##VIDEO ID:SCzuFJobBlQ## e e e e e let the record reflect we've reconvened with all members present for those are able please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I ask to remain standing after the pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible for liberty andice moment to remember we lost over the last couple of weeks Peter Mako passed away at home in the young age of 20 November 20th it was a lifetime Madison resident whose life ended all too soon he survived by his parents Jennifer Hawker and Ste Steven Marco two sisters malie and paig his col grandparents Joy Thompson and Gary Hawker his col grandparents kobby and John he was born February of 2004 and lived a life marked by unwavering optimism passion and kindness devoted his entire life to helping others and he inspired countless people with enthusiasm and positivity Jak had a passion for life and a passion to do whatever he could do for others in need in the midst of this courageous three and a half year battle with cancer Madison recognized Jake the proclamation noting his courage and spirit as he faced the battle against cancer battle that he knew he wouldn't win that didn't stop want to coun John Forte to that Jake worked at front desk and Madison WI say the last C years he decided to start learning Spanish so he could help the Spanish speaking members of the why he was also a volunteer for the past year Kesler wanted to counsel other young people who smal core injuries provide the support he wished he had when he was staying there he attended County College of marus where he was working on his degree in digil design as he said in his obituary Jake has inspired us all by the way he lived our lives are richer because of his his life may be short but his legacy will be forever 20 year life you also remember amarie Clinton cob passed way earlier this month born in 1937 father was Arthur Clinton and a doctor and mother school teacher Mary Conan we began her working career at Hayes Department Store New York on high school graduation with After High School graduation and then she was full-time basis with uh New Jersey Bell she started service representing rising up to her business officer supervisor very rare for a woman at the time in 1968 she was engaged to Andrew cob one of our former uh guard combat veteran of Kore War but she wasn't in haste to marriage set a marriage date as it says inor until he bought his three-year-old son to spend a day with her Andy's first wife had died 14 months earlier they had a son named ma an fell richly in love with and an and Andrew were married on May 11th 1969 and moved to Madison they lived here for 50 years 72 the daughter Jennifer Le the family was a family that compelled to depart from a full-time business world to provide her two children with Lov and stay at home mother in late 70s she started a successful business at home for nearly 30 years took care of roughly 40 children in their families to become a second M mother to she was survived by her husband of 55 years Andrew father son Ma and his wife Amy three grandchildren also surviv also on November 19th um lost John gakos better known as Bill died at the age of 96 Family Faith and most important his life open in Mars toown with his younger brothers Peter and Emanuel during high school and college he worked at John Stella contestant family own contestant Mars he attended high school at Gordon toown Institute he graduated in 47 went on to se PA met his wife Zenia who his aunt and uncle were friends of father they were the AG in 51 was veteran during Korean War but served State Side his uh service was interrupted when he came back to run the score for a little bit after father died in 51 but went back into Service uh C and Bill first lived in Petersburg Virginia and then after his second service period they returned to Madison in 1956 they the first and only house they ever had Madison Drive a little bit later rais the three children John nich and Sandra General Motors in New York City as a staff accountant became a sales manager for GMC truck and Coach based out of his Vis and was very successful time6 survived by his wife of 71 years minia children John Nicholas and Sandra the respective spouses and six grandchildren let take a moment to remember Jake Mo and and Marie cob will got pass our thank you welcome all I apologize for delay uh the agenda in the executive but we are here now so just there are no minutes for approval so I'll go right into my uh greetings and thank you for all those that carved out some time um during Thanksgiving week to be here and it was great to see a soaking rain last week even with the temperatures barely reaching 40 we had to endure a few miserable days but it was a miserable days well worth it uh we still have a long ways to go to uh make up for um the dry spell we've had since August couple things going on last couple weeks on November 16th I attended the entrepreneurship accelerator incubation signature program graduation I actually had to say that at least three or four times when I was there which you probably know is a challenge for me but this is program of the Mars uh Hispanic chamber of commerce and which was held in the anywhere building right in Madison so I conre congratulated them on their completion of the program which will greatly support them as they grow their small businesses and uh make Mars County even stronger and then last week uh along with councilman uh range and uh staff we I was at the um annual League of municipalities conference um this time I didn't uh attend any coun uh uh panels in the audience I spent most of the time in the front moderating I did one on community solar working with sustainable Jersey on that one also one on the state of state health insurance plans and Alternatives and the highest uh alternative they were pushing uh was the alternative we have turned to so that was good and then I did a round table on our arrive program which is uh now Statewide in many communities it's in every County and this is uh we will have a presentation on this probably in January um this is where our health mental health professionals arrived together with police when responding to calls that include someone that may be facing a mental health crisis um and it's been incredibly successful Madison incredibly successful in um communities across the state and I want to thank uh Chief John Misha and Captain Joe longer who join joined me on the panel and also attended the sustainable uh New Jersey lunch and uh where um Addison was recognized once again as midsize Community sustainable champion and uh we we received our silver C certification with a total of a thousand points I think second place was hundreds of points behind someone out there remind me but um it was an honor to uh do that um and I was running a little late and I sat down picked up the program and saw that I was getting an award so that was a nice little surprise uh especially when I saw that the award was the mayor art andish leadership award um he was until his death the mayor of Mount Arlington and to say um you can tell he was a special person because I know uh sustainable Jersey has an award name for him the league of municipalities has an award name for him and the conference of mayors has an award name for him so he certainly left his Mark so for me to uh receive an award with his name on was very special to me and um you know it was recognizing my work as a leader as mayor and putting Madison in the Forefront as a sustainable community and making our difference and really it was a day of Mayor taking credit for all the work as I see people in the front row uh that is going on in Madison and Rachel's leadership so thank you for making me look so good I appreciate that um but we are consistently held up as a leader and the town to emulate so uh we are doing amazing things and then the next day I was uh given a award from the New Jersey municipal management association their distinguished service award for my years as a leader in government and again would not be possible without all the great work that's happening here in Madison so thank you for uh making Madison stand above the rest and making me look so good um and then last week the uh Mars County Commissioners um approved an additional open space Grant of $1,887 7 1,8 87766 I'm not too sure exactly how that calculation came to but we we're very happy to get that because that is on top of the $5 million they gave us last year um so they were the first money in and now an additional Grant to support the purchase of the Drew forest and many thanks go to uh communications director Michael P back there at the controls and uh our consultant Barbara hkin Davis of Land Conservancy New Jersey for their work on the grant certainly a big thanks to the Mars County Commissioners and open space committee for supporting the purchase of the Drew forest with the grant 5 million last year and again the additional 1.1 this year we're moving quickly to the finish line and it would not have been uh possible without the support from the county and uh that's all I have for now and uh we'll go on to um reports from committees Public Safety Council president range thank you mayor from the police department this evening the police department has been planning for Friday's uh Christmas parade for the last several weeks the department will have a full complement of officers present on scene and safety measures will be in place to ensure that everyone who attends feels safe and secure the planning committee has also worked with federal state and County Partners to ensure a safe event we will have additional barriers up to up the line uh of Main Street so there are no safety issues with visitors crossing the street during the parade or children running uh into the street to get candy and other good goodies uh we ask that everyone follow all safety protocols that are put in place uh this is a great way to kick off the holiday season in Madison and we look forward to seeing everyone on Friday night also remember to as we enter the holiday season to be cautious uh driving around town uh particularly around the holiday displays and the Santa visit locations uh near the train station um as the mayor mentioned last week uh at the league of municipalities conference Captain Longo and chief Misha uh took part in uh the mayor's Roundtable to discuss the arrive program along with our partners at the county the arrive program is a program where councelors are partnered with police officers to handle calls for individuals in mental crisis Madison was one of the first towns uh in Morris County to adopt the program uh and and to take part for more information on arrive you can visit rosenet and uh we're very proud of this ongoing effort in the police department and from the fire department this evening uh with the recent rain uh the fire ban the outdoor fire ban in New Jersey has been lifted uh but we should uh continue to remain Vigilant uh with any outdoor fires over the course of uh the next several weeks as we are uh continue to be in in a unprecedented drought condition uh as we move into the holiday season and you're hanging up various holiday decorations it is important to make sure that you are not using any worn or damaged electrical cords which could uh result in fire uh and also be sure the electrical cords and uh decorations uh have a UL that's the Underwriters Laboratory uh label on the cord it is especially important to take care um when using candles as well uh whether or not they are part of holiday celebrations uh also from the fire department Captain Blair and Lieutenant Webb have both completed uh the 101h hour fire arson investigation course this class uh which is run by the International Association of arson investigators certifies both Blair and Webb to begin cause and origin of fires investigations the 101 hours includes both classroom and Hands-On training at both the middle sex and Morris County uh firey so congratulations to Captain Blair and Lieutenant web and we thank them for uh that ongoing training and lastly tonight uh next week the fire department will be uh conducting confined space rescue training uh with the penni Arsenal fire department and the Cedar nolles Fire Department right here um at Madison fire headquarters uh we are uh known in the county uh for our confined space operations so we're glad to be able to share this knowledge and to provide um confined space rescue as one of our shared services as we discussed last meeting and that is all from Public Safety tonight mayor thank you you very much Finance B clerk M Erick thank you mayor the tax department reminds us that the deadline for filing the anchor benefit application with the state has been extended extended to December 6th of this year this program replaced the homestead benefit program unlike Homestead the anchor benefit is paid directly by a direct deposit or check not as a credit off of property taxes it's available to both homeowners and renters or tenants homeowners with income under $250,000 and renters with income under $150,000 are eligible for more information or to check the status of your benefit please visit the tax collector's page on roset and follow the link to to visit the state of New Jersey's anchor page okay just as Santa comes to town at the time of year I am excited to announce that budget season has arrived tonight we have our first budget presentation as we have done for the past few years we will discuss Capital items and the draft five-year Capital Plan before year end no action will be taken but this will give Council and the public an opportunity to see the plan and the projects that will hopefully be funded and completed in 2025 Administration is suggesting a budget schedule similar to Year's past with the following dates and topics tonight as I mentioned the 25th we will have the draft 5-year Capital plan on December 9th we will discuss open space Recreation and historic preservation trust fund as well as capacity costs so that's our electric utility and utility dividend on January 27th we'll have a presentation from Public Works the water utility the electric utility and Utility Fund balances on February 10th we will have our initial Municipal budget review and presentation from the fire department on February 24th we will have department head presentations and a month later on March 24th we will have the final budget hearing and strategic planning strategic planning discussion as well as our budget introduction and then on the 28th we will Target to have our budget hearing and adoption this year we are under State review as happens every three years I believe so it is possible POS that the introduction and adoption dates may change uh based on input from the state thank you very much thank you and public works and Engineering Mr landrian thank you mayor from the Department of Public Works while the crews are out and working extra hours it takes almost three weeks for DPW to make it around town uh picking up all the leaves the DPW would like to thank the residents for their patients Crews have completed the third time around the borrow with the vacuums and now a transition to the chor will be used as a result of the recent rainstorm pumpkins can be recycled at the DPW garage they can be dumped off at any time the truck into the truck marked pumpkin recycling repair work is continuing on the DPW roof trusses and finally storm drains and selles were cleaned in preparation for the current rainstorm which uh we all needed thank you mayor thank you utilities Mr Alan pter thank you mayor welcome everybody from the community uh from the water department uh actually a abbreviated summary that the administration helped put together for me uh this evening we will have a presentation and introduction of an ordinance to adjust certain specific sections of the water rate schedule there are three water rates that are being revised in the ordinance all with the hope of encouraging water conservation first the admin Administration is requesting that a new ratee be established for residential water customers that use the most water this will have an impact on approximately 150 customers they use significant amounts of water presumably for irrigation and Landscaping the vast majority of the residents of Madison consume less than 10,000 cubic meters of water which equates to about 800 gallons No 2 to 300 gallons a day um a typical home yeah two to 300 gallons a day if you consume more than 74,000 gallons a year you are in this category high water consuming residents will continue to pay the same rate as all the other homes for water up to the 74,8 gallons but they will pay more for any water over 74,8 gallons the hope is that the higher rate will incentivize the residents to conserve water review their irrigation systems that reconsider the landscaping and water needs the second adjustment to the water rate deals with the the minimum charges for residential customers there's some customers in Madison that have a 1-in water meter pipe and they pay a much higher minimum service charge for having this but many of these customers are smaller residences that consume much less than the minimum but because of their meter size they get charged a higher amount than other homes so it's a disincentive to to conservation and also not fair the ordinance will make the minimum charge for residential customers with a 1-in water meter the same as residential customers with a 3/4 inch meter so the one inch meter people win finally the ordinance adjusts the fee charge for construction water to be in line with other Water Utilities in the area construction water is a fixed fee and is offered to properties that are being rebuilt or under construction and have no water meter our goal is to encourage the builders to install water meters as soon as possible so that they pay for the actual water they consume as is the case with the other two ordinance changes we hope this change will also encourage conservation of water water is a precious and limited resource we know that the recent severe drought in New Jersey caus us to be very aware of this most of us are also aware that new construction is anticipated in Madison in the coming years as such it's appropriate for the council to consider changing these rates and creating water conservation measures the electric utility continues to change water meters they are up to 22 200 there is approximately no the current the new company that we contracted with has changed 2200 M the previous company did about 1,000 M so there up to about 4,500 total water meter Replacements 8 to 900 left to go and uh brief report about wellb which we have been renovating for well over a year it's up and running and is presently being used as our primary well from the electric utility the electric Department cut down set up and decorated the annual Christmas tree on Waverly Place hopefully most of you have noticed it even though it's not bright and cheery yet but it will be on Friday many thanks to the Madison board of education for donating the treat from the Madison High School property our crews also checked every wreath that's being hung in town for dead bulbs they replaced them and they put them up throughout town on November 15th the contractor inadvertently HD an underground high voltage line which required the temporary shut off of electric service to a large part of the town to effectuate the repair I don't know if any of you were affected by that on November 15th uh electric superintendent Vince Patty coordinated an emergency meeting with the administration DPW police fire and Communications to develop and Implement a restoration a restoration plan to minimize the disruption to the board of ed businesses and our residents due to the coordinated response full power was restored within an hour two of the eight circuit relays have been upgraded at the Kings Road substation this project will allow us to meter each circuit activity individually and is also required by our interconnection agreement with jcpnl this work will continue into the new year that's all mayor you very much commun Affairs Miss Hanahan thank you mayor uh so along with the budget comes Santa so Friday we have the Christmas parade and tree lighting uh a great day in Madison thank you to the Toto family and all the friends that support the volunteer work on that uh Saturday uh the farm and Artisan Market will continue and that will go through December 14th also on Saturday it's small business Saturday so we encourage you to shop downtown at at our great shops the Secret Santa um event which is sort of a surprise on the streets if you're shopping downtown you can win gift certificates to stores downtown so all you have to do is shop downtown and someone may surprise you with a gift certificate there are many events at the Madison Art Center please check online and uh last week we had um the next step in the Parks concept review plan or concept input um I encourage you that that is also on rosenet so if you're interested in the Parks and what's going to happen there in the future please take part that's it mayor very much and Health Mr Forte thank you mayor the health department will be hosting a free rabies clinic on Saturday December 7th at the Madison volunteer Ambulance Corp 29 Prospect Street from 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon you do not need to be a Madison resident to attend as a reminder all dogs and cats are required to be vaccinated for babies and licensed within the burrow the health department is excited to announce that we now have so have social media Pages please follow us on Instagram at and as a reminder to folks we partner with Westfield so at Westfield regional health department and on Facebook at Westfield Regional Health Department these pages will be used to timely Health to uh submit timely health information and alerts thank you mayor very much I want to uh Communications and petitions uh yes mayor mayor and coun received a letter from the township Committee of the township of mendum supporting the purchase of the Drew forest was uh November the 8th very much now we move on to the first of two invitations for public comment this one is limited to items on our agenda discussion list and also our uh resolutions that are part of the consent agenda so these are the items you may comment on at this time if you don't want if you want to comment on something different than this list you will have that period coming up shortly so uh we are going to have a report on the climate action recommendations uh we'll have the water rate Amendment ordinance we've already had a little primary on that one and then the five-year Capital plan which was also mentioned in report and these are the resolutions that you may comment on and these will also be part of the consent agenda at the end of the meeting resolution 322 appointing Christopher McDougall to the position of confidential assistant in public works department annual salary 143,000 323 is resolution appointing U Ryan Bagley to the position of apprentice lineman annual salary $65,625 resolution uh 324 uh adopting 2025 climate recommendations we'll be hearing about that shortly resolution 325 IS awarding contract to Rapid pump pump and meter service for for materials and labor to replace valves at the West End Pump Station and this is uh based on bid of $94,800 and is being funded through ordinance 27224 resolution 326 is appointing Patricia Finelli to the position of substitute tosing guard Ann a salary of $21.45 an hour uh resolution 327 is authorized in sustainable Jersey climate vulnerability is assessment technical assistant application resolution 328 is um approving change order for the uh trust work in the uh DPW garage for 62750 and uh this is being funded through ordinance 32224 resolution 329 is awarding uh contractor another contract rapid pump and meter service to supply and install a Taskmaster grinder The Candlewood Pump Station uh amount of $506 se5 funded through ordinance 42024 resolution 330 is approving raffle licenses submitted by the Madison ice hockey booster club uh resolution 331 is um submission application for funding Highlands Council for land acquisition Grant funds to purchase a portion of tax block 3 3001 lot one which is the the Drew forest and so this to support the purchase of the Drew Forest resolution 332 is appointing Michael G orano to the position of Foreman in the Madison Roads Department and this is in salary consistent with collective bargaining agreement resolution 333 is uh authorized and ratification execution of a settlement agreement and last CH Last Chance agreement that's uh employment related and resolution 334 is approving Raffa licenses for St Vincent Martyr Church so you may comment on those resolutions or the three agenda discussions you want to come on any of those step up to lecturn state your name your address and the item you're commenting on and then we give you three minutes but I give you a nice one minute grace period especially since it's a holiday season and we will stop you at four minutes anyone wish to comment please step forward and just so the public that's consistent with even if we're not the holiday season because I have to be consistent throughout the year Judy croll 27 Laurel way um I'm here representing friender Drew forest and I wanted to say that we're pleased and very thankful for the opportunity of the grant related to The Highlands application and which would support securing the Drew forest and we look forward to hearing that outcome I have 10 other things that friends of dforce are thankful for but none of them are related to this resolution in particular so I'm happy to wait to the second comment period or I could provide them now I I I think this the the resolution allows you some latitude with the very good so these are the 10 things that friends du Forest are thankful for this holiday season um Claire is thankful for a save the Drew for us sign in the Snookie shop downtown and that was one of the First Merchants that supported us uh when we first started uh putting out signs and and asking uh retail establishments to support us Mary Jane is thankful she can shop at the farmers's market instead of sitting behind a table at the farmers market uh Kathy who's here tonight is very thankful that she no longer has to look at a pink plastic flamingo in the Arboretum and all of us are thankful for last week's rainfall Colette's thankful for Pete the great blue heron who lives in the Arboretum we're also very thankful to the Morris County Commissioners who again approved another uh1 billion dollar plus grant to support the forest purchas we're grateful that the fire department's unscheduled tour of the forest was a success and we're grateful for to menum Township for joining the other seven towns that have offered support in the forms of resolutions to uh preservation of the forest I'm thankful to Lydia Chambers my co-chair and to all of our board and steering committee members for their persistence faith and talent and the number one thing we're thankful for back in December 2021 when we first sang to you and performed uh 12 Days of Christmas in the Drew Forest we had no idea what reaction you would have and it really could have gone either way so we are particularly thankful that you enjoyed it and invited us back again so Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and thanks again for all of your work on the forest thank you very much Happy Thanksgiving anyone else wish to uh comment on resolutions or the three agenda items seeing none I close this part of the meeting we go to climate action recommendations Rachel you know I think I'm going to present for my um I think before I start I want to acknowledge that the entire climate action committee is here sitting in the front row so so it's like we're all presenting to you all of us together uh this committee is such a bunch of stalwarts I cannot tell you the commitment and the dedication to this work and the fact that they are all here tonight to answer questions and show support for these recommendations is a testament to the years that we have spent working together to do this work for the burrow um to mitigate climate impacts to our town and to increase resiliency so uh tonight I uh just want to give you like a little reminder of how this process works I was up here uh in August to present our 2024 climate action annual report which described our climate goals and the progress we're making towards those goals and as this timeline reminds us we uh we take these measurements we assess our progress and we brief the Council on how we're doing then we go back to the drawing board and say okay where can we make adjustments what new actions can can we take here we are in November we've returned to you to make some recommendations for how we can take lessons learned from our successes and where we need to continue to improve to make some recommendations for the new year so tonight if the C the governing body is in agreement with these recommendations we have a resolution to adopt the four recommendations that I'm going to describe and um I want to thank the council the mayor and the administration for being supportive year-over-year as we continue to pursue the climate action process that was adopted in 2022 okay next slide here's some good news uh we received a check for $200,000 from the BPU the BPU asked to come here and oh Jim I forgot to bring my my giant check up as a prop can you wave that for us Jim there oh you don't have to bring it there it is yes so I feel like I should put it in front of you guys right here for the that's perfect for the paper Okay so as you know we made an ambitious application to the BPU we sent them seven Grant uh requests as part of the community energy plan implementation uh grant funding the inaugural year and we were one of two towns that received two grants so the two grants we received were each for $100,000 and they were both to do beneficial electrification projects in of our most special buildings in town one of them was to bring heat pumps to the east Wing renovation which will be going forward in the new year and the other one was to totally retroit the heler center formerly the Masonic Lodge to create uh a new community facility with new air source heat pumps and retrofit the building to be comfortable for our seniors while uh improving indoor air quality and cutting our Reliance on fossil fuels for that building so we take this as a sign from the BPU that they are very keen to fund these kinds of projects because they give us not one but two grants to do this and the great news about this is that it helps us meet our goal which we adopted two years ago of reducing our carbon pollution in all of Madison buildings by 90% by 2050 so these two buildings are um a small fraction of our total gas usage in our buildings in town but they set a strong precedent and show our priorities and they're also going to be great precedents for towns across the State who want to keep their historic buildings preserve the character of their towns and retrofit their buildings to be healthy and efficient and modern uh next slide okay so you may recognize this slide we have uh organized our climate goals for energy and resilience by these five objectives this should look familiar so you know we work on reducing Transportation emissions accelerating clean and renewable energy in town improving Energy Efficiency and affordability reducing emissions through electrification as I just mentioned and building climate resilient communities and this is a res resiliency um objective to make sure that we mitigate the impacts of an already changed climate uh and the way that it impacts our residents and our natural resources next slide so we have four action recommendations for next year and they fall under these two categories for energy and electrification they're here summarized in these four points and I have a slide on each one of these um um but basically we had some great successes this year with these Grant Awards and we know where we want to build on work we've done in the past and that's what formed our recommendation to focus on these four areas for adoption and endorsement by the council so we recommend that we engage a consultant to implement the electrical grid analysis plan that we spoke to uh a year ago in December of uh 20123 we want to support our Madison Boe in their uh initial steps that they're taking to look at adding solar to school Properties by performing an accommodation analysis to see that we can support those uh potential solar installations on our grid at those locations we want to um get started on design and Outreach for the next two municipal solar installations so that when the mrcc installation is up and running we're ready to go with um design and bid packages for the next two phases and lastly we want to engage an HVAC engineer to create electrification PL for the remaining major buildings in the in the uh Municipal portfolio next slide okay so this to look familiar the first recommendation pertains to this great uh GIS implementation and um and benefits plan that was created by aspin engineering as part of our community energy plan process last year this um basically created a phased plan to analyze document and um model our El electrical grid so that we can continue to improve it stay ahead of increasing demand and basically have a better idea of how our grid Works which customers are connected to which Transformers um and be able to maintain the high level of service and reliability that our residents and businesses Expect While dealing with increasing demand for electric vehicles new solar and more electric load overall so our recommendation for 2025 is to implement phase one of the grid mapping study in other words we're going to do this data Gathering phase where we work with a professional uh consultant to identify the type of database we need the right GIS software and then map a portion of our grid say one of our 16 circuits um and and plug it into this database as a kind of a proof of concept um so once we get this phase one going we can move on to the next phases um we're excited to get this started we had the full support of the utility advisory commit uh committee last year on this and we think it's time to go ahead next slide okay this map should look familiar too this was a study that shows the uh locations with these green boxes for the municipally owned solar installations that we've discussed before this was a study that was done in 2022 to confirm that the grid could support the addition of on-site generation at these locations which happen to be at the end of these circuits so the idea was to just check from an engineering perspective whether we could be adding power at the circuits of these locations so this was done for the municipal um PV installations and the recommendation is now that the Boe has shown some interest in potentially installing solar um at school sites the burough should go ahead and do the same analysis for the public school sites to confirm that there is no barrier um technical or otherwise to adding PVS at the schools slide okay so um I understand there was a walkthrough recently at the mrcc to talk about getting started on construction for um our new PV project that's going to begin construction soon now that we've gone through a little bit of a learning curve and some bumps along the way getting that that th those documents designed and bid out and we're finally on the brink of getting into construction the committee recommends that we undertake Outreach and design for additional sites so that we don't have another one or twoe design and development phase waiting to bring the next set of PBS online so the idea here is to use the Lessons Learned start on the next phase um and then once the mrcc PVS are up and running we can go out and uh begin the next phase okay this last one Builds on the success of the the two grants I mentioned we were awarded $200,000 for for electrification of these two projects the uh eastwing and the heler center so one of the reasons these two applications were so successful was because we were ready to go with a concept plan with cost estimating we had the information ready to submit the BPU for Grant approval and we were successful so it was extremely helpful to have that detailed design engineering information and cost estimating ready to go and it certainly helped us in securing this money so our recommendation is to prepare for additional rounds of grant funding and just be you know planning ahead for obsil uh you know when when the equipment that's in these buildings needs to be replaced we should have a plan in place to improve it with high efficiency all electric uh heat pump systems in the future so the recommendation here is to to bring on an HVAC engineer who can start the planning for this process now we're not doing it on an emergency basis so we have the information ready to go for Grants and basically to be prepared as opportunities arise to do this work um on an emergent basis if need be okay so tonight's resolution that we have up uh for your consideration is to for the governing body to um you know adopt or endorse these recommendations and signal to the bureau Administration to the department heads that these things are a priority that we should pursue in the new year we've worked with Jim ber who has talked with us about uh some of the costs related to the Professional Services for instance for um hiring an hbac engineer or doing phase one of the uh the grid analysis plan and uh We've we've vetted that from a budget perspective but in addition to those four items that we're explicitly seeking uh your endorsement for we wanted to just give you an idea of some of the additional initiatives that are ongoing the climate action committee is small But Mighty and always has a list of 100 things that we're you know trying to advance develop or learn more about in the new year and so for each of the eight energy goals there's uh well there's four on this page and three on the next page we have a couple of initiatives I'm not going to read through them all but you can see that um we want to continue in all these categories um the senior shuttle uh EV um looking at how to encourage more residential and commercial solar uh see next slide this um longstanding goal of trying to figure out how we can um put a a real cost on what it would mean to buy more renewable energy for a wholesale purchase that we then distribute through our Madison grid um and then the last two on here these initiatives are the actions that we recommended for tonight and that's work that's going to be ongoing in the New Year assuming the uh the the council adopts this resolution and on one more slide we have a couple of initi Ives in place for our four resiliency initiatives these pertain to storm water mitigating increased temperatures identifying and addressing social vulnerabilities and striving for Health Equity so we have a lot of work in progress with other committees sustainable Madison and the environmental commission to see how we can help you know strengthen our residents and our infrastructure against the changed climate that we know is already here some of these things I'll mention this one oops the municipal land use Law requires that we adopt a climate change related Hazard vulnerability assessment uh in our next master plan uh adjustment as as a new element to our master plan and I I think you'll um maybe recall that one of the resolutions we're adopting tonight is to seek free technical assistance from sustainable Jersey to help prepare the ccva which um we're genuinely interested in helping to ident you know identify those vulnerabilities and and see if we can um you know stay ahead of the the regulatory curve that's going to require us to adopt this assessment in the next couple years uh I think that's it the last slide just invites questions or comments from anyone and uh before I wrap up I just want to thank Peter freed Mary Ellen H Hennessy Jones Kristen wallstein and Kathy kav Val for their work and they're all experts in their subject matter for this material and if there's questions that you have on any one of these things all five of us are here to take your questions so thanks everyone Bob first of all I just want to say that I believe this is very well thought out it wasn't done in a bubble uh you looked at the cost of all these initiatives you consulted with Jim and you took the budget into account so I think that is very important one thing that I did notice is that you're concerned about the infrastructure able to support it now I understand about car electric vehicles and uh these buildings that we're in now but I'm more concerned about future developments that may be thrust upon the burrow to meet other housing needs will you be involved in that as well because that's going to put a tremendous strain on our infrastructure both electrical and water will you be involved in that as well well I think it's worth noting that the buau administration and the governing body the department heads have really been Forward Thinking in terms of how we imagine future development the kind of development we want in terms of how it can have the least impact on our infrastructure and the uh you know demands on um our environment and so I think that's baked in to the thinking about any future uh development in town but I think more to the point the the I think we can all be be proud of how Madison has has consistently been prudent in planning for those future demands we've always set aside uh funds and you know uh operational and capital funds to to manage our infrastructure well so you know I can't think of another town that's like more well prepared to take on these uh unknowns that are coming and and I'm hoping that with you know the ongoing um commitment to research and and um uh recommendations that committees like ours and other committees in the buau that are you know volunteers who are also thinking ahead and want the best for the burrow that there's a level of expert input that will will help us be the best we can be as these changes come that's all good news you know I know the work the borrow is done but I'm also very happy or more at ease now to know that you will be involved in this so thank you very much thanks Bob any other questions or comments cover very well and again we have resolution 324 which is uh on the consent okay the uh goals recommendations thanks everyone to uh Jim for water rate Amendment ordinance and he'll stay up there for fiveyear capital thank you mayor uh appreciate councilman harn P's excellent introduction of what we're going to be talking about this evening Michael hopefully you can pull the PowerPoint presentation up this presentation will be available on roset it um is similar to one was given the council in January or December of 2022 um so I'm going to kind of go through some of the slides quite quickly there's a description of the water department on the next page um and then the next page after that um it gives you the amount of um water that we build 73 million cubic feet of uh water that we build um and brought in approximately $2.7 million for the buau of Madison for the water utility the next slide shows our current rate structure for all customers res presidential and Commercial and um it's a very small graduated increase um from uh different consumption amounts 0 to 1,000 cubic feet 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet and 3,000 on up um I know that we had showed this before we'll flip through it rather quickly how much does one five gallon jug of water currently cost a Madison customer if you took a jug and filled it up at the tap it's 2 cents so that's pretty inexpensive compared to what you buy um at the uh gas station or at the grocery store um next slide we do have multiple residents that have quarterly summer water bills of over $2,000 over 90 days they consume 77,000 five gallon jugs 880 855 jugs a day or 16645 jugs on a on a really um a really high consuming day this is um next slide a significant ific strain on our water system on the hottest days of the year we're pumping 3.2 million gallons a day some of our pumps are just running 247 to to fill up the tanks pumps are low they're filling up the water tanks up high they're pumping water into the system and keeping that water tank at the proper level is a very narrow band that that water tank has to operate at can't drain down all the way that water tank creates the pressure for the people that live at the top of the hill and um so it's important and um at times our water consumption at 4:00 a.m. Believe It or Not exceeds our water consumption at 7:00 a.m. so you'd think we're all showering and doing things at 7 a.m. but it's the water it's the irrigation of landscaping that councilman harn P has mentioned um and we all know that 50 years ago water bubbled up out of the ground um like Jed clamp it in The Beverly Hillbillies but now um we have to go down into the um 60 feet down to get the water so um if you go to the oh thank you Michael we're already there so um this shows the number of uh and it's 2021 data um because we couldn't pull together newer data quick enough but it shows the number of residential water usage customers by cubic feet the vast majority use less than 10,000 cubic feet um some use a little more than that a couple use over 30,000 cubic feet of water those are the ones that are just consuming thousands of gallons of water a day um it's just 1.5 or 74 out of 4,725 customers consume over 20,000 cubic feet of water if you go to the next slide Michael thank you um we are proposing a rate increase as mentioned by Council harn pis for customers that consume over 10,000 cubic feet of water the first 10,000 cubic feet it's the same exact rate you can see the left and the right is the same exact rate table but once you consume over 10,000 ft 10,000 in one that that one cubic foot over 10,000 will be charged at a higher rate um we believe this will generate um additional Revenue but that's not the goal to generate Revenue the goal is to generate water conservation and to encourage the residents to um to hopefully review as councilman Harland pudas said their their Landscaping their irrigation systems and their consumption the rate change would be uh implemented in January 2025 and would only impact 420 bills out of 19,000 bills that we send out annually we send out four bills per customer so um only 420 bills would have any impact at all so this is really impacting the very very high consumers the next slide shows um our current um rates and proposed rates and Compares them to Randol Denville chadam and I want to point out on um The Last One S SMC mua which some people will know stands for Southeast Mars County Municipal Utility Authority um and you can see that over 6 thou the bottom line on this table over 6,100 cubic feet and up if you're in that area you're going to pay 9.8 C our suggested rate is over 10,000 not 6,000 and only 7 cents not 9.8 cents so um so we're not not as high as others but we think that this is a good start to um encourage people to hopefully change um if we go to the next slide Michael so good he's faster than I am um you can see that some customers the top 20 will see a sign a difference in their Bill maybe people don't maybe customer number 20 the bottom of the table doesn't even notice that their bill went from 1300 to 1700 it's possible um but uh there will be a difference if they continue to consume this amount and um hopefully um uh they'll they'll stop consuming that because it's over eight I think it's over 840 gallons a day that they have to consume to get to 10,000 cubic feet in a quarter so it's it's a significant amount as councilman haran pudas said most houses consume 200 to 300 to 400 gallons a day um so that's the first major change in the ordinance that's up for introduction this evening that Administration is advancing the second is that customers that have a 1-in water meter it's just the pipe that came in somebody decided probably decided before you even bought your house what size of service was going to come into the house a 1-in water meter just has a higher minimum service charge there are some very small residence condos and Al likee that have a 1-in water meter a 1-in pipe coming in a 1-in water meter because of that they're paying a high higher minimum service charge they may only consume $35 worth of water in a month but they're getting charged for 50 the end result is they can be like hey come on over wash your car I'm going to take a longer shower I'm going to clean my sidewalks off with my hose because I'm paying for it I might as well use it that's silly and it's unfair so we'd like to change that so anyone that any Resident that has a 1in water meter would just get charged the same as a mo most of the other residents which are 3/4 inch and 5/8 inch meters so that's just e um Equitable and um we think um appropriate the second and final change has to do with construction water right now when a house is torn down or when a construction site um occurs they will tap the water and there will be no meter on that water because it might be a SP it right at the curb or right in the beginning of the property um the the house or property isn't even built to put a meter in we charge them um a small amount of construction uh fee for water and um it's basically unmetered water we don't know how much they're consuming and typically the developers will not flip over until and have their meter installed until the very end when they're literally selling the house that might be having sprinklers on for days and days um watering their Landscaping we don't want that to happen we want to encourage the landscapers or I'm sorry the developers to install meters sooner and they can if you say you dug a foundation or tore the house down and February and you're building it in April and May you can install that meter in June and then you're just going to get build for what you consume the amount that we chose is um uh similar is a $400 per quarter which is similar to a chadam charges chadam actually charges 150 a month they bill monthly for their water so uh 450 a quarter and it's an incentive to say hey I don't want to keep paying this I'm going to get as soon as I can put a meter in there so that is the hope that we can um encourage the developers to switch away from construction water and incentivize them to get the meter installed as soon as possible so those are the three major changes um that are Advanced and um outlined in the ordinance that is before you for introduction this evening all right I've got a couple of questions coming right out and then uh obviously pick some others um obviously the first part which is the take the uh high-end users so it's not a revenue grab it's more of a incentive to uh cut back and so I think uh was very good and certainly has been demonstrated over the last couple months that we need to remind people that the water is not unlimited um the one thing I'm wondering about on the um construction meter you know the chatam model versus r if someone if a builder pays for the extra has to go into another quarter so he's paid 450 there might be an incentive just to all right I'm going to keep running that water for the quarters since I just paid for it as opposed to the monthly I guess we can see how this goes but then maybe come back and uh go we Pro rate the bill mayor if they paid $450 in uh November 1st okay and they came to us tomorrow and said we wanted put the we would we would pay we' rate that bill and pay him back $300 so we should make sure they know that they will definitely know yep and uh in certainly the uh meter I think the justification for the higher service charge I think was the assumption that the larg of the line coming in the house you're putting a higher Demand on you know you can pull pour pull off more water at a faster rate than someone else can most likely for especially smaller homes there's probably a reducer valve right after the meter and so here here they're paying in sear charge and they can't even take advantage of the extra uh large line so I think that's a a good thing so all good other comments we'll start with Rachel Bob and then Melissa thanks Jim this was a really clear presentation I just want to pass along a message from um the chair of the environmental commission uh who is uh Claire and the commission are really eager to support the buau uh in doing education around conservation the idea being being that raising the rates but not helping people understand you know why the rates went up in terms of conservation what why conservation is important you're going to miss people who are just going to pay the bill and not think twice about it so um the Mec is is ready and eager to partner with the burrow on the education portion of this Bob meliss first well first a comment and then well kind of two comments first about the water bubbling up from the ground when I lived at the foot of Cedar and Park Avenue during a heavy rainstorm the pavement of the street actually rose up and water came up from under the ground that tells me I guarantee that hasn't happened recently so I think the underground aquifers have Dro significantly and now as a regular Joe in town using water you know I take a shower in the morning on a good day maybe a little bit longer but you know average day try three to five minutes you know I cook and I you know do dishes whatever that's what I would consider normal usage and I my rates probably wouldn't change at all based upon that schedule so if you're an average resident you're not going to see any change in your water bill absolutely 100% correct your water tank probably holds 40 to 60 gallons so you're not emptying that multiple times when you're taking a when you're unless you're taking a whole lot of showers or you have a whole lot of kids in the house so um it's really we only see this happening during the summer right where we have 4 AM we're pumping more water than we are at 7 AM and it's because of the the massive amount of the water guys will tell you that you're putting drinking water on your lawn so um it's just the massive amount of water that's being used for for landscaping got it okay thank youa yeah a couple things um well I guess that speaks to elimination of Lawns so that's another uh education opportunity for madisonian but um going back to getting all of our meters replaced uh will those new meters be able to help us pinpoint where maybe some of us have a leak or we're wasting water that we don't even know that we're wasting such a good question um uh yes absolutely 100% we can see it now we have the meters installed um and uh the bill now shows um consumption for five quarters so you can see a difference why is my bill so much higher and but we can also see it we haven't yet um resolved or solved all of the software issues to trigger an alarm for us properly we're getting like 250 alarms a day and we know that's not the case but we do comb through it and if we see someone that has an issue um we absolutely are able to um notify them sooner with our new meters yes okay that's great and then um I feel like uh some of these higher users are still getting a pretty good deal compared to other local towns so I'm curious if there is a way bundled with education um to build in Step increases over subsequent years for people who continue to waste water in my I mean that's just how I see it because it is a conservation effort it is not a financial grab so it's a pretty easy thing to put the building Software System I've told talked to some of you about I look at Eric it can be a little difficult and painful to work with but that is one of the things we can do very easily in a matter of minutes put in another level so if down the road you want to say hey let's be like Southeast Mars it's going to be not it's going to be 3 to 6,000 and then there's going to be another trigger level and then over 10,000 there'll be another trigger level we can put those in rather quickly if you consume a certain amount of water you'll see on your bill it'll only say one water rate or if you triggered the next level will go two if you trigger the next level will go three so it it it it pretty easily can be accommodated and uh and done so and that that I think is that actually a really good idea to revisit this in a year and I would say to councilwoman um erick's comment it's pretty easy for us to identify those 300 customers that are really consuming a lot so we can send them a bill and say Hey you may not know this we're not doing this to shame you but well I wouldn't say that but um maybe in parenthesis that's being said but this is how much you're consuming and it's a lot and so please consider drought resistant Landscaping please consider getting um a high performance irrigation system that recognizes when it's raining um and please look for ways to conserve water so Tom where's my refund refund for what refund for for the water leak that I had in the spring and nobody told me about it was a big one iceb system was leaking for a while was it sorry to hear that you weren't sorry you were so happy no I'm not I don't want to waste the water Tom I don't want I I was mentioning before to Ray that in Li of just sending some of these uh High consumption residents the next bill next summer with a with a higher rate which maybe they won't notice we're not really sure what they're paying attention maybe we send them a not a notice I think that's Rachel was you were saying education I don't know if the Mec is saying exactly let's write a letter to these 300 home owners or some message saying our rates have changed you probably aren't aware of it and this this is what's going to happen the summer so is that kind of what you were yeah and and pairing that with some you know education about why we need to conserve right uh people don't think of water as um being a precious resource maybe um I also want to say I left out sustainable Madison who is I'm looking at Kathy equally eager so we have a lot of volunteers who are uh really keen on this and so um I think we could blanket these people with education as my guess sure to to be truly effective we we want to save the water before it's used so we if we let the bill give the message that means we've just allowed a whole lot of water be put into the ground instead of kept in the AER as opposed to the education so okay that's very good a very good friend of mine's twin brother used to consume a lot of water but my my friend Ray Cody told his brother hey uh maybe you want to look at how much you consume and he's he's no longer in the in the top customer te educ education's good and with that uh so that's ordinance 37 it's listed for introduction and that will shift to The Five-Year Capital plan I you know we've done this many years I don't want to get too much into the Weeds on this this is a draft document um you will hear from each of the Departments heads when they give their budget presentations about the specifics that are baked into this document um the main thing to note is that um we still have a robust plan in 2025 of uh well that's hard to read Michael I apologize um of three million in engineering and public works and then and additional funds in both the electric utility water utility police and fire so um uh for a total of about $4.5 million of capital spending next year we have a number of capital ordinances I'll come back at the next council meeting and cancel those that'll help us reclaim the uh remaining dollars to use and um we'll be talking at the next council meeting about um certain budget assumptions um and capacity costs and issues like that that are going to impact this but um there's still major um uh major Capital programs involved there will not be a significant um Road program next year if you look at at page two um you'll see that uh there's basically um very little road programs we're planning on doing Waverly Place but have uh at the guidance of uh mayor Conley have decided that this year is going to be a planning year in the next three or four months and then we'll be ready to go with a project in 2026 so that pushed off a significant project into 2026 we also are still short in the engineering department so it seemed like it wasn't the right thing to be pushing A lot of projects through when we didn't have the staff to properly maintain them so um Road reconstruction projects um were curtailed significantly but milling and overlay will continue and all the other projects storm water building improvements uh sanitary sewer um and and others um other items will be uh continue to happen Public Works uh and um on on page seven on public works I want to bring to everyone's attention that we're going to have an ongoing line for signage um there the signage at the parks is older than 25 years old um signage downtown needs to be improved the Downtown Development commission's been working on it there's some money already reserved um but I want to have that as a a almost a continuing item we can pre fund it early decide EX ly how this is going to be spent but I know that's something that um is desperately needed and um so uh with that um I just wanted to get this document into your hands so you would have a chance to look at it we'll get it out in the public so the public can look at it if anybody has any questions we can discuss it over the coming weeks like and then NE next meeting we'll present the odd P odd number Pages what yeah yeah I was noticing there's no mil there's no Mill and overlay we only have the even pages so but I yeah what about the photo copy that I gave you mayor what about the photo copy I gave you oh boy did I did I did I did I do was I the guy that took a two-sided copy and put it in this one-sided here you go who wants it that's a great way to cut the budget Jim that's a like Christmas the budget is here I like that line a lot all right drats but we we will have all the pages posted and uh and the document was emailed to you earlier this afternoon so so you have it there dang it all right any other questions besides uh page numbers Rachel I just want to uh raise up something that came up um through several meetings of the complete streets committee over the last year the need to really identify pedestrian safety improvements as its own third category in um in the road projects we currently separate road projects into Mill and overlay and Road reconstruction and then The Pedestrian safety improvements that come along with reconstruction are just sort of like a subsidiary to the road projects and through the recommendations of uh our police department and members of the Clete streets committee and the mayor's recommendation um The Proposal is to restructure it so those safety improvements have like a standalone category so we can see which you know Troublesome intersections where safety is a concern can be prioritized you know over like a five-year plan so I I'm not sure when we'll get to that level of detail but I hope that's part of the planning for the coming budget thank you thank you for capturing that any other thoughts comments so so I just want to second that and and say there's actually a couple streets here that are three years out where they're highly trafficked by pedestrians I our school children walking there by dog walkers which have multiplied exist exponentially since Co that probably should be reconsidered I don't know if you can move them up Jim I don't want to overwhelm Us in 2025 you have a big budget but maybe that's something we could talk about offline like w wrot as an example I think the goal would be yeah um when we do the final presentation of the five years to for this year not not to wait to 2026 but for this year to have the uh um pedestrian safety uh improvements in a separate category because the frustration we were getting at the um complete streets level is we talk about it and then the same streets come up again and of course we do capture things when roads are reconstructed but you know there are some one-offs that we should and can do without having to wait to for a bigger project because yeah what makes this community great or one of the many things is the walkability the bikeability and um so let's not worry about the car ability to take care of those first twoo so one more question Jim you don't mind I I'm I'm wondering there's you know there's this project we've been asking you about uh that's uh connected to the ddc's uh planning that they had done a couple years ago a few years ago about Gateway signage so I don't know if you have that budgeted in here might be on one of the odd number Pages Tom I did reference it let's see how strategic durat it's on page seven yes well no you would have gotten that did you get odd number so anyway um there's 17 5,000 in 2025 and then 75,000 in 26 27 28 and during the budget process we can discuss that we can have Lisa Ellis give a presentation and get a get an understanding whether we need to put more into that line or not okay so it's in there you're talking about thanks Jim thank you very much anything else thank you very much move on for ordinance for hearing which we have none because we had a short time frame in between um meetings but just to remind that um the ordinances that were int introduced at the last meeting we have one that will be heard at a special meeting on December 2nd and that will be via Zoom so uh look for the advertisement for that one all the others will be heard on um December 9th and now we move on to our second of uh invitations for public comment this is when you may comment on any topic um please uh when you um Ready Step Forward state your name and address write the same on the uh clipboard and try to keep your comments to three minutes but we give you the one minute grace did you have something else to yes I did mayor I'm here Jim Bernett 6 And1 half Main Street Madison I'm here as a resident uh apartment 1A um I'm a here's a resident a member of the Presbyterian Church of Madison and volunteer at Hillside Cemetery the cemetery is a sacred and historic place with gravestones dating back over 270 years before for the revolution I'm sad to say the cemetery has been the victim of Senseless vandalism um a copy of this document was sent to the mayor and Council multiple tombstones were damaged knocked over and broken into multiple pieces some of the markers were over 170 years old and unfortunately this is not a one-off thing there have been multiple separate incidents of vandalism that have happened over the last eight days the Cemetary volunteers will try to do some repairs but we can't reverse the damage a copy of some of the damage Stones has been sent to council we've spoken with the police we'll be installing cameras and we will be talking to staff at the junior school because quite a few students walk through the cemetery the cemetery committee will also be issuing a press release we encourage anyone with information on the vandalism to please contact the Madison police department and if you see any suspicious activity going forward please also contact the police we're doing all of this because we want to notify the public of this issue and hopefully stop it from happening again thank you thank you for Sher that's a shame and hopefully you can stop stop it it's issue over the years at the kak valley 82 Central Avenue so I have a couple comments I wasn't planning to make they're uh backed up to ra remarks about um putting a pedestrian safety line in the road Improvement plan so equally important is to have a line for green infrastructure if we're really doing complete streets they include not only pedestrian safety pedestrian and safety for all but also green infrastructure the state asks us to Do complete and green streets so I would like to see that focused and I will say that there is a check list that the state has put out that maybe we could consider following as we do Road Improvement plans to see that we're hitting all the buttons for a compl truly complete Street I also want to mention that moris county is in process of doing a safety action plan and they invite participation from municipalities and I definitely think that we should take an active role in uh inputting our thoughts into into that process but now I'm going to say some things that maybe you've already heard from the mayor so I just want to thank the mayor and councel the buau administration department heads and employees throughout the bureau who recognize the importance of working towards sustainability and resiliency in these times of climate change you enable us also on the sustainable Madison committee the sustainable Madison committee our town Green Team to submit a diversity and wealth of actions to the sustainable Jersey platform this year again our municipality for the sixth time since 2009 has been recognized as the midsize champion and we have broken our own record earning an amazing 1,000 points based on our actions this is the highest number of points of any municipality in New Jersey certifying in 201 24th no matter what size the town we should all be proud oh and yes a special congratulation to Mayor Conley for receiving sustainable jerseys mayor art andish leadership award this year the award recognizes a leader of a sustainable Jersey certified Community who has provided ideas policy support and resources to enable the Green Team to achieve success at the local level and contribute to the Statewide movement I am so proud of our mayor our volunteers and our town thank you Cath anyone else wishing to comment please step forward the check we don't want anyone to comment and take the check hi am Alex Jennings six Edgewood Road um I'm just here to express my support of the council passing the resolution um in support of the immigrant immigrant trust act which Stewart siden Striker spoke about at the last council meeting um I was very proud to be a Madison resident in 2017 when the council passed the welcoming resolution and I would love to see the council take the next step um in supporting immigrants in Madison by passing The Resolution that would support passing the Immigrant trust act at the state level um we have so many immigrants in Madison who add so much to our town um our kids go to school together we work alongside each other and it's my great hope that everyone who lives in our wonderful town stays safe I believe that passing the resolution would go a long way towards accomplishing that goal thank you thank you yes we plan to have that resolution coming forward the next meeting Trisha coil three Stafford Drive I can't talking right at the same time sorry um I also wanted to speak on the same topic and I think Alex speaks so well to our Madison values and how the welcoming resolution of 2017 really spoke to me about our values um so I wanted to just mention why I support it also but for very practical um reasons I think that you know we have a federal government who's responsible for immigration policy and enforcement um and I think that you know if you think about what Maya Angelou said about you know when someone shows you who they are you should believe them the first time so I think that we have an Administration coming in that is clearly animated by its antipathy towards immigrants so I expect to see Swift action against immigrant communities I do not believe that our local police and other leaders should be involved in that action ction we pay a lot of taxes both at the federal level state level and locally our local and state level should go to supporting our communities and deporting people is not BH I also was very grateful um for me this Thanksgiving as the mother of a child at Tor J I am glad that when children saw something they said something so I think that the value of community policing that children in our community feel safe going to figures of authority to report when they see something wrong is crucially important to our safety and I think that's something we should very much continue we should make sure that children regardless of their family members immigration status feel comfortable bringing issues forward um whether it's to their teacher their SRO to our police um I think that keeps us safe so I would like to see this body move to support this action um and do it expeditiously because like I said I think that we're going to see very Swift action in this category thank you thank very anyone else wishing to comment please step forward Isa Jordan 36B Lana go away uh tonight we see the amazing success of climate action and Environmental Conservation we're going on in our town and for it's a reminder uh that the 2016 election forced many environmental Advocates to turn to local government for Meaningful transformation immigrant Justice Advocates are needing to do the same now and so what brings me here today is also my past because over a hundred years ago it's my great-grandfather Leo aneli who left Austria he was 17 years old he said goodbye to his parents and never saw them again and he left because he didn't want to share the fate of his brother who was slaughtered among the train cars of young men traveling to their first deployment in World War I and he knew family and friends Finding work in the United States in the Silver Mines of Leadville Colorado and like many he passed through nearby Ellis Island along the way and because he lived to a very old age I got to know him and as a little girl he'd give me Pepsi when I'd go visit him and he made wine and sausage and he drank a large cup of coffee that to me looked more like a bowl um but the push factor that shaped his life like violent conflict and poverty and the pole factors his friends and family and employment are not so different from circumstances of immigrants arriving today and while my parents rarely spoke about JFK his nation of immigrants story was the one my parents told me to help me understand my place in this country as for these reasons I feel compelled to publicly reject the xenophobia and white supremacist plans put forward by the incoming presidential Administration as Steward siden Stricker shared in public Comet at the last council meeting nearly one in four new jerseyans is an immigrant over 10% of US citizen children live with at least one undocumented family member and Stuart also asked you consider the New Jersey immigrant trust act and I would like to thank you for considering it and also to um encourage you to pass a resolution in support of it um the ACLU describes the imigrant trust Act is limiting New Jersey's involvement in the Federal Detention and deportation system by creating new data privacy protections for people who interact with state and local agencies by strengthening and codifying the separation between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement until we pass the ITA far too many immigrant new jerseyans and their families will continue to live in fear that routine interactions with state and local government be it registering for healthcare reporting wages after dur contacting law enforcement will result in separation from their loved ones and deportation so thank you mayor and councel for considering support of this New Jersey state Bill thank thank you anyone else wishing to comment please step forward Peter freed um 38 Morris Place this is not a comment about climate action um as um I'm not an immigrant but my parents were I'm a first generation American my parents escaped from Germany and um I wouldn't be here unless they were able to get into this country and uh find a hospitable place to start a new life um I simply want to say I'm very much in support of um the three previous commenters and the details that they um were supporting themselves I'm very proud that I live in Madison uh which is a welcoming uh community and welcoming to immigrants and I think we should try our darnest to maintain that status and support the bills that they're in favor of thank you very much thank you anyone else wishing to comment everyone uh Paul Daly 32 Long View actually came out tonight to talk about the complete streets committee and to echle councilwoman uh erck comments about having a third category uh specifically for roadway for pedestrian safety and to argue for um you know a broader perspective on what's what we should be looking at uh because it's not just where the accidents occur a lot of times the least safe places where no one's even walking in the first place so you're not having the accidents so I think um and I've been on the the um complete streets committee for two or three years now I just um I I feel like there's a lot more work that could and should be getting done through that committee that would benefit virtually every other part of the Town um that's what I came here to say but after hearing the comments about the immigration I just wanted to Second everything that they said and um I'm very happy that uh they came out and spoke about it because it is a very important issue so thank you very much thank you for taking time for anyone else wishing to comment please step forward seeing none I close this part of the meeting we now move on to introduction of ordinances will the clerk please read the statement the ordinance is scheduled for first reading have a hearing date set for December 9th 2024 all will be published in the Madison Eagle posted on the bulletin board made available to members of the public requesting copies actually it'll be they'll be published in the madis in the Mars County Daily Record due to the holiday I call up ordinances for first reading ask the clerk to read said ordinances by title ordinance 36224 ordinance in the Bureau of Madison revising ordinance 3 -222 setting the salary ranges for non-union full-time employees mayor I move ordinance 36-22 24 second any Council discussion roll call vote please mck yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr har and pus yes M Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes ordinance 37-22 24 ordinance of the burrow of Madison amending chapter 190 of the Madison burrow code entitled water to authorize the revision of the burrow of Madison's water rates and service fees mayor I move ordinance 37 2024 second any further Council discussion we cover this pretty well roll call vote Please Mr ER yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pudus yes M Hanahan yes Mr Forte yes 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 minute mayor I move the consent agenda resolutions uh are 322 2024 through 333 20244 yeah y we had an extra one 334 d224 I'll second that any discussion or any that need to be pulled yes racher just want to say in brief that I I thank the council and the governing body for supporting our 324 which is the resolution of the buau of Madison adopting the 2025 climate action recommendations thanks everyone for your support thank you any further discussion roll call vote please M erlick yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harm pus yes Miss Hanahan yes Mr for yes there is no unfinished business rule of vouchers would app the vote voucher totals from the current fund 8,669 1675 from the general Capital fund 9,290 34 from the electric operating fund 481 , 5745 from the Electric Capital fund $1,476 12 from the water operating fund $41,600 $ 68,69 and from the trust $81,400 the total is 9,369 30 may I move approval of vouchers second the house discussion call vote please miss herlick yes Mr landrian yes Mr range yes Mr harn pus yes M hingan yes Mr for yes and just two quick things under new business one uh reorganization meeting will be on Thursday January 2nd time to be determined but I figure late afternoon early evening most likely but we will uh announce the time once we finalize that January 2nd and the second new business is for all to have a happy and healthy uh Thanksgiving and hope whether you're staying here in Madison which is what you're supposed to do or traveling it a great one yeah and with that may I move to adjourn all in favor I I thank you