for e e e e e e e spe was the delay
the record reflect we have reconvened with all members present for those are able please rise for the pledge and I ask you to remain standing after the pledge Al to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which
stands one nation under God invisible liberty and justice for all let's take a few moments we remember a few madisonian we lost over the last couple weeks Marian CA brass Koffman long time
Madison resident died on February 21st she just recently celebrated her 98th birthday on the 29th of January uh born in South Orange in 1927 she was raised raised there graduated from Columbia High School our future
husband Bob graduated from Columbia a few years prior they didn't connect until after they graduated MIT and back in South Orange where they were both members of of the local opereta club and family lure has it that Bob asked for Marian's hand twice and was rebuffed but
eventually Marian said to Bob is there something you want to ask me and they as they say the rest was history they were Bor married in 1950 made plans for a large family buying a lot on West Lane in the growing suburb of Madison as it was stated he
designed the house and Marian's father helped uh build it with his help on the weekends and their first son was born there and then uh just as they settled in Second Son came in and they were anticipating a daughter for number three
but Johannes was uh born in 1956 and Bob's father famously said I guess you have to skip her and take him and hence uh my high school classmate got the ni nickname Skipper um and then another son Robert came along in 58 and last child Tom in
63 and her five sons was definitely the pride of her life she uh Tau Sunday School Madison Presbyterian Church old with the ladies on Wednesday and with Bob on Friday evenings and as a boys got older she joined the Madison volunteer
ambulance courp and was a member and driver for over 25 years active with the PTA Thursday morning Club of Madison and also a fixer during the election season working as a pole worker for over 20 years and similar to many other in
Madison she uh was employed by Epstein and uh Marist toown brand travel and eventually 7 Century 21 she was in her West Lane home for 70 years until August of 2020 when a tree up uprooted her uh a storm
uprooted a 60 D 60in diameter tree fell through the middle of the house and she said that was a sign for her to move on she survived by her five sons and their wives 13 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren you also remember clarina Barry Woodson
also known as the artist Barry to those who knew her longtime Madison resident uh died on March 10th at age of 95 she's survived by her five Sons U Herby if anyone knows buou plays often at
Shanghai Jazz that's Herby David John also Warren of Bahama Mamas I haven't seen them play in a while but uh definitely a talented family and Robert two grandchild four great grandchildren and five great great
grandchildren deceased by her husband Herbert William Woodson in 1983 and her daughter Jennifer she was born in Hillsboro North Carolina raised there with her sister and settled in Madison after Maran
Herbert and uh her love was oil painting calligraphy and her flower garden and she was a faithful member of the bethl Amy Church of Madison and then we also remember Charles Courtney Jr who we all knew as Charlie died on
March 19th age of 89 born in 1935 in Kansas he moved on to Monmouth Illinois as a child he went across the street to college studying philosophy at Monmouth College in Illinois there he met Bonnie McAllister who later married after
graduated from college in 57 they moved to Boston he attained a Divinity degree from Harvard V School in a short stint Northwestern where Charles uh obtained master's degree and later a PhD they moved on to Paris France where Charlie
worked on his dissertation at the sbon in 1964 Charlie Bonnie and Robin moved to Madison where he joined the philosophy department at Drew University at Drew he taught philosophy of religion at the Seminary and graduate school he coached
the Drew College cross country team from 70 to 74 served as act acting dean of the seminary in 77 and Dean of student life 87 to 88 and he retired from Drew in 2004 and after retiring Drew and Charlie
and after retiring from Drew Charlie and Bonnie continue the love of travel visiting Egypt France turkey and senagal he continue his lifelong interest in sports by playing tennis softball and pickle ball including being a star infielder on the mayor Softball All
Stars as we played against W Diagnostics and that was when in his early 80s and he was showing up all the younger people on the field and you probably would have seen him riding his bicycle around town to almost any event throw me crazy he didn't have a helmet on but I guess at
at 80 you can do what you want um he was a longtime member of the Madison Democratic committee also helped establish the Madison community garden a member of the Presbyterian Church of Madison where he served on session and he served many years in common team
today is election day worker he was a longtime board member and president of at ATD fourth world New York a nonprofit founded in France that seeks to bring attention to those suffering from persistent poverty in New York and around the world and he also uh volunteered and served on the board of
ramp a non non nonprofit that helps refugees resettle in New Jersey and after living in Madison for 60 years he moved to Lantern Hill in New Providence and there he was able to maintain his connections here making some new friends
he made his last Mee uh appearance the council meeting right here in the fall where and he announced he had uh moved and at the meeting he spoke of his respect for election law he mentioned he received two mail in ballots one for
Madison and one for New Providence and in this room he tore up his Madison ballot to demonstrate that he would only be voting for once as permitted by law but he would going to make sure that vote counted and for that active long uh
lifelong Democrat that was his last vote Bonnie died and his wife Bonnie died in 21 he survived by his brother David his daughter Robin and his son Nathan five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren so let's take a
moment to remember Maran hoffen Lina Barry Woodson and Charlie Courtney and let's pass our thoughts on to the family families and friends that they leave behind thank you I have a motion for the executive minutes on January 27th 2025
moved a second all ready discussing executive all in favor I I welcome all apologize for our late start got uh a little over time on Executive uh good to see everyone here
tonight and for those watching at home and welcome to the uh journalism class from Jew University thank you for covering the meeting um and uh just a few things happening over over the last couple weeks last week I received the following
uh correspondence as it said it is my pleasure to congratulate Madison on being selected as the electric vehicle association's EV city of the year for 2024 your outstanding contributions and achievements have truly impressed us and we are honored to recognize you I went
on to say just being nominated for this prestigious award is a testment to the impact your city has made and we are incredibly grateful for your dedication and support we look forward to celebrating this well-deserved Award with you so thank you for all those in this room and around town that have
helped us earn that recognition and on March 14th I had the Central Avenue uh Cub Cub Scout Troop uh come to visit for a session on local government and in their in their mock council meeting they proposed a law that
would require all Madison homes to have a pool there was a spirited discussion around how how much fun pools are and along with the importance of learning how to swim but there was also concerns about the cost to the homeowner and one resident who was a parent um commented
on the impact of the aquifer both with the the amount of water it' be pulling from the aquifer and also the amount of coverage that this all these pools would cause a recharge so the the vote came down to a
33 split just like the uh Brownie troop I had uh in the previous month and with the mayor having to cast to deciding no vote so no need to build your pool also on the 14th I was joined by members of the Chamber of Commerce as we
cut the ribbon at the cwood studio Performing Arts at the Madison Presbyterian Church in addition to Studios there there's an actual theater with stage and uh we cut the ribbon just before the opening night of The Little Mermaid junr so that was a great honor
to be there and then this past Saturday we had a ribbon tying and this is the idea with if you cut a ribbon to open a business one should uh tie a ribbon to wrap up a great run of a business so the
the tying was for San Francisco Mercantile on Green Village Road the owner B Henderson is retiring after running the shop for 46 years so and the ceremony coincided with a surprise party for be that was uh held in um the extra
space that dwi's now has for their art art school and it was attended by her friends her customers and fellow shop owners with all in the room I was surprised that any stores were open during this time in Downtown Madison because there were many of her fellow
store owners and there was also so many stories of prom dresses that were purchased from uh B and of course some of these stories were coming from 50-year-olds that had bought a prom prom dress decades ago and in uh be's comments she mentioned that a certain
mayor's wife uh purchased her wedding veil from her uh that and that was 38 years ago so that uh that Veil brought many many years of great luck and um as I mentioned at her event her space will uh shortly be um filled with the um
nature of reading will be moving over there but even though that store will be filled it will be forever a hole in our downtown without be running that great store so we wish be the best of uh in her retirement if you happen to be downtown next uh this week because this is our last week please stop in and uh
wish our best um and also as I mentioned last meeting be sharing uh when appropriate the local impact by actions of the current administration of Washington um and this we came up in a shared um call with our Architects for
the heler center that we can expect a major impact on the cost of the project this project includes upporting the foundation of the historic building as well as making it wheelchair accessible with the addition of a new elevator these improvements are expected to cost a burrow significantly more du due to
the sharp increases of cost of building materials due to Trump's imposed tariffs and it has been noted uh nationally that tariffs will impact what we personally pay for products but will have a major impact on public supported projects just
to keep in mind thank you and uh move on to uh reports from committees Finance of burough clerk council president Erick thank you mayor a report from the tax collector
senior residents may have noticed that the senior freeze booklets have had a makeover this is a a application from the state that has been replaced by the new pas1 combined form these were mailed out by the state earlier this month to previous applicants the new booklet has
a single combined application for the senior freeze and the anchor tax benefit as well as the new stay NJ program which also provides additional property tax relief to qualified individuals the combined form eliminates the need to fill up multiple forms with different
due dates you may qualify for one or more of these programs if you are a homeowner or renter over 65 who is receiving Federal Social Security Disability Benefits the deadline to file is October 31st and you can file by mail or online
our tax office has ordered blank book booklets for first time filers and we hope to receive them in April for more information please visit property tax relief. nj.gov the finance department reminds us that this evening we have three important steps that we need to take as we near
the end of the budget process first tonight we will have the final review of the budget the budget is one of the most important decisions that count ccil makes the entire budget process revolves around the 2014 strategic planning guidelines tonight we'll review the
guidelines and we continue to be guided by this important document and the work of former councilman Ben walowitz second we are introducing ordinance 7-22 which is an ordinance to establish a cap Bank the state of New Jersey
issued two laws that limit Municipal spending the first is a levy cap which limits our tax increase to 2% but there are certain exceptions such as increases in capital second cap is the Appropriations cap this limits the increase in
Appropriations to a certain amount however if the burrow passes an ordinance budget Appropriations could increase by 3.5% with the difference being placed in a cap Bank the cap Bank holds two years of excess Appropriations in it doing
this flexibility doing this gives flexibility to Future councils should be a sudden and significant increase in expenses such as rock salt fuel gas or alike uh ordinance 7225 will establish that Appropriations cat bank and we will
be voting to introduce that ordinance tonight and finally the third important step we are taking this evening is the introduction of the official budget document we have had five discussions and presentations on the budget during public Council meetings the process is very transparent with all presentations
on roset and all discussion available for viewing on bu of video this budget includes a proposed 2% property tax increase which is the equivalent of about $523 a month increase for the average home in Madison resolution
10922 will record our vote to introduce the budget after the budget is introduced state law mandates that it be available for public viewing for at least 28 days the document will be on roset at the library and in the clerk's office office
the bur's budget is under State review this year a process we have to follow once every 3 years assuming all goes well with the state review we will then vote to adopt the budget at the council meeting on Monday April 28th finally I'd like to thank all the
staff involved in this transparent and um lengthy budget process including all the department heads who came to present to the public in the council I want to thank my colleagues on Council for their insights questions and comments and I want to thank Jim brunette who has led us uh through this process uh since the
end of 2024 till um our final budget hearing tonight thank you mayor that's all very much Public Safety Mr Lander thank you mayor from the police department today the department personnel took part in every 15 minutes presentation at Madison
High School the purpose of this is to teach students about the dangers of impaired driving the presentation is given every two years at the high school the pre presentation went today and ends tomorrow morning after a video presentation I'll tell you from past
experience it is very intense but it's very worthwhile on Friday March 21st Madison officers and the school resource officers gathered at Ridgedale High gathered at Ridgedale roast at the
Madison High School rale roast is a is run by the Madison High School students and serves coffee one once a month officers were able to chat with students and staff and students over coffee on March 20 on March 21st on
March 12th rather excuse me Madison police Command Staff met with members of sustainable Madison along with sales at representatives from schum Marco Chevy the reason for the meeting was to prepare or rather to display the Chevy
Blazer EV which is in its early stages of production Chief Misha Captain la M and patrolman dco were present for the Madison police department on April 19th Chief Mish will be speaking during the National Crime Victims rights week at
the Mars County Courthouse Chief misher will be representing the Mars County police chief police Chiefs Association and showing support for victim's rights okay from the fire department the fire department also took part in every
15 minutes at the Madison High School today Chief Wickman and Captain Blair met with school officials to continue to go over plans for the school construction project the topics were on Project timelines and student
safety on March 14th the fire department responded to King Street in Marist toown to assist with a fire in an apartment building after the fire our fire prevention SL investigation unit was requested to help with the cause of the fire and finally in keeping up with what
we now call sinkhole season the department responded to a report at sinkhole on Woodland Road this past Sunday the sinkhole was 12 feet wide was rather 2 feet wide and 20 feet deep uh it appears to be an old well that was
under the road that's it mayor very much Public Works and Engineering Mr range thank you mayor from the environmental commission tonight uh on March 13th MEC held a wildly successful talk featuring Paula Wyman author of the bad naturalist
some 60 people attended and Native Plant enthusiasm was high on Sunday March 30th at 1 pm. Bridget Daly will speak on ecological spring cleanup at the support network of Madison she'll explain why resident should skip the leafblower and leave old plant stem standing even as
the weather uh just starts to warm up now on Saturday April 12th the Mec will be tabling at the repair Cafe at Grace Episcopal church 11:00 a.m. to 3M volunteers at the uh repair Cafe will be
repairing broken items such as bikes lamps and electronics all for free uh diverting all of that from a landfill electronics that cannot be fixed will be collected by the Mec and taken to Green VI Vision Inc and Randolph Green Vision
provides training job training to autistic teens and adults adults and teaches them to recycle the valuable metals and other materials with any item from any item with a plug uh tonight from the engineering
department uh they report that the cook Avenue parking lot construction uh continues in by way of the rain Gardens and that installation should be completed in April and that will be kind of the last step for the improvements to cook Avenue parking
lot uh at the Madison Recreation Complex the solar carport project is uh now underway and construction has commenced the parking lot is currently closed um but access to the community garden is available via the
sidewalk um as that project continues uh we'll be uh opening reopening portions of the uh parking lot to accommodate the sports activities uh application grants uh from the New Jersey DOT uh have been
submitted for improvements to Shady Lawn Drive and additional uh additional bids for asbest remediation at the Masonic Lodge uh should be received this Thursday uh for the bid opening for that project and
Engineering is also working with a Consulting engineer on recommendations for Traffic Safety improvements at several intersections uh and other locations throughout Madison bid documents uh for the next phase of theor Memorial Park trails are
also being finalized bids will be received in late April and construction uh should commence in late Spring Road s resurfacing part of the mill and overlay project through the Morris County Co-op is being organized uh
currently and the application for a grant to design additional trails in sommerer park through the Morris County trail trail program uh are being prepared the letter of intent is due uh next week and finally from the Department of
Public Works tonight uh the parks department is preparing Fields uh for spring Sports and has made some repairs to uh field Nets at the Madison Recreation Complex mechanics are uh currently doing preventative maintenance
and repairs on lawnmowers uh field maintenance equipment and the sidewalk sweeper so they are ready to rock and roll as the weather gets warmer the road department will be patching potholes and repairing locations where the water department had to dig in the
road um and with the assistance of the electric Department uh DPW installed an emergency call box and AED cabinet at the Dodge field playground and lastly just a reme reminder the yard waste bags
uh are available at the DPW garage and from the clerk's office at Harley Dodge Memorial that's all from uh Public Works and Engineering thank you mayor utilities Mr Helen pus that was a lot Eric thank you mine's short so from the
electric utility welcome everybody from the electric utility uh unfortunately there was some uh aggressive squirrels around town that cost three separate power outages and uh they didn't make it either unfortunately uh jcpnl will be back at
our Kings Road substation on April 3rd to continue the repairs on the RN OCB anybody knows what that is I don't work should be completed by April 18th uh we had a regular inspection we
have a regular inspection program of our motorized equipment for the electric utility and we found two of our large bucket trucks had to be placed out of service for immediate repairs to the lift components to ensure that a level platform for our worker safety when
they're up in the air that leaves us with only one bucket truck in service but the superintendent Vince Patty is Expediting repairs and also arranging for short-term bucket truck lentils so we can respond to any emergencies in a timely manner from the water department uh
troubleshooting and relay repairs at the ab treatment plant continue uh B well is online now as a primary well the generator nears completion with exhaust fully functional testing and transfer of power date not
yet set but we're getting good Water Production out of there uh water meter replacement continues last stages and uh other routine events are being performed by the water department
that's all man you commune Affairs Miss Hanahan thank you mayor uh the next DDC meeting is on April 17th the Madison Green and clean will be held on Saturday April 26th with the rain date of the
27th that will include an EV Expo a vegan fair and all will be held in Prospect Street lot you can sign up via rosenet also Arbor Day will kick that off in the morning the Chamber of Commerce has three big events coming up
the Easter FunFest April 12 superhero day May 3rd and ladies night May 8th Community Art Center will hold a blood drive by the Red Cross on March 26 and a beetles tribute band will play on March
30th that's all thanks very much and health Forte thank you mayor from the health department Health Department staff member George corneus was elected president of the New Jersey Environmental Health Association so many congratulations go out to him
the health officer met with Senator Andy Kim's office to discuss the importance of continued Federal funding to Public Health departments and in New Jersey Six cats have tested positive for h5n1 or the Aven influenza virus these cats were part of a single cohort in hunon County
symptoms of the h5n1 virus in cats include loss of appetite lethargy coughing sneezing heavy nasal discharge or other respiratory problems neurological symptoms such as trouble walking circling and seizures and if your cat develops any of these symptoms
it's important to notify your veterinarian immediately the health department advises residents to consider the following to keep their cats safe consider keeping the cats IND keep your cat away from wild birds or areas where Birds congregate avoid feeding your cat raw food or raw milk
and regularly clean and disinfect any outdoor areas where cats spend time thank you mayor thank you Communications and petitions um yes mayor the following residents um sent emails opposing the billboard being um
considered along Route 24 in Floren Park that would be Denise Catz Christina padar um jod Wayne and Tom abante very much we now move on to the first of two invitations for public comment this one is limited to items on
our agenda discussion and our um resolutions that are part of the consent agenda so these are the items you may comment on we Have No Agenda discussion so you may only comment on resolutions you can comment on other topics at our second comment period coming up shortly
so resolution 110 is appointing Michael rigs position of Chief lineman with the uh salary uh consistent with the collective bargaining agreement resolution 111 is confirming the membership of Edward Arnold in the Madison hook and ladder company number
one resolution2 is adopting risk management policy for wholesale power supply procurement resolution 113 is authorized in special event permit for egg hunt at James Park on Saturday April 19th
resolution 114 is authorized a Professional Services contract with Dr Matthew laia as medical director for the Madison fire department EMTs resolution 115 is uh authorizing the Madison farm at artison market for
2025 starting May 24th and going through December 13th resolution 116 is declaring Madison Green and clean day 2025 to the health held on April 26 already heard about that resolution 117 authorizing Mars
County Trail construction Grant application which would require a 20% matching Grant on our be on our part resolution 118 is resolution authorizing 20124 budget transfers which can still happen this is transferring
20,000 uh into the pers pension system out of electricity uh budget and resolution 119 is accepting a REV resignation of Deputy burough clerk kadad Rees and resolution 120 is awarding contract for tree pruning and
removal services to honor Tree Service of Madison um the bid in the amount of $334,800 coming out of the um operating budget so you may comment on any of those again if you want to comment on other topics you have to wait till the
next time uh please step up to lecturn state your name and address write the same in the clipboard then State the resolution you're commenting on and try to keep your comments at three minutes but we will give you a one minute grace and have you stop at four all right I'm Gonna Save paper and ink there's none
here um so I'm Claire whitcom 12 faid Road um I just wanted to comment on the resolution on uh Madison Green and clean which is um an excellent day and U Peter fre is organized um a very good um EV Expo but
um missing from the description is is the fact that there will be a green fair and a native plant sale and the environmental commission and sustainable matterson and climate action committee we all be tbling and we have um sealed Power is coming Greenhouse solar is
coming we have a lot of um good boost that will uh provide information and and I can't oh wild said um plants is coming it's just going to be very exciting so we want to boost the native plant and we want to boost the green
fair in addition to all the other features thank you thank you for sharing that anyone else wishing to comment on a resolution please step forward see none I close this part of the meeting and what we will do with the budget is we will uh do the introduction
of the cap Bank we will uh have the CFO um go through presentation on the budget and then we will go through the budget introduction uh resolution process so um we have introduction of 2025 cap Bank
ordinance and the budget tax resolution R 109 coming up and uh call up uh ordinance 7 s225 for first reading ask the bur clerk to read s ordinance by title ordinance 7 2025 for the calendar
year 2025 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a c a cap Bank mayor I move ordinance 7-22 five second during Rachel's report she gave a background on this any other questions
or discussion all call vote please M erck yes Mr landrian yes Mr R yes Mr har pus yes Miss Hanahan yes Mr yes all right we'll bring up our CFO before we uh do
the statement thank you mayor a lot of uh numbers in 19 slides here but uh we'll go through some of them quickly and some of them we'll talk at greater length um the the presentation is set up in such a
way that someone can read it at home so if there's more details more questions I I'm not going to read everything in here but Michael if you go to the next slide this is the proposed schedule we're coming to the Finish Line as councilwoman council president erck said
Michael slide this is a standard repeat slide that talks about the transparency just want to remind everyone that all this information is available on rosenet um the next make sure I get my Purdue in picture boiler up um agenda for this
evening is Tom don't laugh um agenda for this evening is um talk about updated schedules strategic planning guidelines and vote to introduce the budget as presented go to the next slide this is the guiding principles of of how we work um beyond the strategic planning guidelines as council president erck
said we look to always limit tax increases maintain Services maintain funding for Capital ensure long-term Financial stability and then um important questions to ask every year I'm not going to go through all of them but they we're always looking for are there systemic things that can change or
issues um down the road and we'll talk about some of those next slide please uh and uh we'll point to it when we get to that slide but our electric utility energy costs are going up a tremendous amount $3.8 million um we
reduced the electric utility dividend to offset some of that but we're still in um have a systemic um mismatch in that budget and therefore need to keep an eye on that um the budget increased by a total of a million dollars um it's $2
million because of an adjustment to General Capital but I kind of want to look at the budget with and without that addition of General capital so um the general budget increased by a million dollars all other things being equal and that can pretty much be summed up by
four major um departments that we have and if everybody knows we have kind of six major departments garbage sewage processing Library um police fire and public works so the increases in police uh and fire and library and the sewage
processing that's pretty much the the the increase that we have in the budget um near term concerns are the purchase of the Drew forest and need from uh to have the finances to do that affordable housing and obligations going forward future elect utility energy costs
significant Capital needs in 26 and 27 unknown water utility pfas those are the um forever chemicals um and the regulations that are going to come down the pipe for that um drill the farm tax appeals a reval order and federal funding changes we go to the next slide
real quickly I just want to show we have a very big bump in 2026 in the fiveyear capital being driven clearly by uh Road reconstruction as you can see the the Top Line there at over $2 million that's Waverly Place um so that's something
that we just need to keep in mind that's that's a much more a larger than normal five-year Capital plan we typically fund about three and a half million into the capital um Improvement fund so um that's obviously significantly more in terms of the electric utility
as mentioned the energy costs are 3.8 million those are lines E6 through E9 in this presentation which is also available on roset I realize these are there are a lot of numbers on this Slide the electric utility dividend um was
changed which helped bring the utility um to reduce the imbalance in the utility um but there we are still structurally out of balance however because we're in a strong fund balance position we we can see take a wait Andy approach so in
essence by um by zeroing out the electric utility dividend we're increasing our electric rates by 10% PSG is increasing their by 30% other utilities are increasing by their their energy cost by 40% we are going to be
one of the lowcost energy providers um for municipalities and and for other Utilities in the area um this year so uh there is some action that's being taken at the Federal level and at the state level to see if the future impact of these energy costs can be mitigated next
slide please Michael the water utility um was structurally out of balance from 2020 to 2022 you can see that by seeing a drain in w11 and um a Andor a decrease in the
generation of fund balance which is line w14 here we don't want to have such a negative but um the utility is back in um in above water um and uh and and in better shape and we're um anticipating
that to continue but we're realizing that the the strong financial position that the water utility will be in could change significantly with the PFA situation Municipal fund balance is probably the single best way to look at
the strength of the utility I'd say S&P 500 and everybody looks at ipal fund balance to determine um the strength of where the burrow is there was um some uh significant concerns in 2020 you can see there was an actual decrease of over $2
million that was a covid situation we've now been catching up postco for a number of years trying to rebalance the budget um in that year we had almost no parking Revenue we had almost no interest
revenue on our balances we had almost no court revenue and so the following year we had to anticipate very little Revenue in those lines the state says if you only made $100,000 in interest Revenue last year you can't anticipate half a
million dollars even if you think the interest rates are up so we're now in this catch-up phase where um we've had a couple of years where interest rates have gone up and our interest that we've earned has gone up and we continue to increase that and in a minute I'll show you where those two items um come into
play where we believe we're going to kind of plateau in fund balance generation but in general we're um in positive territory there if we go to the next slide Michael I um just wanted to uh point out that the original Municipal
budget that we introduced um a month ago we just were talking about Appropriations wanted to get the um department heads in front of you and there was a gap um between revenue and appropriation ations um that was significant a $345,000 gap that Gap was closed um
primarily by increasing fund balance the use of fund balance for tax relief which is um you'll see in the next slide is line B1 if we go to the next slide you'll see that um the on the previous slide it had three uh $6.3 million for
municipal fund balance we increased it to 6.7 million and then we opted to increase it to 7 .7 million which you can see the very top line there um under 2025 um and by increasing at a million
dollars we're immediately going to take money out of fund balance and increase our general Capital Improvement fund the prior budget had 3.6 million here introd that we talked about a month ago we've now gone to $4.5 million the
reason we've done that is is it gives the council flexibility we put the money into the capital Improvement fund but it doesn't get spent until you guys introduce an ordinance to spend it but if it were in fund balance we wouldn't have as much flexibility to do that next
year if things are tight and um we don't spend that money we'll just reduce the amount of capital Improvement fund um appropriation here maybe back to two and a half million or something uh so it gives us the flexibility now in case
something comes up if we do buy the Drew Forest council could choose to use more Capital dollars to um to fund that not borrow so uh that that was an important one of the important changes if we um uh Michael I actually flipped my page but I
want to stay on this page so you'll note what I mentioned before earlier line B2 Municipal Revenue sources tremendous increase from 2022 to 2025 over $2 million that's court fees that's
construction fees that's interest income that's parking fees uh for downtown all things that were tremendously suppressed in 2021 and 2020 due to covid so that by by increasing that so much but over 10%
uh a 10.7% increase we're choking down future generation of fund balance same with some of the Appropriations some of the Appropriations uh health insurance is going to increase our costs more than
3.7% but if you see line B18 we only have an increase of 3.7% there because we're we're going to um uh appropriate less dollars um any money that's not spent out of any appropriation ultimately lapses into fund balance the
more we're tight on Appropriations the less fund balance will generate but um there's a property tax increase of 2.2% on this state aid dropped 99.3% um really is the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago our budgets increased a
lot but State AIDS the same grants are typically cash in cash out so I don't want you to focus too much on that um significant increases in sewage processing library and legal as a percentage uh the trend in police and
fire salaries um is significant if you look at uh B16 versus B17 so B16 is the first line of Appropriations it went from $5.9 million to over $7 million in four years that's a significant percent increase year-over-year increased 7%
this year part of that is due to us funding uh the new EMT program where we now have paid professional EMTs in Madison 247 but if you note the difference between that and the difference between all the other salaries for construction for court for
administration for tax collection for finance for clerk for everyone that's the next line down went from 5.3 to five uh 5.1 to 5.3 very small increase so the increase in um Appropriations for police and fire is significant part of it is
EMTs part of it is contract part of it is officers that are staying longer and climbing the salary scale so I wanted to point that out and then um uh note that we're increasing fund
balance um abnormally this year on the revenue side 7.7 million we can't do that next year this is a one-time additional to be able to put 4.5 million in the capital Improvement fund so next year that fund balance number is going
to have to go to 6.5 million probably we'll see how gener fund balance generation is Michael if you go to the next slide I wanted to show this because development in town can sometimes be problematic
um but can sometimes have I want to I want people to understand the financial benefits of development where someone takes a house and puts an addition on it or takes a house and um even just puts a new bathroom in it or the movie theater
um which we Lo which we lost which was sad but now we have a very nice rable there or on Community Place what was on Community Place mayor like a sketchy house or something now it's beautiful it was a it was a parking a parking lot so so so it went from a
parking lot and a sketchy so it went from a parking lot and a sketchy house to a very nice rable every year we've been fortunate enough to have not a reduction in our assess values and almost every year an increase in our assess value so some people will appeal
their taxes they'll go down but the net change in assessed ratables has gone up every year and I wanted to show that in um um from 2017 to 2024 it's G up by $149 million that's significant that's
another $49 Million worth of property and um Pro and that's that's paying taxes in terms of value so this um the additional ratables accounted for during that time
$672,000 of additional taxes so how and I think people can rightly ask prices are going up by more than 2% how can you guys handle 2% this is this is part of it we know that gas has gone up
insurance has gone up significantly a lot of costs have gone up the library the sewage processing um so and over the last um since 2018 we have averaged 1.4% tax increase so
2% one one% um a z% so average those over the years it's a 1.3% increase how do we do this how do we fund a whole new EMT service it's through Good Financial stewardship and partially through these
new ratables so I just wanted to kind of point that out next we'll just go real quickly into strategic planning guidelines um if we go uh it was created by Ben wltz in 2014 God bless Ben um and Mike if you go to
the next page we're um compliant with all um the capital fund we actually are in compliance like just green we're compliant this year but that's only because we did that $1 million bump um additional bump in capital Improvement
so next year it's going to go down so guideline five we're um we were off significantly here we're now kind of in range all the other guidelines um Debt Service as a total of Appropriations uh utility Surplus
transfers um compared to Total Appropriations operation shortfall to Total Appropriations and um fund balance to Total Appropriations all of them are are in compliance the next slide shows um some additional guidelines and I'm
not going to go into details on them but they're available if anybody wants to read them um and uh so um you know one for example is the maintenance of the reserve for uncollected tax at 2.3% we're not there we're less than 2.3% so
we're we're kind of comping there and um with that I want to just go over some of the Ben next slide Michael some of the benefits um and what you get for your services and this is the one thing I'd like the Drew students to understand there's a property tax bill and it
there's three major components in that property tax bill it's us and the services we provide which are all right here it's the schools and the Board of Education a and educating all the students kindergarten through high
school then it's some money to go to County uh the county the Green Village Road um is a uh a County Road and um other services that the county provides so while someone who owns a approximately average home in town which
is valued at $875,000 their property tax bill is $14,000 but the municipal portion of that property tax bill is only $3,000 the increase of this in this
budget of 2% represents about a um $50 increase annually in that person's property tax or $523 and I don't think you can get anything at your Starbucks kiosk through under $523 so um and for those Services we're
getting the fire department and fire safety and we have a paid Fire Department in Madison That's Unique for a town our size a lot of other towns have volunteers Police Department crossing guards garbage and recycling yard waste Recreation Senior Services sewage treatment not exciting but
expensive um our new ambulance services Health Department um all the utilities that we have fire hydrants and street lights a wonderful public library and plowing and maintenance of over 50 miles of roads and then everything that we're doing here all the administration so the
average home in town is paying $3,000 for for that and I would like to say that that's a pretty good deal so with that um I'll I'll take questions just a couple of quick things just to hit on um
reinforce and help our students one uh for our students in the audience some of this may or may not be on your final exam so you hopefully you caught all those numbers um but uh electric utility there's only nine other municipalities
in the state that would talk about electric utility Madison owns its own utility um so that's something different um Jim mentioned the uh that the dividend is uh going away and in essence
is a 10% uh increase uh what that really is is we we haven't really changed rate structure in 15 years may I probably um so when we got into uh very good uh purchase contracts rather than Chang changing the rate structure we created
this dividend which was in essence a temporary reduction in the cost so by you know regret regretfully we have to eliminate the dividend but it's far short of what the other municipalities uh or other residents New Jersey will
see in their bills but we're just going back to the rates we charged 10 years ago so it's a uh not not that big of a difference the um sewer jump that comes from two things one in the overall budget of the sewer uh right now they're
proposing um there was Zero for Capital um and this year um capital is going way up and so that's a uh pressure and then the allocation between us and chadam we we share the sewer treatment plant with chanan burrow is based on uh the flow to
the plant and so our it has shifted the weight has shifted more towards Madison not we're not too sure exactly what's going on there but um so some of the allocations coming back to us um so take shorter showers yes take a shorter showers and uh save a flesh would helps
helps our taxes and um the other um thing is just reinforce the guidelines you will not see a test to guidelines you know every town has to do their best practices for the state but not to the detail level that was put together by
Ben wtz and committee and the goal there was for the council that time and future councils have have a guide book to know that they're meeting and doing the best for our residents so it's we do that every year and we're right on target so without that other questions or comments
from the council Rachel thanks chff for that presentation um you flew through it it was a lot of information and this is the I don't know sixth time that I've gone
through one of these and I still have to relearn it every time so I just want to acknowledge it's complicated and uh it's to your credit that you go through it quickly but also leaves me with some questions every time because I know you're just trying to get through
it you so one thing I want to say is about this um increase in uh electricity costs this is not an increase that Madison electric utility has decided to you know uh pass down on its customers
this is the wholesale cost of electricity that the burrow purchases from pjm which is the um the the larger regional market that uh supplies our electri electricity that we resell um to our our electric meter
customers and we talked about this back in December and I I just want to make the point again that this is self-inflicted Pain by pjm they had been warning about uh plants and gas plants
retiring but they and and that has in fact come to pass so we're not generating as much power uh pm has not been able to bring new generating resources online in a reasonable time frame so we have a crunch right now where uh demand is far exceeding Supply
and I think the expectation is this will be corrected um perhaps as soon as next year and as you said there's state and federal action where uh Governors are looking to limit the pain that customers will feel but I think um it's a testament to the
the purchasing patterns of of the burrow and the great um Prudence that you've used that has put us in a pretty uh a relatively resilient position right now to deal with this price shock that that our neighbors that have to pay invest
their owned utilities will be suffering with this year um so I just have a question you mentioned that um I know this is one of the main points that you made but you highlighted the um in our
2025 prior year Municipal fund balance line uh so previously we were at 6.2 million and now we're at 7.7 million and you said we are choking down
future generation of fund balance with this increase and I have to admit I I'm not really sure what you mean by that can you explain it's it's a it's a hard um thing to explain Michael if you could move to the slide Municipal fund balance fund balance is basically we an
we anti can be generated a couple of different ways and fund balance is tax dollars that we've collected that we didn't spend that we can then use next year and so on a revenue stand point if
we anticipate $600,000 in interest income and we get $800,000 this year in interest income fund balance will increase $200,000 it's more than what we anticipated in the budget if we have a mild winter and we
don't spend as much rock salt or don't have as much overtime for our DPW guys to plow the roads and we budgeted half a million dollars for plowing and for rock salt and it was only $320,000 that difference the
$180,000 lapses into appropriation reserves and then into fund balance so those are the two ways that we generate fund balance so let's go over those two examples if every year I anticipated $600,000 in interest income and every
year was making $800 or $900,000 we'd be generating fund balance this year we increased Municipal revenues Michael if you go to two more slides forward um the very the second line Municipal
Revenue sources we increased that really what I did was I said we're we're not going to generate we're not going to estimate $600,000 in interest income I'm going to estimate $750,000 so next year we will not generate $200,000 in fund balance will
maybe generate $50,000 in fund balance all other things being equal the same holds true on use health insurance as an example instead of rock salt health insurance one of about 10% but we had extra money in there you
know we don't always know if an employee is going to change from a single employee to a family employee we don't know if an employee is going to um change where they're not taking our health insurance and then they decide to take our health insurance so it had a healthy additional balance in there and
let's say every year that was generating um let's look at health insurance health insurance is a $2.2 million line let's say we had um every year just for it it was last let's say it was $1.9 Million
the cost of health insurance in last year 1.9 million it's 2 million uh 135 that I budgeted that additional amount becomes fund balance this year I said we're gonna we're going to cut these
incre we're going to trim back on Appropriations so we can make things balanced and in the end that will have an impact on fund balance fund balance is is kind of like I know this is esoteric but I think
the the best analogy is that the council gets to touch the the controls of the ship one time and then we have to stand back and see where the current takes us we don't get to um you know at home if you need to spend more money because you
want to buy a new car you can spend more money to buy a new car we've appropriated all the money for all the cars so if we need additional car that's a problem um if you made more money because you got a Bonus at work you go spend that we've budgeted the revenues so we can't spend that so it's a
challenge on managing fund balance we're fortunate that um we're in a positive position on it and as I said we have to manage it and I'm trying to tighten on it a little bit but
um it it is something that S&P that the S&P and the other rating agencies look at so we need to manage it so next year I can just for sure guarantee that line one the top line is is going to be back to like 6.5 million 6.7 million next
year it's just going to have to be um so I don't know could do this or did you no you help me thank you Bob Jim first of all I want to thank you for the time you've put in on this
and everybody on Council and Ray and every in the administration for the effort that they put in on this I don't know any other town that has the detail and the transparency that we do but getting back to the budget itself what I
picked up was a few things and it shows forethought when you one thing that jumps out is the road repairs it's a big bump this year well if you don't do it this year it's probably going to be more next year because the roads going to be
in more in worse shape so you got to spend it now because if you pay now you profit later is what my father used to drill through my head uh in regards to the tax increase let's say we said no property tax increase this year well that puts
roughly a 600 uh 300,000 yeah that $300,000 uh hole in our budget this year well I don't think things are going to get any better financially next year so next year that 300,000 could easily be
$600,000 eventually it's going to catch up to you and bite in the butt I hate to say it like that but it will so this is the way of the old Madison way of pay now profit later pay as you go so I give this budget a lot of credit and Jim you
did a great job and to get up there and go through it like that you got to have a little computer in your head to do that but thank you Jim I really appreciate it thank you other comments or questions Tom yes sir thanksme thanks
Bob and Rachel for your comments everybody's paying attention hopefully there's going to be a test before you leave I don't know if we get any of it right but uh I'm very impressed Jim so this is a year when we actually have done better 2024 tremendously better right and a lot
of it's because you do have a good fund balance general fund a lot of money there so and you know I'm I'm All About just being considerate to making sure we do a good job providing services to the community which we do a fantastic job in my opinion I haven't heard too many
people complain about it unless the leaves aren't picked up one weekend you know nothing significant our Recreational Sports are great and we help fun that our Fields so it's all good um I would like to see no increase you know the way you propose it it's not
really that much but still every year it goes up and we we know the community is going to be affected by the schools increase we don't control it but it's still something everybody's going to pay at the end of the day so one area where I I know that Ben walkowitz had good
intentions when he gave us these guidelines and I commented on this last year too besides few other areas is the uncollected taxes you're smiling right you knew what no I know I'm happy that you're going to the guidelines okay you no no I remember the guidelines I
remember when Ben put it in place Bob was probably on Council back then too and mayor Conley was there too so eventually I don't know if you can tell me when there was a year when we had a problem with uncollected taxes since you've been working here
Ray is there there's not been no has not been at all right so that's taxpayer money it's good that we're very conservative about that does it need to go up every year could we put that $40,000 take it away as a as an obligation could we even take some money
out of there is it eventually going to be $3 million or $4 million maybe not during your career but I don't know you you might be here a long time you're young man uh than you so that's that's the only place that I would say you know
so so to that that is that's a that's worth having a conversation about that is the Third Leg of the generation of fund balance is the reserve for uncollected tax and if we were to do anything in reducing the reserve for
uncollected tax the following year we would just be reducing the amount of fund balance and we'd have to raise the taxes over there so it's a little bit of a balloon you push in over here it's it's going to come out over there if we were to cut the reserve for all un collected tax and do a 0% this year we'd
have to do a 4% tax increase next year only if you want to keep up with your with your guideline otherwise you could just say well for a while we're going to keep it at one because we haven't had to use it once ever so I don't know is it supposed to just keep increasing you don't have to have it increase that's
guideline all Municipal Finance officers yeah that's that's something that you do every year because you just don't know have there been years in the history of Madison absolutely there have been years in the history of of Madison we don't know remember co co was crazy and we
made it sudden we made it through but it was9 you made it it was tough that didn't hit the town as as as bad as Co did Co was really really um impactful to the municipality so um so I I doing that
would just immediately mean doubling the increase next year oh so it be a kind of a one time one trick pony I wasn't looking at it that way I'm looking at it just to stabilize it um but anyway I'm just making that as a suggestion as a little relief it's interesting that we don't have any
change in unemployment insurance do we not pay that yes so what would that somebody else asked that Eric asked that question what with that we have a trust fund where we put the unemployment we have a trust place where we put unemployment so um every year we just fund that trust and um and then we we
pull out of it um when we need to so um you know eventually that will have to go up but right now we're okay right and you could hopefully predict that next year our legal will not be what it's been because of what we've been doing with Drew so that should drop from 500 a
lot we just have and we had the police we had a lot of different issues where we needed to have contract negotiations I I will 100% agree with you on that or I hope I hope I'm doing well next hope thing one more thing so I want to just
be clear the Drew Forest oblig ation that we're going to probably have when we move forward with this we're not really going to take the money from the municipal general fund we're going to use our open space money we're going to get a bond unless we decide that there's
some really great reason that we want to just take money I mean what's going to end up happening is um we have Green Acres dollars that are going to every year right so we're it's eventually going to cost us about um $8 million um
total there's other revenues coming from all sorts of different Grant sources federal state and everything else the purchase pric is you know 23.8 but then there's donations and and other things that are going to um you know to convince Drew to sell us this um
important piece of land so we need $13 million at the time of closing and we could use General Capital some general Capital Improvement fund and then next year say Okay um we're going to we're going to borrow we
could borrow shortterm and we probably would borrow some of the money shortterm because Green Acres dollars will come in every year um but then some of it will have to bond long term and I think if we have that flexibility to be able to kind of decide year-over-year we can decide you know what this is the year interest
rates are down this is the year we want to go out long term and to your point Tom we talked about this there's other debt and things that are changing in the out years make that callable or uh make that callable in five years or maybe like we talked about in a couple of
years the debt service line is going to change1 million right that that's going to go down by a million dollar by over a million dollars that funds um the revenue uh the renovations here and there so all these things make me want to kind of do a short-term incremental
approach um to the funding of the Drew forest with short-term borrowing but if we borrow $10 million at what do you think the interest rate would be T three three and a half% maximum that's $350,000 $300,000 in just interest that we're paying
that's why we have the open space fund we have the open space fund we don't have we have a couple million dollars in there at most we just got $700,000 in there from the playground yep that's two years so yeah so we're so we don't we're going to have to borrow money okay oh I know that and so the notion of not
paying $35,000 for every million or $350,000 to borrow 10 10 million maybe we only borrow 9 million because we use General Capital but you'll have we'll talk about that you'll have have the ability to make that decision um if or when we actually close clarify for the community so that they understand
because it sounds like big burden all of a sudden but you have you've already been planning for we have yep thanks Jim that was great any other comments or questions all right for the uh budget introduction will clerk please read the
statement upon introduction and adoption the 2025 budget and tax resolution be published um in summary in the Madison Eagle on March the 27th 2025 the public hearing date set for Monday April the 25th 2025 at 8m at which time and place
all interested individuals will have an opportunity to be heard and there will be consideration for final adoption a copy of the budget is introduced will be filed with the Madison Public Library and the Mars County library and posted on the Burrow's website for public
review he resolution 109 d225 resolution of the burough of Madison adopting the 2025 budget and tax resolution mayor I move resolution 109 d225 second any further Council discussion roll call vote Please Mr erck
yes Mr landrian yes Mr rain yes Mr har pus yes M Hanahan yes Mr for yes as mentioned we Have No Agenda discussions because we had pretty uh substantive uh discussion right there so thank you all on to ordinance for
hearing will the clerk please read a statement ordinances scheduled for hearing were introduced by title and passed on a first reading at the regular meeting of the council held March the 10th 2025 they were posted and filed according to law and copies were made available to the general public
requesting scene I call up ordinances for second reading ask the clerk to read that ordinance by title ordinance 5-22 ordinance of the burrow of Madison establishing chapter 60 of the Madison burough code entitled batteries to regulate the to S and storage of lithium
ion batteries mayor I move ordinance 5 wait wait we we have our wrong uh got I have to open the hearing first we have our wrong uh outline down below there I open the hearing to anyone in the uh public wishing to comment on ordinance 5 if you wish to comment
please step forward seeing that I close the hearing and will entertain a motion okay mayor I move ordinance 5-22 second any Council discussion roll call vote please M yes Mr landan
yes Mr range yes Mr harus yes ham yes Mr for yes I declare ordinance 5- 2025 adopted and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish notice there thereof a newspaper and file the ordinance in accordance with the law and now I call up ordinance
6-22 ordinance of the burough of Madison appropriating $500,000 from the general Capital Improvement fund for the 2025 million overlay projects I open the hearing on ordinance six I we wish a comment please step
forward seeing none I close the hearing may I move ordinance 6-22 second any Council discussion roll call vote M erck yes Mr Lan yes Mr rain yes Mr harus yesan yes
yes I declare ordinance 62025 adopted and finally passed and ask the clerk to publish not to St of a newspaper and F the ordinance in accordance with the law we now move on to our second of uh invitations for public comment this is when you may comment on any topic the
other rules apply as far as trying to keep your comments to uh three minutes but we give you a one minute grace period and have you stop at 4 and also please state your name and address and write the same on the on the pad there uh hello hell I'm Molly pooy I live at
six Fairwood Road I'm Margaret malisch I'm at 21 Fairwood uh we know each other as neighbors and uh we're steps away from The Drew Forest now we're also collaborators uh we brought a series of artworks with us um that we've been
working on together you may know Margaret as the artist behind glass for good she makes beautiful stained glass panels and donates 100% of sales to meaningful causes I approached last year and asked if she would be interested in collaborating on a series of artwor to benefit
Drews Molly has a background in Fine Arts and works in many media we design the panels collaboratively and Molly paints on the glass after each panel is assembled our art captures The Whimsy and magic of the forest while
highlighting the seriousness of protecting it you can and they're over there by the way on the table you can see details of houses native plants and connections to the community within each piece for us the
Drew Forest is a precious Place uh Beyond its beauty the Drew Forest is a is vital for our community it helps to mitigate flooding especially crucial so storms have been stronger and more destructive in recent years uh it also serves as an Irreplaceable groundwater recharge area
we are donating all sales of this series to the Friends of the Drew Forest right now there's three but we're planning at least five um we hope these panels bring attention to the importance of these 51 biodiverse acres and ensure its benefits
for our community continue please take a closer look when you have the chance thank you thank you Margaret and uh Molly thank you for coming and also for the records Margaret was our cross the street neighbor for 20 years we moved
she didn't anyone else wishing to comment please step forward good evening everyone um I'm here on behalf of window dis Spirit we want to say thank you your your name and address first oh okay my name is Andrea
I live in chatan but I was a long time resident in Madison um here with uh Miss lari we both are part of the board members of Wen spirit and we come to say thank you to the the council because we
have we madon was the first town to pass the safety like a safety town and uh today we just went in do as well moris Town pass they saying like uh
to be a safe town and like we have increased like lately in New Jersey to 12 towns that has passed this new this new um benefit for my community and for like the people that we work for thank
you thank you very much I'm glad we happy that we could lead the way for it anyone else wishing to comment please step forward thank you hi there I'm Brian Monahan 19 Green
Hill Road I'm a member of the Madison environmental committee as well as have been a very uh enthusiastic volunteer for the last decade over at the Madison mrcc that includes both the meadow area
as well as the forested area we've done uh extensive work uh mostly all volunteer work it's been uh incredibly productive we've been able to change that habitat for the better and now we come to the situation where we find out that Floren
Park is going to construct a 1,000 square foot 55 foot tall uh electronic billboard and as well an access road now I realize this is Floren Park's
property it's up to Floren Park I'm asking as a Madison resident as well as in conjunction with those in the Mec as well as all those volunteers as well as all the work and money that's put into this recreational
out this Conservation Area was this something that being that it's within 100 ft of our property will send light cascading down a third of the entire Meadow area was this something that Floren Park just didn't bothered to tell
us about because it seems like it's come up fairly quickly and they're ready to move on it and we're just finding out about it so I really appreciate the council's help over the last 10 years they've been absolutely incredible for us to do what we do over there I'm just
wondering if council could tell us maybe how this all happened why Floren Park is putting up an electric billboard the only one outside of norc off of Route 24 and this access road I know it's going to be shared by Madison for emergency
vehicles but it's to go onto the Eastern section of Route 24 leading away from the area that is the problem to get to so why we having an accet Road is that so we can get back to the fire station quicker I don't think so you know so
this is what I ask if anybody could give me a little Clarity I'll address it after the comments great hi Kiren wallenstein for Westerly Madison um I'm also uh along with Brian um and others concerned about the
billboard um and you know I'm more the Newbie working out in the conservation Meadow but just learning how much has gone into it seeing monarch butterflies piliated woodpeckers um Hawks and the amount of
Wildlife and the way the volunteers we as a community and Wildlife are thriving together and then to know that you know this very tall digital bullboard is um emerging yeah is obviously concerning and so um
yeah to the extent Madison we can ask for a repositioning of it because it really is nudged right against the Border um so having it farther away um or even having it turned down at night I
think in the late night very you know there's not a lot of traffic right so maybe 5 or 10% of most of the traffic of the eyeballs are going by in the middle of the night so I think there are ways we could at least mitigate it ideally
not have it but um you know that's more of a concerned mother of a teenage son that's learning to drive and I think these things are actually distracting as well so anyway you've always been very helpful mayor and counsel and to the extent you can help us here we'd
appreciate it I I think that um also we on Clare with come 12 Fairwood Road we should state that the problem with this this lighting is light pollution is very hazardous to to insects and Wildlife uh Nan lighting is considered a key factor
in the catastropic Des decline of insects worldwide and we seeing you know our our LED lights in the streets are brighter they're not you know everything's getting brighter Sports lighting is brighter homes are being lit Around the Clock you know you can mitigate this in in your house by
putting up yellow or Amber tone lighting it's just it's very easy to do and um this bright white light at night affects fireflies which communicate with flickering lights it affects Moss which hover around uh White Light Moss are an
extremely important po pollinator it exhausts the Moss and uh they deplete their energy Reser reserves and it inhibits meeting so um Doug talmy the um esteemed
entomologist who's spoken in Madison and um our Zoom has more than 900 views think Michael but um he says we've lost 44% of the insects on the planet and if we can reverse this by flicking a switch we're getting off easy this um
positioning of the the electronic billboard is very concerning I don't see why Floren Park is got a two acre parcel of land that they could rejigger the positioning of of the billboard and accommodate us I mean I realize that we're not going to be able to tell them what they can build or not build on
their own property but um um I don't see why we can't like raise a little noise work a little more closely with them and get a better result for the conservation cars which as Brian says like like you look at the property line on the map there's the digital billboard this is
where the conservation area starts and if we're going to have a conservation area we have to have good neighbors thank you anyone else wishing to comment please step forward seeing that I close is part of the meeting so some uh back background
on the uh access road and the uh electronic uh Bill Billboard um first with the emergency access there is um westbound W westbound emergency access right off of Greenwood uh and the issue
has been eastbound access has really been a problematic of uh almost having to go to Columbia Turnpike and circle back around and uh valuable time is lost and so this would be access road it's been uh considered by both towns for a
while and kind of a joint effort more likely it's going to be our um fire department R EMTs will be closer and responding so um that's where that came from so it will give the eastbound
the uh electronic billboard as uh just mentioned you know it it is out of our jurisdiction welcome to home rule capital of the world um clearly this is something Madison would never do um but uh it is something we we will do
our best to guide Floren Park uh it has been approved by the planning board they have not passed a resolution yet from my understanding I would encourage everyone to uh you know maybe attend the planning board meeting so you can get that on
record uh though it's more of a formality when they vote on that but also send uh your letters to the the uh mayor of Floren Park sharing um your concerns which will re reinforce a letter that I've sent to the mayor
stating exactly what has been said because a great research on behalf of our environmental commission and um yeah the sign most likely is going to go in we're not going to stop that I or I don't think we will but hopefully we can
guide where it finally is and maybe the idea of a time of day restrictions would I think make a lot of sense too so let's you know we will be work with our neighbors to help everyone be good neighbors not just town to town but uh
towns to Wildlife towns to insects all right we now move move on to introduction of ordinances will clerk please read the uh statement the um ordinance scheduled for first reading has a hearing date set for April the 14th 2025 we published in the Madison Eagle
post on the bulletin board and made available to members of the public requesting copies I call up ordinance 8- 2025 for first reading ask the burough clerk to read set ords by title ordinance 8- 2025 ordinance of the burough of Madison
amending chapter 18531 of the burrow code to prohibit stopping or standing of vehicles During certain hours on East Street from Howard Street to a point 350 ft East thereof second Council
discussion this is fairly close to the uh Kirby Center where there's heavy uh pickup and drop off and so this will greatly help the Neighbors in that in that area as we look at the safety of it that's why any other
comments I I know that our um traffic safety unit has been very responsive to the neighbors there and I want to thank uh Chief Misha Captain Longo and uh corpor dco for working with those neighbors to try to come to a resolution on this matter thank
you roll call vote Please Mr yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr har pus yes m ham yes Mr Forte yes okay we now move on to consent agenda resolutions will the clerk please read the statement consent agenda
resolutions will be enacted with a single motion any resolution requiring expenditure is supported by a certification of availability of funds any resolution requiring discussion will be removed from the consent agenda all resolutions will be reflected in full in the
minutes mayor I move resolution r110 d225 through r120 d225 second Council discussion or any that we need to pull uh just wanted to comment uh that
which nice I think getting a new volunteer in the fire department uh the gentleman's name is Edward Arnold so that's great recruiting Chief or however it is that it's coming to the light so that's fantastic for us it's really moving the right
direction thank you coms good to have Eddie Arnold on there yes R call please M ear yes yes Mr landrian yes Mr R yes Mr harm
pis yes Hanahan yes Mr for yes there's no unfinished business move on to approval of vouchers will the clerk please red the voucher totals from the current fund 4,482 5496 from the general Capital fund
$1,763 72 from the electric operating fund $2,465 48 from the water c um operating fund $ 26,5 even from the water Capital fund
$52,400 from the trust $ 24,73011 15 the total is 5,216 33 mayor I move approval of the vouchers second discussion roll call vote please
M ER yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pis yes Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes and under new business I'd like to make the following appointment requesting uh Council uh consent uh Adam rits of Green
Village Road as the Chamber of Commerce member to the Downtown Development commission through December 31st 2027 mayor I move as the forgoing appointment second all favor Iain a motion to adjourn mayy I move to
adjourn all in favor thank you very much