for good evening. Uh welcome all of you. Um thank you for coming out tonight and thank you for your patience. Um we had a lot of uh behind the work business to attend tonight and it ran over a little
bit. Um we wanted to be diligent in our duties. So uh we didn't want to rush anything and so uh that is why we had a little bit of a delay this evening. And with that, I'll begin the um statement and proper notice. Adequate notice that this
meeting of the Lawrence Township Council being held on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, has been provided through the posting of annual meeting schedule of said council in accordance with section 13 of the open public meetings act. send notice
was forwarded to the tranonian the times of New Brunson Patrick on December 19th, 2024. With that, I just want to um again thank all of the candidates. We are a fortunate township that we have not only
members of our community that are willing to come out tonight and be a part of our democracy but also those who are willing to run and represent us. With that, Madam Clerk, if we could have
the inspiration. May we carry on our work at this meeting in a just, honorable, and sincere manner, always bearing in mind our duties and continuing to keep Lawrence a wonderful community in which to live. I pledge algiance to the flag of
the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam cler, if you could please call the role. Mr. Bobby here. Mr. Kaki here.
Miss Perry here. Mayor B here. Okay. As you all may know, um, this evening we interviewed three individuals to fill the current council vacancy that was left by Councilman John
Bryan. As you can read in the in the agenda, the nominees were Joseph Court, Mitchell Manzella, and Amanda Santos. In executive uh, we did not have an executive session. Um and so we
didn't um we needed to um correct that on the agenda so that the public knows we did not have an executive session and uh we will now have a selection nominee to fill the council vacancy. Is there a motion on the floor? Mayor,
I'll make a motion to appoint Amanda Santos to fill the uh council vacancy. Do we have a second? Second. Madam clerk, if you could call the role. Mr. Bobin, yes. Mr. Kaki, yes. Miss
Perry, yes. Mayor Farmer, yes. And with that, we have an anonymous unanimous appointment of Amanda Sanchos
to the Lawrence Township Council. Um, Mr. Sidebeck, if you could address this, please. Yes. Uh, an issue came up as to whether or not Miss Santos could serve simultaneously with regard to the Lawrence Township School Board and
Orange Town Council. And under New Jersey statute, she cannot do so. It's my understanding uh that Miss Santos has resigned effective immediately from the Lawrence Township School Board. Can you confirm that? That is correct. As of 709, I can
provide you with Thank you. So, mayor council, we have she can legally be sworn in as a member of the township council and Mad We will have
our concert. Oh yes. Get the B. Not forget the B. glasses are good. Absolutely. [Music] There we go.
It has served me. You want to hold the Bible? Bible. Please raise your Please repeat after me. Okay. I I Amanda Santos do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I
will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to the governments established in the United States and in
this state and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and I will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially and justly and impartially and justly perform all of the duties perform all of the duties of council member of council member of Lawrence
Township of Lawrence Township according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. [Laughter] your first bit of paper. Okay.
You should [Music] thank buddy. Okay. At this moment, um, I want to recognize we have with us assembly woman Reynolds [Applause]
Jackson. We also had Assembly woman Denil McCoy who is also here in as well. [Applause] Welcome to the house. Thank you. And now we will have the special
presentation by the public safety subcommittee report part one by Raymond Maggie. He is the committee member. [Music] Thank you. All right. Congratulations and welcome
aboard. Uh good evening everybody. Um, as mentioned, my name is Ray Agy. I'm the deputy chief of operations for the Lawrence Township Fire Department. Been a large town resident for over 40 years and a volunteer fireman in town uh for uh 32 years. I'm also a member of the
Lawrence Township Subcommittee uh on whose behalf I'll be speaking to you tonight. I just wanted to provide um an update as to the progress uh that the subcommittee has made with respect to the new fire study initiative. Uh as you may be aware, the township released a uh
public uh RFP, which is a request or proposal, forbids uh from qualified firms to assess and evaluate the feasibility of centralizing andor consolidating uh township fire and emergency medical services.
uh to recommend staffing levels to prepare an analysis for future personal personnel development and also evaluate response times based on current conditions as well as recommend potential improvements. A total of seven proposals
were submitted and I'm going to share a brief highle overview of how they were reviewed by the subcommittee. Comprehensive evaluation of the proposals was conducted using a rubric that we developed internally as well as uh also ensuring that the bids met the
minimum published RFP requirements. The proposal submissions vary widely uh with with respect to presentation detail quality uh as well as costs. The criteria that uh was used by the team by the team to evaluate
these proposals included uh depth and breadth of the knowledge and experience of the consultant/firm um including local projects that they've embarked upon and completed. uh the proposal presentation and overall
content project understanding uh proposed consultant and firm team members that would be assigned to the project and study. The professional diversity of subject matter experts and the qualifications of the project team. The proposed scope and analysis u
of the detailed project task plans. Uh derivation and basis of potential recommendations. the project timeline and overall project budget and cost to be incurred. So each member of the co subcommittee had the opportunity to read
through each proposal and evaluate them individually. We then convene to discuss our notes, thoughts and uh personal evaluations of each proposal and then we rated them on the aforementioned criteria.
So our team identified the top three proposals um as well as the firm that uh we all agreed should be uh the preferred candidate. The top three proposals selected um were submitted by CGR which is the center for government research.
uh CPSM uh which is a center for public safety management and a architectural and uh engineering firm called H2M and CGR we thought was the preferred firm. While the top three proposals were
comparable and and relatively close in cost, um we we did agree that CGR was the strongest candidate. They're a nonprofit consulting firm and have a multitude of local government researchers on staff, not just available
as consultants. Um, they also offer at least 10 team members from various disciplines to be assigned to our study uh if awarded and the firm has a similar and comprehensive local project
experience. So, we thought that was uh pretty important. Um in addition uh they presented a very analytic and detail-driven approach to developing and identifying recommendations um as well as areas of improvement and CGR also projected a
very specific uh project timeline uh complete with uh very detailed milestones. Uh our council has also been provided with copies of our proposals as well as our subcommittee's review and assessment of
each. Uh as far as next steps go for us, um council's going to discuss then vote on uh which firm will be awarded the bid and then a uh project team is then going to be identified and implemented. So this concludes our
overall overview and uh summaries. I appreciate everybody's uh time tonight um as well as uh the opportunity to provide this update. And with that, I will yield back the floor.
Thank you, Mr. N. Um is there anything you want to add or council? So, um to Mr. to Nagi's point, um, we will be giving the council members all the three proposals of the top three for them to
review so that they see what we went we reviewed and decided to go forward with. Um again, one of the key things was the fact that these subject matter experts with um CGR have had much experience with
similar towns um and the fact that they're a nonprofit so there is a greater sense of responsibility and accountability and also um we felt very comfortable with what they proposed. Um, and just to give you an
example, so you don't judge a book by a cover, but if you're going for a proposal with a county or a municipality, this is not really what you present. Yes or
no? Okay. And the others very bound, detailed, etc. Um, but those were some of the things that we looked at. You know, what how much time and effort did you put on the
responsibility of bidding for a project? Um, and what I did love with the subcommittee is they had a breath of expert uh expertise not only in fire but safety and um fire safety and EMS. Thank you. In
EMS. Okay. So, we are moving forward and going from there. Thanks again. Thank you, Mayor. Can I ask one brief question of the council? Yes. Um, thank you. Um, I saw that this
was part one, so I can't wait for part two. Um, but in the interim, can you provide uh council with both the RFP as well as the the rubric also to sort of help guide us to to read reading the proposals? Yes. Wonderful. Thank We'll have everything for you. So this way you
could see the evaluations and we actually um gave it a rating, you know, one star, two star, etc. Wonderful. Thank you. I'll have the clerk make copy so that you can have Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other questions?
Thank you once again. Um with that, we will now have a member from the mayor's task force come up and give us an update. Good evening. Is there green?