, we're asking for the council's consideration. We believe after thorough review, this is a good move for both the city as a as a
whole, but also all your employees. >> Uh I do have um a few questions. First, I um I do want to thank u the administration for for reaching out. Um just for a point of information, I
typically um don't oblige to vote on things. I don't really have that much time to embive, but you guys have done a good job with your presentation and reaching out in such short period of time. But I do have two quick questions. one for
you. Um, as it relates to the initial cost, um, it looks like we're saving money, but I know like when I sign up for car insurance is one rate and then the next
year it's a higher rate. So, they duped me to sign in and then they get me on the back end. Is any of that taking place here? >> No. So, that's a great question, Councilman. So if this was a fully insured plan in which the city requested a quote and a carrier gave you a fixed
rate of what the cost was going to be every month, then it is not uncommon that you maybe get sensitive to whether or not their proposal is too aggressive and then the next year is going to be a 28% increase. The city has a self-insured plan meaning the TPA fees,
the fixed costs are very minor percentage of the total cost. The most of the cost is generated by utilization. So it's hard to predict what the costs are going to be other than underwriting based on the data we have in this particular case. Why we believe the
meritane platform is better is because what we found in looking at the city's utilization the actual utilization the city's employees and their covered dependents are using over 18month period. We found that the doctors, the
providers that the city's employees are using, a lot more of them are in the Etna network than in the Horizon network. Uh, in additionally, as part of the RFP process, we found that the in network contracted discounts that Meritane is getting with providers in different geographic regions around the
state are a little bit better than Etna. So, we don't believe this is, you know, perhaps a so-called teaser rate where they're just being aggressive because ultimately the cost the city is going to spend is going to be generated by the actual utilization. >> You believe the platform with a network
that seems to be better suited for who your members are actually using as well as the negotiate discount and and Etna is not a new carrier. They're a national carrier with a strong presence and a growing presence in the public sector in New Jersey. We believe that platform is
better equipped to accommodate utilization and what we all know is forever increasing health care costs in this country. >> Okay. And um Laura for you Laura or maybe you can speak to this. Um the
administration position is if we vote on this now versus postponing it, it will cost upwards of 2.5 million. How did we get that figure? >> When we look at several years worth of
actual costs for the city. So right now just for perspective, the budgeted amount under the current horizon model for with medical and prescription for 2026 is about 200 million. When we look at the actual utilization, overlay that
with assuming all this utilization was under the ETNA network, not the Horizon network, and evaluate what we anticipate the contracted discounts are going to be with meritane for the in network costs. We anticipate reducing costs, you know,
considerably over a 12-month period. Now, that's a 12-month period. Generally, the contract is on a January one cycle. So, we're starting at March. So to Laura's point, we think it's a 30 million over a policy year period, but because we're already into March, we're two months into it, every month that
goes by, so so we're not necessarily projecting a $30 million savings for this year, um, but over a policy period, it will be. So every month that goes by, 30 divided by 12 is, you know, >> is money we leaving on the table. >> The money you're leaving on the table. Additionally, um, uh, with under the
current contract with Horizon, the city has had to maintain a working capital fund in which Horizon, and it's not uncommon, Horizon, you know, does this with all large private sector cases, they've kept a working capital fund uh, in the event that the city could ever got to a point that they couldn't pay
claims, that $9.9 million will be returned to the city upon the execution of this contract. once the claims are settled and Etna does not require that. So it's not like we have to refund it with Etna. So when you factor what we
see as a reduced in claims, a $9.9 million return of the working capital fund, we believe it's real savings to the city and administration's point, we calculate that as roughly, you know, 2.5 million on a monthly basis. >> Okay. And my final point, I would just
um say um the administration, you you have have already obliged to do this just to reach out to all of the employees just to make sure they're privy because ultimately um those are the individuals that's going to be um affected the most by the switch.
>> Yeah, I think that's a great point, Councilman. I think it's worth reflecting that we have been in office for a total of 11 days and so therefore this was an immediate thing we needed to do. Um but the administration is this is not common practice and will not be common practice for this administration.
It just has to do with the time that we took in office and obviously what we've highlighted as the significant cost uh reduction here for the city. Um so what we've done the mayor has done is we have held uh meetings with all union representatives. We have also uh set up
uh a town hall an all citywide town hall for uh Wednesday morning um for all city employees to be able to join and then we also have set up uh 800 concierge line directly only for city employees to be able to ask questions about their specific lines. In addition, we've set
up an email address um that is also set up specifically for Jersey City employees who are not able to attend and have additional questions. And then we also have commitment from um members of our team, members of the team um as well as representatives to be at every municipal building throughout the
duration of this transition between now and March 1st to be able to help and have in-person u sessions with members of our um of our teams and people who are city employees. So, we want to ensure that there's as much uh just
overall help and um also have made sure that we are proactively communicating with our employees and it's also I want to make sure people know that the mayor personally sent out an email to all city employees and making this announcement before it became public so city employees heard first and foremost from
the mayor of the city around what the we the uh change we intended to make. >> Thank you. Um this is Councilwoman Little from W E. I had a question about your meetings that are taking place tomorrow morning um both with uh city
workers and union leaders. Um, do you know currently if um, union leadership plans to speak at council um, before we vote on this or or if you would be willing to provide them with
our email addresses or or anything of that nature because I would be very interested in hearing the concerns of the workers and the union representatives um, and and their feelings on this overall um, before making a final decision on my vote. I mean, obviously
you've already provided a great deal of information, which I appreciate. Um, but I just wanted to know if we would be able to um, you know, have the have the results of those conversations or as much as the workers and union representatives are willing to share before our vote.
>> We have not been made aware if they plan to speak at the council meeting, but we're happy to provide all of your emails information proactively to union members, to union leaders who we've been communicating with. I need to do it further and ask for their contact information so we can reach out to them. >> Yes. So, do you want me to send do you
want me to do both? Okay. >> I prefer the contact and I'll just call them, but that's fine. >> So, um >> sorry to interrupt. If I would suggest I could do an email to BCC and all the union members with your email saying feel free to reach out that way you'll both see each other.
>> Thank you, Peter. Thank you. >> Um, now we are talking about unions and I asked my colleague the question but I just want to make sure does does there need to be a vote from the union body to accept this first before
we are able to vote? >> No. So for the um what's in the union contracts is that we as the administration have the right to choose which provider we want to go with. Um, essentially what we have to abide by law
is equal or better health care. Um, which is what this plan does. >> Just to add one thing, we we're working with several of the unions. A lot of the unions have individually requested a lot of additional information and we're we're providing that to them. So, we're going to be as forthright with the
unions as as possible so they're comfortable ultimately that this represents their union members. I want to say thank you to Laura and mayor's office. They have we have been informed multiple times and then presentation today. It was informative. All the questions were answered. So, thank you
for doing that. >> Our pleasure. >> Okay. >> I have a somewhere. Um so, um what do I want to ask? Uh um did you send us materials on this at this point? the doc written
documentation or written materials. >> We have not sent you written documentation. >> Okay. >> We have however communicated as I mentioned the mayor sent an all city email alerting of this change yesterday before it became public to every city employees including you all.
>> Can we get the um slide presentation that you shared with us earlier as well? Okay. >> Rob can send it over. Great. Um I have a couple of other questions. Just um Rob, if you can just um talk about um when this your your role in this process
and when the city contracted with you. Um and then um if you could just speak to um what your um what what your compensation is inside of this and how the resolution that we approved originally on that. >> Sure. I I think I mentioned earlier, forgive me if I didn't. Um, I was
retained by the city in November of 24 as part of an RFQ process for a broker consultant to help the city administer their health and prescription coverage for their city employees. So, I paid on a monthly basis uh flat fee by the city as part of that RFQ process. The
contract was renewed in December of this past year uh for a one-year basis again at the same monthly rate. So, I do not represent insurance carriers as a broker consultant. I represent the entity. So, I represent the city of Jersey City. I'm paid by the city of Jersey City uh to
provide them what we believe is objective opinions and objective evaluation for their medical and prescription coverage for their city employees. >> You mentioned we're self-insured and that um you it's based on utilization.
So when we get charged and build for utilization on a monthly basis, how are we um who's billing us at Edna? Are they sending it to us directly or sending it through you or how does that work? >> Right now it's Horizon. So Horizon send >> Horizon. Yeah, >> Horizon sends a a monthly fee for the
administrative costs. And just to keep in mind when I say the fixed administrative cost to administer the plan, it's really minuscule. So I mentioned the medical portion is probably $160 million a year plan. The admin costs are only about 2 million. So they send a monthly bill for the admin
costs. Then they send claim runs periodically. I think it's weekly to fund the claims that city employees and their covered dependents are incurring. And then the city sends they fund the claims to Horizon. So most of the cost as you can appreciate is the actual
claim. So the fixed cost for the admin and the use of the network is a really small portion. The big the overwhelming cost is the utilization. what the members and covered dependents are incurring. So everything you can do to create the best framework for managing
the utilization costs is ultimately the way to control cost because as Laura mentioned we're contractually obligated to provide the same level of benefits. So for the members just what that means just everyone's clear co-ayments are the same deductibles are the same nothing changes for the members. So when
nothing's changing for the members, the only way you can really save money, when you're contractually obligated to a certain benefit level, is to provide the structure that at that particular time can provide us the best care at managing costs. And as I mentioned, healthcare
costs aren't going down. National trend is just about 10%. Here in the Northeast, it tends to run higher. So I don't want anyone to think I'm saying the claims are going to go down. Your healthcare costs are going to continue to go up. The hope is to manage that and mitigate that as best as possible while
providing a high level of care for your employees and their family members. But >> we would get build on a weekly basis. >> Yeah. >> That that's from currently Horizon building the city of Jersey City. >> Yes. >> Hey. Okay. >> Um and so this resolution authorizes
um is there a specific dollar amount or is it it's just administrative cost? I didn't write the resolution so I don't want to misspeak but basically it's my understanding that the resolution is going to accept the RFP submission that Meritain HealthNA submitted in June
>> and that includes the just the administrative cost and the weekly >> again you can't you can't even put on paper what the claim costs are going to be because you just really don't know. So um it's it's the framework of the meritane proposal and accepting and for
what it's worth though their admin fees are less than horizon you know small amount but again it's such a small dollar amount and the overall cost of the plan can just for the record just the utilization amount and that dollar amount for the city be estimated under Etna versus what it currently is with um
>> I don't blue cross so the the budgeted 2026 horizon budget had the medical portion I think at 168 million. We're projecting that cost to be you know 25 to30 million less expensive
mainly because just again it's all network driven the city's out of network cost meaning the members going to participate non-participating providers is really disproportionate to what it should be. So when we looked at and evaluated it, we found that a lot of the
doctors that the members are using are in network with EDA, but they're out of network with Horizon. So immediately, first of all, your members are going to get better access to care. That's not going to cost them out of pocket costs, but also it's going to help to mitigate the what has over a three-year period
been significant increases in out of network spend the city's behalf. >> And how long is the contract going to be with Meritan? The RFP uh was for three-year contracts. Traditionally, uh not I can't speak forever, but for a number of years, Horizon uh City of
Jersey City has done three-year contracts with TPA services for medical and prescription coverage. So, the RFP that went out was for a three-year contract. In this case, it would be a shortened. So, the renewal is still going to say January 1, but if the council approves and this starts March 1st, it would be a shortened first year.
The first policy year would be 10 months. It will always stay on the January 1 cycle. So I guess in essence and we're renewing every year >> two years and 10 months. >> We would have to be renewed every year. Yeah. >> So So if we decided not hypothetically we're not seeing the savings that we
thought we wanted to see. In fact, whatever the case is, then we wanted to opt out at end of year one as things weren't working out. Municipal government always always has an out. So contracts are very rarely legally binding for municipal government. So, it's a three-year contract, but if it's
not performing the way the city hopes, um, the city always reserves that right. >> And what's the act that the council or the administration would have to do to execute an opt out the administr administration table?
>> I don't believe the contract's been fully executed or signed yet. Usually, when the RFP comes back, you know, the the council authorizes us to enter in the contract. this, you know, the law department to negotiate on those items. Um, so I can't give you a specific, you know, delineation on that, but I can
have the proposed contract provided. >> You could clarify that for me tomorrow. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> I'm sorry. >> I'm done. I'm done. >> Um, so I asked this question earlier. Um, but I just want to ask uh on record
because several um employees, city employees reached out to me with concerns because of course they went online and they were looking at um reviews and stuff and and one of the reviews that stuck out was that people were saying that they were paying more
out of pocket with maritane than they were originally told they would pay pay. Um, so how can we um just answer that question, ease their minds, and if there's any miscommunication with that. So a lot >> or it's misrepresented.
>> A lot of the questions we're getting from union members following the meetings is, you know, proof that the benefits are equal to or better than as Laura mentioned, the collective bargaining agreements the city has with their units all require certain level of benefits. And the commitment that's made as part of this process is that the
benefits be equal to or better than. That's the term that's used around the state, equal to or better than. So, um, every benefit that your employees have, if they have a $10 co-ayment with Horizon, it's going to be a $10 co-ayment with with Etna. And it's going to be a 70% out of network coverage. It's going to be 70% out of network
coverage. So, the coverage is going to match exactly. So, if someone's experiencing increased out-ofpocket costs, I don't really know how to explain that other than to say that they didn't get benefits that matched. In this case, every level of benefit for
all the city plans, and there's a bunch, are going to match exactly what they have now. And that's a lot of the questions, not all of them, but a lot of the questions we're getting from unions is, can you confirm that? So, we're we're working to provide that documentation to make them comfortable that it'll it'll match that equal to or
better than provision. >> Okay. And um to the people that's watching, can you explain the 12 month uh grace period with Horizon? >> 12 month grace period. >> The 12 months that you said they would if they made appointments and like that.
>> Yes. So under the continuity of care provision, if if any members, employees or their dependents have scheduled care um that might be scheduled for early March and maybe the doctor that they go to is one of the few
doctors that's not in Etna, but they are in Horizon Etna matches those benefits as if they are in networks. None of your members are going to all of a sudden get a surprise that a doctor I've been seeing that's been in network with Horizon, they're not in
network with Etna and I'm going to be in a bad position now. So under the continuity care provision, they're going to cover any of those providers for 12 months and administer them as if they're in network. So there's no change in out-of- pocket cost for the employees. What we
did find in the review to that point is that there were some doctors there was over 2100 doctors that were in Etna and not in Horizon. There was about 190 that are not in Etna but in Horizon. So there was disparity there. But any one of those doctors that
your members have care or see routinely, they'll be administered for as long as they're going undergoing treatments or at least for a year um that they're you know seeking care again under the con care provision of the
>> council councilman Brooks. >> Um go ahead. Yeah, >> thanks. Um I had a question. the amount that is going to be required to be withheld from each employees paycheck, you know, whether it's a single employee, employee plus spouse or family
plan. Um, is that going to change? >> Yes. So, that was really what's say exciting, but certainly good for the employees in this case because the way chapter 78 New Jersey calculates employee per pay contributions is based on a percentage depending on their
salary of the rate of the plan. So because the medical portion rate is so much less under the meritane model than it is with Horizon for 2026 their per pay contribution costs go down. So what we saw when we look at the comparison is
under the equivalency rates for 2026 of which chapter 78's calculated for Horizon is much higher than it is for meritane. So members will see employees are going to see a pretty significant reduction in their per pay contributions
with meritane compared to Horizon. Now what that equates to because now you have to factor in prescription and I told you prescriptions already renewed um basically keeps their costs almost the same as they are in 25. So, if the
city were to decide we just want to stay with Horizon, let's let's not let's not make changes, their costs are going to go up about 17% employees contributions. If the city says, "Okay, let's do this. This is good for everybody." Their costs
are going to say almost even. So, um there almost will see no cost. It turns out to be a big savings compared to Horizon, but compared to 25, it's almost neutral. >> Thank you. Uh, Council Member Brooks ch Oh, it's
loud. Uh, word B. Uh, thank you for making yourself available, Rob. Uh, and Laura for the explanation over the phone before. um a as a for process uh Sean and Peter
with a late addition um at the conclusion of the caucus the resolution would be added tonight for public uh viewing for tomorrow. Is that correct? >> Yeah. So, we would add a resolution tonight um just so the public can view
it and then it'd be obviously online for everyone to view for here up until the council meeting tomorrow and then officially we'd have to have a vote from the council to add it as a late item to the agenda. This is more just a courtesy to let the public see, you know, what will be added in advance and and they can, you know, have their eyes on
everything they'll be voting on. >> Thank you. Um and then uh in terms of the uh relationship with the unions, I mean our role as the council is to authorize the change um proposed by the
administration and the union. This does not preclude the unions um individually from agreeing or disagreeing if it is the same level of benefits. So that's up to them. >> Correct. But it's we're committing to
equal or better. So there there's just no there's no negotiation there because we as administration reserve the right to determine who the administrator is like who the administrator is and then we are committing and writing in with via this RFP that their benefits will be
equal or better too. So as long as they're receiving equal or better too um you know that addresses that but then in addition to that we are committing to seeing those costs be reduced for them. Um so not only are they getting equal to or better health care they're also
seeing it for a lower cost. >> Thank you. >> And and what what's the ramifications to the company if they are not providing equal or better? So it's not so much the company as much as it is the city. So again because this
is self-insured plan which the city is ultimately the plan sponsor. We have an obligation to provide equal tour better than benefits. Meritay knows that they do a lot of public sector work in New Jersey. Um they're working on matching the benefits now. um they have all the horizon summary plan documents and
they're matching that because there's an obligation to provide equal to or better then even if we find 6 months from now that there was this kind of an obscure benefit that doesn't you know people don't utilize often and we find out that Etna set it up as a $10
co-ayment but it was supposed to be a $5 co-ayment we make the adjustment and make it five. So the city has the obligation to provide the equal to or better then and because it's a self-insured and the city's the plan sponsor me knows that the benefits have to be equal. So they're going to do everything
they can to set up the city has about 15 plans currently. They're going to set up all those 15 plans and make sure they're all identical based on the summary plan documents we have from Horizon. But again, even if it's just an inadvertent mistake on some obscure benefit and we only discover it for six months, it gets
corrected. So the members are guaranteed under the collective baring agreements to have a certain level of benefits. The city has the obligation to adhere to that and meritane knows they have the obligation to adhere to that. So um it might take a couple steps not inadvertent or not, you know, by making
mistakes on purpose, but there's a lot of benefits. There's a lot of pages to those benefits. We're going to do everything we can to match them. But even if we discover something six months from now, it gets adjusted and the members get the benefits, they're They're promised. >> I have You have something?
>> Yeah. Just uh this is a change only to the health to the medical plan, >> not to the prescription and the stoploss insurance plans. Correct. >> Correct. >> So I I just want to ask you to walk us
through the process of how we got here today. Um, so there was an RFP and um, can you start with a timeline of just when that RFP was first issued, who issued it and then when you got responses back um, and then ultimately
uh, came to this conclusion to accept it. primarily exact dates, but the RFP was issued in the spring again in conjunction with the employee benefits office mainly because the end of this year >> spring 2025 end yes spring of 25 because the end of 25 was the end of the
three-year contracts for Horizon as the TPA as well as Crumbdale Specialty as the TPA for prescriptions. So it was time in essence to issue RFPs in a timely manner to prepare for the one renewal for both of those. So that's when it was advertised. We got responses back.
>> The city advertised. >> City advertised. Um, and we got responses back. We started evaluating the pro those renewal those those responses. We only got two. We got Horizon's response. >> Interrupt you for a second. Our clerk is telling us that the live stream is going
to go down in a minute. >> I set the live stream for usually four hours for a caucus meeting. So, we're approaching the end of our live stream. So, if we can, council members, if you can sum up your questions, if everything has been answered, I would love to take
a motion to adjurnn before we uh lose our live stream. >> We can still operate even though the live stream is down. Is that correct? >> We could. >> I I just don't want the council to feel rushed or anything. If they want to still discuss this, we can still discuss it. This won't be a live stream. >> Is it all recorded anyway? Is that No,
>> it doesn't get recorded after the live stream's ended. >> That's fine. Um, so I'm sorry if you could just finish the process. >> So we got responses back. Again, I forget the exact date of the summer. We put a summary together. We met with um members of the administration. I think
probably late August, maybe early September, you know, showed some of this information, what we thought was made sense for moving forward. And um, you know, >> and that was presented to the past administration in September or thereabouts. >> I think in September somewhere there
somewhere. Yeah. Late August, September. >> And your recommendation at that time was to change providers >> was to change to Meritan. Yeah. >> To Meritane. So we did not act on that recommendation at that time. City did not act. >> City did not act. I won't speak for the
prior administration, but no, they did not act. >> Got it. Appreciate that. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you, council. Can I have a motion to adjurnn at 8:01
p.m.? >> One second, Sean. So, I just want to say that um you know, this is this council's first caucus meeting. Um they're going to have a lot of questions. They're new. I did not want to rush them through their first caucus meeting. And I know
that caucus meetings are usually a little shorter, but I need everybody to strap in because you have a whole new council. Um they ask good questions. they're learning. Um, there's a lot of things that they are going to want to talk through. Um, and for at least
the first couple of months, I think, uh, it'll take them to kind of get in the groove. So, some certain things that might seem simple to people who have been here for a while, um, might take a little more time for the new council to pick up. And I think it was important for them to get all their questions
answered um, during this first caucus meeting. And if we are doing things right, caucus should be longer and council meeting should be shorter. Um because council, this is where you should be asking your questions. When we get here on Wednesdays, we should be showing up, listening to the public, and
voting. Um so this is the spot where you get all your questions answered. If there's anything that wasn't answered tonight, I'd ask that you please reach out to the directors via email um and speak with them offline. And with that, um motion to adjurnn. Second.
>> Motion to adjourn at 8:02 p.m. made by Council President Ridley, seconded by Council Person Griffin. On the motion to adjourn at 8:02 p.m., all council members present by acclamation, please say, "I." >> We are out of here at 8:02 p.m. Thank
you very much everyone present and everyone watching at home, remember teamwork makes the dreamwork, have a great night. Stay safe. >> I did. summoning the spirit of council.